Off-Topic and Out of Context...

To help pass the time during the quarantine, I am reading "Faulkner-A Biography" by Joseph Blotner published in 1974, it is the "short version" of a 2 volume set published earlier. William Faulkner passed away in 1962; interest in his work was at its peak.

Once I finish reading the book, I will report.

But for now, I'm still in the first half of the author's life. It's 1926-27; he has published poems, short stories and a couple of novels. Honestly, his earliest work does not interest me; I'm just a casual reader, certainly not a student.

"Soldier's Pay"? I tried: meh. "Mosquitoes"? Good Grief, no. 

But Faulkner was an astute observer, acute, even. All his life, he would move about his little hometown, Oxford, MS, watching people. Oblivious to his surroundings, with stories and scenes taking shape in his head.  He made up stories, he wrote poems, he assembled small books of these for his friends, he was a talented artist.  He knew everybody there was to know in that small Southern town; he had worked as postmaster for the Ol' Miss post office. He knew the people in the towns of the surrounding area--white, black, rich, poor, good and bad. He knew them or he knew of them.

Suddenly, in the mid-1920's he found his voice; he realized that his little "post stamp" of territory of rich with more stories than he could write in his entire life!  He virtually "pulled his great-grandfather from the grave" (he was a writer too) and examined his life. Result: "Sartoris" (which I have read and liked). 

He was very near to the invention of the legendary locality; and his head was full of his most iconic characters: The Snopes Family.  Shelby Foote said that Faulkner's smartest and genius move was that "he named those people Snopes". 

What struck my attention: What Must the Upper-Crust of little Oxford have thought? The lawyers, the business owners, the better-off farmers? They knew Bill Faulkner and they knew he knew them. And he was using the people he knew best as Main Characters in his novels (which were beginning to sell). His own wife, his close family, extended family, his beloved childhood Nanny, anybody he happened to notice around the Square of the town; all were fodder. He was just getting started.        They must have cringed at bit--and started being extra nice to Bill and the Faulkner family??

Passing the time in Quarantine: reading and writing.