In honor of Faulkner’s 115th birthday, here’s a passage from As I Lay Dying that I marked up my senior year of college when I was writing a verbose and probably questionable senior thesis on Faulkner’s indebtedness to Hamlet. This really is his version of the “To be or not to be” speech, though. In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is. How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.
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In honor of Faulkner’s 115th birthday, here’s a passage from As I Lay Dying that I marked up my senior year of college when I was writing a verbose and probably questionable senior thesis on Faulkner’s indebtedness to Hamlet.

This really is his version of the “To be or not to be” speech, though.

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is.

How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.

If I had an extra $345 to spend (SPOILER ALERT: I DON’T!), I would totally spend it on this color-coded version of The Sound and the Fury. And yet I also agree with HTMLGIANT that When the implied becomes the explicit, much of the beast is tamed, or at least caged. I personally love the what the fuck is going on feeling when slugging away at a book whose author was either psychotic or genius. I know it’s cliché, perhaps even a myth, but our perception of the author’s psychiatric state informs the value of its literature, which may implicate the inherent pathos of secular western art. It’s like The Maury Povich Show or Jerry Springer: one is simply gladdened to see crazy people on stage. I think of William, in a spare bedroom scratching chapter notes for a novel on a wall named after days of the week he clearly lost track of, and am touched. I have this theory where the more awful a roommate a writer would be, the better the literature. (Kafka totally late on rent; Emily Dickinson never leaving the goddamn the house; Henry James clearing out the fridge at night.) When a handful of dedicated editors distill Faulkner’s modernism into a color key, he almost comes across looking like a fraud who threw his manuscript across the room, picked up the pieces, and called it done. The reader lends the novel intent in exchange for meaning. All that doesn’t change the fact that this book was my first love and if I have my way I will someday own a library comprised solely of all possible versions of Faulkner books.
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If I had an extra $345 to spend (SPOILER ALERT: I DON’T!), I would totally spend it on this color-coded version of The Sound and the Fury. And yet I also agree with HTMLGIANT that

When the implied becomes the explicit, much of the beast is tamed, or at least caged. I personally love the what the fuck is going on feeling when slugging away at a book whose author was either psychotic or genius. I know it’s cliché, perhaps even a myth, but our perception of the author’s psychiatric state informs the value of its literature, which may implicate the inherent pathos of secular western art. It’s like The Maury Povich Show or Jerry Springer: one is simply gladdened to see crazy people on stage. I think of William, in a spare bedroom scratching chapter notes for a novel on a wall named after days of the week he clearly lost track of, and am touched. I have this theory where the more awful a roommate a writer would be, the better the literature. (Kafka totally late on rent; Emily Dickinson never leaving the goddamn the house; Henry James clearing out the fridge at night.) When a handful of dedicated editors distill Faulkner’s modernism into a color key, he almost comes across looking like a fraud who threw his manuscript across the room, picked up the pieces, and called it done. The reader lends the novel intent in exchange for meaning.

All that doesn’t change the fact that this book was my first love and if I have my way I will someday own a library comprised solely of all possible versions of Faulkner books.

I’ve spent a lot of the past week fighting off a bad cold, and (knock on wood) I think I’ve finally beaten it. Not a single tissue yet today. We’re making progress.  In honor of cold remedies and of seasonal holiday alcoholism, here’s William Faulkner’s hot toddy recipe (via Maud Newton) as recalled by his niece:  Pappy alone decided when a Hot Toddy was needed, and he administered it to his patient with the best bedside manner of a country doctor.  He prepared it in the kitchen in the following way: Take one heavy glass tumbler. Fill approximately half full with Heaven Hill bourbon (the Jack Daniel’s was reserved for Pappy’s ailments). Add one tablespoon of sugar. Squeeze 1/2 lemon and drop into glass. Stir until sugar dissolves. Fill glass with boiling water. Serve with potholder to protect patient’s hands from the hot glass.  Pappy always made a small ceremony out of serving his Hot Toddy, bringing it upstairs on a silver tray and admonishing his patient to drink it quickly, before it cooled off. It never failed. Drink up, everyone, and stay healthy.
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I’ve spent a lot of the past week fighting off a bad cold, and (knock on wood) I think I’ve finally beaten it. Not a single tissue yet today. We’re making progress. 

In honor of cold remedies and of seasonal holiday alcoholism, here’s William Faulkner’s hot toddy recipe (via Maud Newton) as recalled by his niece: 

Pappy alone decided when a Hot Toddy was needed, and he administered it to his patient with the best bedside manner of a country doctor. 

He prepared it in the kitchen in the following way: Take one heavy glass tumbler. Fill approximately half full with Heaven Hill bourbon (the Jack Daniel’s was reserved for Pappy’s ailments). Add one tablespoon of sugar. Squeeze 1/2 lemon and drop into glass. Stir until sugar dissolves. Fill glass with boiling water. Serve with potholder to protect patient’s hands from the hot glass. 

Pappy always made a small ceremony out of serving his Hot Toddy, bringing it upstairs on a silver tray and admonishing his patient to drink it quickly, before it cooled off. It never failed.

Drink up, everyone, and stay healthy.

wwnorton:

William Faulkner’s second novel, Mosquitoes, was written during the summer of 1926 and first published in the spring of 1927. It was recently re-issued by Liveright Publishing Corporation in August. Check out the evolution of the cover art over eighty-four years in print.

Those two early covers are AWESOME.