Burgers, talk to me about Faulkner.
I've been thinking about the discrepancy between his reputation in the US and where I live (the UK). Over here he's much less read and appreciated than Steinbeck, Hemmingway or even Twain.
Do you think there's something more particular to America in his writing in comparison to those other authors?
Some googling tells me the French love him though so perhaps not.
Sartre thought Faulkner was the greatest novelist of his era.
It's Hemmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmingway. With 33 m's
Forgive me
Faulkner was a very Southern writer, so his particular brand of writing is arguably niche even in America. He's definitely the best of those you listed, though -- read him if you haven't.
Also from the UK here and I've wondered this.
It seems to me that his stream of consciousness stick is pretty lame compared to our superior Virginia Woolf , so nobody gives a fuck. Also brits dont find his corncobbyness charming.
i'm a britfag and as i lay dying is one of the best things i ever read
currently reading the sound and the fury and that's unbelievably good too
he's seriously one of the greats, you can instantly tell
Those authors are all easier to read than Faulkner so it's not very surprising that more people do so.
Britbong here. Part of it is a local thing- he's not just 'American', he's American south- it's the equivalent of books exclusively about, say, rural Wales.
But probably part of it is also that his best work is simply harder to read than the others you mention.
>it's the equivalent of books exclusively about, say, rural Wales.
i love those
dem valleys
This is a a pretty accurate answer. Not directly, but in its content.
Southern Gothic is a regional genre that Brits don't have a point of reference to empathize with. Faulkner's stream-of-consciousness is employed to help the reader immerse into the characters, a technique UK authors like Joyce and Woolf utilized as more of an artistic device, and so Brits see it as an American clumsily utilizing their toy in a less pretty way.
And it's easy to dismiss something you don't understand with a dumb meme. We do it all the time. "corncobby" is essentially giving away the fact that you dont empathize, havent made the attempt to empathize with the people of the story.
Hobbits from the Shire dismiss Faulkner because he's a realist. He doesn't have quirky characters with didactic messages like Twain or culture like Hemmingway or a more modernized depiction of upcoming America like Steinbeck.
It's just American backwoods folks and their dying way of life.
It's not all an issue of empathy. You can have empathy for a person, group, or whatever and still dislike them.
Sartre thought Sanctuary was Faulkner's best. Kind of ruins it.
Who cares? Sartre was wrong about everything he could be wrong about
Yeah, that's how I feel about him, the idea of reading about yokel fucks from some shithole in America just does not appeal.
He must've misinterpreted the corncob rape scene.
Yes, Faulkner is my favorite American author and I love all those you listed as well.
Southern Gothic is incredible and strangely underrated. I think it has an Old Worldness to it from its feudal Dixie legacy that didnt take off in America the same way a "masculine adventure" schtick like Hemingway or new money big city parties like Fitzgerald or the unpretentious humor of Twain.
I actually think that of 20th Century writers, only Joyce is greater than Faulkner. He's nearly without peer as a stylist, and he places you inside the universe of each character in his works extraordinarily effectively.
Sartre liked him but fuck Sartre.
I haven't read much Twain so it is hard to say, but Faulkner gives a concrete and interesting perspective of the south is dying narrative in the US.
My friend from Louisiana thinks it is idiotic to think of the south this way, that is has lost all of its glory and they are all the same down there, but I think a lot of people in the US who haven't been to the south will take it.
I don't like him. He goes nowhere with his works and does it in a very dull fashion. He also isn't that difficult to read. TSATF has voices change on a dime but so what.
Woolf is better than Faulkner
Fight me
i agree with you but think both are really swell
They both write similarly, but Woolf's style feels more like an affectation, while Faulkner's is integral to the story he's telling. That vaults him above her for me.
>who is Borges
He even fixed Faulkner's shitty writing on the translations.
>UK authors like Joyce
>UK
>Joyce
>american geography
Where should I start with Woolf?
It's because he's a difficult writer. That's literally it.
Difficult writers, if they're eventually recognized as good in their own country, tend to be jacked off by the critics of their own countries while other countries refuse to give a fuck about them. Of course, there are exceptions. Reading a difficult book written by an American and that is supposedly an iconic American book seems nice for an American, but who wants to read László Krasznahorkai or Máirtín Ó Cadhain in America (writers who, of course, are jacked off by the critics of their OWN countries)?
It's basically literary masturbation, wanting to read the most challenging and acclaimed authors from your own cultures but not others, unless they're super influential and well-recognized like Joyce.
Same reason they don't really care about Pynchon or Gaddis in Europe, or even Melville. That's my take on it.
>seems nice for an American
This is actually pretty funny, I mean for a pretentious American who's into books, not the average American..
I would agree, though Nabokov, Borges, Barthelme, and Pinecone give him a run for his money with their innovations imo. I have forever held that Faulkner is America's greatest writer. Only Melville (at his best), Whitman, and Emerson come close. He dethroned Twain completely.
And also whoever said Woolf
>gtfo
She is petty nonsense in comparison to Faulkner, let alone Joyce.
>stick
opinion discarded
Woolf is the most basic boring bitch I've ever read. And also
>uk
>"people care about our opinions re:literature"
Don't get ahead of yourself, m8. After all, the Shire is a small place, and there's a much bigger world out there.
Let's be real: he is the male, white version of Morrison. He is completely, and I mean conpletely, derivative of the progress made by bigger and better writers from the Modernist period. His insights are far and few, the greatest of them literally being that "Hey, that Ernest guy wasn't very fond of difficult words was he?" Not particularly insightful or original right?
heh ;^)
It just fits the tone of the American south.
There's a thick fog of social graces, masculinity, and just flat out ignorance blocking that seems to block perfect self-consciousness in the South. To speak derisively of it from a foreigner or Yankee perspective is to also miss the mark. Personally I grew up on the northern part of east coast USA but my mother's side is one of those old prim southern families and Faulkner's spot on. The outward prosperity: playing golf on perfect greens, going to church and worshipping God devoutly, white washed houses, colorful gardens, the "bless your heart!" crap is what's out in the open but their hearts and minds are dominated with vigilante justice, hushed murders, incests, suicides, intrigues, and so on. To blow all of this stuff wide open and honestly, which Faulkner definitely does, is a noteworthy feat.
What he's working with is much darker stuff than Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Twain.
The irony with OP is that the American South was essentially the English middle and working classes building a caste society where they were at the top and the typical southerner is probably more English genetically than the rest of his fellow Americans.
Southern Gothic also parallels literary movements in France, so perhaps it makes sense there's an appreciation there.
The rereading of The Sound and the Fury is one of my favorite literature experiences.
by the time joyce left ireland, never to return, it was still a part of the united kingdom.
>corncobbyness
Today I learned a new word.
But user, I'm a burger and I have Graveyard Clay right here next to me to read tomorrow.
pick from the following:
Mrs. Dalloway
To the Lighthouse
Orlando
At least that's all I've been able to stand so far.
Just want let you know I hate you and every other brit on this gay earth
>that's all I've been able to stand so far
the transition from pleb to patrish ain't easy, son.
read The Waves
I love Virginia Woolf she's a great writer who moves me
But The Sound and the Fury was one of the greatest book so have ever read
Albeit I read it while touring Texas lady summer and I'm from Vancouver so maybe the scenery helped