Faulkner

Faulkner

  • Submitted By: veeelo90
  • Date Submitted: 04/09/2013 3:57 PM
  • Category: Biographies
  • Words: 288
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 102

Faulkner has not only remained guilty of occasional carelessness, especially in sentence construction, but seems to have persisted in mannerisms. On the other hand, his progress as a stylist has been steady and rapid; his third novel, Sartoris, while still experimenting toward a technique, was a notable advance over his first two in style as well as in theme and narrative structure, and in his fourth novel, The Sound and the Fury, style is what it has continued to be in all his subsequent work, a significant factor, masterfully controlled. (p. 53)
Repetition of words, for instance, has often seemed an obvious fault. At times, however, Faulkner's repetitions may be a not unjustifiable by-product of his thematic composition. Some of his favorites in Absalom, Absalom ! not just Miss Rosa's demon, which may be charged off to her own mania, nor indolent applied to Bon, but such recurrent terms as effluvium, outrage, grim, indomitable, ruthless, fury, fatality seem to intend adumbration of the tale's whole significance and tone. Nor is the reiteration as frequent or as obvious here as in earlier books; perhaps Faulkner has been making an experiment over which he is increasingly gaining control. (pp. 534)
[His] word-series, while conspicuous at times, may have a place in a style as minutely analytical as Faulkner's. In their typical form they are not redundant, however elaborate, and sometimes their cumulative effect is undeniable, for example, the long still hot weary dead September afternoon when Quentin listens to Miss Rosa's story.... [Often] the amplification redounds to the significance of the whole scene. Quite often, too, these series of words, while seemingly extravagant, are a remarkably compressed rendering, as in the phrase passionate tragic ephemeral loves of adolescence. ...

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