Elliot's Reading - Week of 7-18-21: Faulkner and Fitzgerald Stories

 Elliot’s Reading - Week of 7-18-21

I can see what R.V. Cassill was getting in his 3 Faulkner selections for the Norton Anthology of Short Stories; in a way, 3 he selected show the range of Faulkner’s style, which many readers think of in only one way: Southern Gothic set at the cusp of the South entering the modern age, i.e., the 20th century, the age of American predominance. These 3 selected stories show a bit of WF’s range. Two are well known. First, A Rose for Emily, justly famous for its depiction of the life of the South at a time when memories of the Civil War were fresh in the minds of the older characters and in which these of enforced slavery was over only de jure, not de facto. Miss Emily lives a secret life among the residents of her changing town; everyone knows, yet nobody knows, or admits, the strangeness of her prolonged existence in social isolation. The story is notable for its use of first-person plural narration - as if all that’s known and told is part of a group memory, thereby depicting the intricate and intimate nature of life in the South at that time. The 2nd story is by no means typical of Faulkner - Golden Land is about a dissolute wealthy man in early 20th century LA and his animosity toward the press and his obsession w/ drink. WF knew well the ravages of drink; and he knew a bit about life in LA from his brief stints as a screenwriter - but this story feels forced and distant, and we have to wonder why he didn’t take the subject of the film industry on directly (as did, for ex., FS Fitzgerald). The 3rd story, Barn Burning, is greatest of the 3, and it introduces into WF’s work the irascible Snopes family, the embodiment of “white trash” - but also a family whose stars may be in the rise. This story establishes the animosity between the upstart Snopeses and the old-South patricians who control, or try to control, their fate. The writing her is at time WF at his most difficult, but there are rewards for careful and studious reading - though in later years this style, so intricate, becomes mannered, in, for ex., the brilliant though largely inaccessible Absolum, Absolum (who can explain even the title?). 

The Cassill Norton Short Stories anthology (authors presented alphabetically - nice, as this prevents us from reading to much into the stories as a chronological phenomenon headed toward some ideal short story in the future, a process of continuous development rather than a collection of pieces the characterize and memorialize their time and epoch - contains the often-anthologized F. Scott Fitzgerald story Babylon Revisited (it’s the only FSF selection in the anthology, questionable perhaps). It’s a story whose protagonist, Charles/Charlie, is one of least likable protagonists of all time. He was a ne’er do well living in Paris like a monarch with paper profits from stock-dealing in the 20s and whose fortune crashed in the Depression - as did Charlie’s health (a serious alcoholic), his marriage (wife is dead, never said exactly the cause but he seems neglectful and at least in part to blame), and family - the whole point of this story is that he is in Paris to persuade in late wife’s sister to relinquish to him the custody of his daughter. None of us would or should trust Charle’s sobriety for 2 seconds; he has this absurd idea that one drink a day will cure him of his alcoholism - but we know he’s sure to slide - and that his ex-sister in law should never give up the child to him. And yet - she’s torn; the girl is his daughter, he’s seemingly well employed once again (though his employment, representing some businesses from Prague, in a vague way) seems sketchy and dubious. The story comes to its climax - I won’t give to much away - when two of his pals from the old days of debauchery and excess show up at his sister’s, sending her into a state and Charlie into despair. The sorrow that permeates this story is all the more poignant for what we know of FSF and his struggles w/ alcoholism and with the ill health of his wife, Zelda - we feel that FSF must be closely identifying himself as the mistreated prodigal Charlie, yet we also much feel that we have to side with his straight-laced sister-in-law. She’s right, after all.