On Reading Faulkner

For those of you unaware, I'm back in school. Accepted to the University of Dayton to begin work on a Masters in English, emphasis in Creative Writing. Of course, it's conditional enrollment meaning I've got to get 3.0's in two upper-level English courses to be officially enrolled this fall (or whenever I should complete them). So I'm in the midst of my first class at the moment, courtesy of the Internet and Ohio University: American Literature 1918-present.

It's a post-WWI literature survey course featuring the works of John Barth, Flannery O'Connor (a personal favorite) and Saul Bellow -- to name a few. And then there's William Faulkner. Known for his work in As I Lay Dying and Absalom! Absalom! we get to sample none of that. Instead, chosen for me, was "The Hamlet". A 400+ page introduction to the Snopes family, featured in other works and later, as part of a trilogy - this being the first one. I completed it this afternoon and was thoroughly impressed.

There's no way to describe Faulkner as a writer. No way to assess his adroitness with words, punctuation and syntax. But you know it when you read it -- and you know when other readers have read him and been influenced by him (see O'Connor's body of work). While this work was no where near his best, it was quintessential Faulkner. Not his apex as a writer, but what him being a writer was all about. Just like you could point to a Monet and say, "That's clearly Monet -- but not his best". You do that with "The Hamlet". If you can get through it.

Meandering through long sentences filled with prose and romance, punctuated by short sentences of statement, The Hamlet takes some patience. And perseverance. A lack of a DaVinci Code plot surely leaves the modern reader in want. But it's a character study the whole way.

I liken it to a Sunday drive. Or those old Sunday drives people used to say they were going on when they ran into folks in the atriums and lobbies of churches. People don't go on these drives anymore. They don't trek with windows down and squint through fading suns and sunlights dancing through trees. They don't stop for ice creams and share in the colloquialisms of flea markets and little league baseball games. It's one of those things though, that when done, you're glad you've done and wished it could have been longer. But before you began, did not expect to spend as much time doing it or enjoying it like you did. And you're not really sure what it was that made you spend the hours before dusk trucking around.

Faulkner is, perhaps, the best writer I've ever read. And I know why. Like I know a Sunday drive.