As the most outstanding representative in the history of modern American literature and southern literature, Faulkner was awarded 1949 by the Swedish Academy for his powerful and unparalleled artistic contribution to contemporary American novels.
During Faulkner's writing career, "there is a piece of land the size of a stamp", which provides him with inexhaustible creative themes, that is, Yorknapatafa County in northern Mississippi. This is a magical land, and Faulkner is its only owner.
Among the 19 novels and 100 short stories he wrote in his life, most of his works are set in Napatafa County, York, except for the three books: The Tower Gate, Fable and Wild Palm. These novels have integrity and unity, thus forming the novel York Napa Law, which made him famous in the literary world.
In this fictional 2,400-square-mile land, there are more than 600 celebrities with alternate surnames, showing the changes of the old and new periods, the historical changes of southern society, the rise and fall of several big families, the joys and sorrows of various characters and the rise and fall of various forces. ...
It can be said that The Genealogy of Yorknapatafa, written after more than 30 years of painstaking efforts, is not only a chronicle of American southern society, but also the highest achievement of Faulkner's literary creation.
Today's book list recommends Faulkner's classic work Yoknapata Method.
1. The Sound and the Fury, the masterpiece, takes the Compson family as the description object.
Douban score: 9.3
Highlight: It is not only a masterpiece of stream-of-consciousness novels, but also a "modern classic", which is regarded as Faulkner's most brilliant achievement.
The name of this book comes from a classic line in Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Life is like an idiotic dream, full of noise and commotion, but meaningless."
It mainly describes the family tragedy of Compson family, a declining landlord in the south. Old Compson is idle and addicted to alcohol; Wife is selfish and indifferent, complaining about others; Daughter Katie lacks love and unfortunately becomes a prostitute; Quentin, the eldest son, held a grudge and drowned himself; The second son Jason is cold, greedy and selfish; The third son, Benji, is mentally retarded and incomplete.
The first three parts of the whole work are the ideological streams of Bangui, Quentin and Jason respectively, and the last part is a summary description according to the traditional realism.
These four parts, like four movements of a symphony, construct a three-dimensional American southern society, describe the disintegration of an ancient family, show the decline of a prominent family in the south, reflect the signs of the decline of the western world in the rapid development of industrial civilization, and present a side of the historical changes in the southern United States.
The novel uses a lot of multi-angle narrative methods and stream-of-consciousness techniques, which is a classic of stream-of-consciousness novels and even the whole modernist novels. Some critics call it a "creative art textbook". This rare masterpiece of modern and contemporary literature is also regarded by Faulkner as his greatest work. It is precisely because of this novel that he has established his outstanding position in the history of literature.
2. As I Lay Dying is a masterpiece with the Bentren family as the object of description.
Douban score: 9.2
Highlight: Harold? Bloom said that the most outstanding opening of American novels in the 20th century belongs to William? Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
The name of this book, taken from the lines in Odyssey, tells the story of Ben Delong, a farmer from the south of the United States, leading his family to transport his wife's body to his hometown 40 miles away for burial. Everyone has their own ideas on the funeral journey, and these ten days have become a "hard journey".
The novel consists of 59 inner monologues of the Bendren family, neighbors and related personnel, which is another masterpiece by the author using multi-perspective narrative method and stream of consciousness technique.
The author uses limited local materials to describe human beings with universal significance, and thinks about human suffering and action ability between the lines. This story about funeral is a metaphor of human suffering and vividly depicts the life of a family. Camus, a French writer, said, "Since Melville, no American writer has described suffering like Faulkner."
3. The representative works of Cedpan and McCaslin's family dimension description object: Absalom! Absalom! 》
Douban score: 9.2
Reason for recommendation: Whether it is "the greatest work of all time" or "the best American novel" or "Nobel Prize in Literature's masterpiece" or "the best English novel of the 20th century", almost any classic novel list will recommend it.
The name of this book comes from biblical allusions, which mainly tells the story of a family disintegration in the southern United States from 1860 to 19 10. The protagonist of the novel is Thomas Sadburn, the owner of the manor. The author uses multi-angle narrative techniques to show the ups and downs of his life through four narratives. The love and hate between parents and children and the ambiguous feelings between brothers and sisters described in the book ... profoundly show the conflicts between people and between people and themselves, and touch on many universal problems related to the human situation.
Some people say that this book is Faulkner's most important, complicated, profound and epic work. The characters in the book "explain" the past with different subjective feelings from different angles, but * * * embodies the rich epic tragic atmosphere of the whole work.
In particular, the Gothic technique has been used incisively and vividly in this novel, which adds a layer of horror and mystery to this book. It is also in this novel that Faulkner drew a map of Jefferson Town for the first time, and attached a catalogue of lineage families, so that readers can better understand the framework of Yorknapatafa's lineage novels.
4. The representative work of the Snoopy family: the village.
Douban score: 9.2
Highlight: It is not only Snoopy's first trilogy, but also a long masterpiece that you can enjoy by yourself. It is also a work that writes the "American Dream" and even human dreams into the depths of the soul and the ultimate humanity.
The novel mainly tells how Snoops, as a representative of the emerging bourgeoisie in the south, as an "outsider" in the Gulf of France, stepped into the upper class step by step through various fraudulent means and gradually controlled the land and people in the Gulf of France.
Through this book, Faulkner created a sinister villain image-Snoops, who tried his best to succeed. This artistic image has far-reaching influence. Until today, it is still used as a synonym for "unscrupulous businessmen or politicians" in English.
Perhaps this is a Faulkner's work that is not well known to readers in China, but this novel, together with Towns and Mansions published 20 years later, has become a far-reaching "Snoopy Trilogy". In this trilogy, the Snoops family, centered on Flem, is a deformed child in American southern society.
Through various forms of expression, the novel profoundly and richly shows the drastic change from tradition to capitalism in the southern society in the late American Civil War, and the vicious nature of the bourgeoisie in this society that is not conducive to the normal development of capitalist industry and commerce.
5. Other representative novels belonging to this pedigree: Light in August.
Douban score: 8.9
Highlight: Garcia? Marquez once said: The journey is not long. I kept smoking and rereading William? Faulkner's light in August. Faulkner is my most loyal patron saint, and Light in August is the key to understand and evaluate Faulkner's whole creative career.
This book brings together three lines, the most important of which is the race problem around Jo Chrismas. Chris Moss was born under suspicion of being a mixed-race, and was abandoned by his racist grandfather. Later, he was despised by the world, full of hatred for the society he lived in, and finally died tragically by killing the white woman he loved deeply.
The other line tells the story of Lena, a rural girl. This "goddess"-like figure, pure in heart and not infringed by the so-called civilization, fell in love with her lover and was abandoned after pregnancy, so she walked to Jefferson Town to find her lover.
The third line revolves around Gail Hightower, a priest who has always been addicted to fantasy.
Through these three lines, the novel describes the social life of Jefferson Town, reveals the lives of several main characters and the family history of their three generations in these ten days, embodies "the true feelings, love, sympathy, pride, pity and sacrifice in the depths of human hearts" and shows Faulkner's attitude against racial prejudice and religious prejudice.
This work is famous for its multiple narrative angles and plot structure, and has conducted avant-garde experiments on the infinite possibilities of the novel text. Because the novel profoundly reveals the great misfortune and heavy disaster brought about by the deep-rooted racial prejudice in American southern society, it is also considered as the most realistic one in Faulkner's creative career.
Faulkner's "Yoknapatafa" lineage novel bears a deep southern brand, which shows readers the historical picture of social changes in the southern United States from before the American Civil War to after the Second World War.
In his novel creation, the writer does not hesitate to appreciate the value of southern traditional culture. At the same time, he also condemned the great influence of the Civil War and the two world wars on the southern society, criticized the devastating impact of the advanced industrial civilization in the north on the traditional handicraft economy in the south, exposed all kinds of disadvantages exposed by the southern society, and predicted its inevitable decline fate.
It can be said that as a modernist writer, Faulkner's profound sense of human suffering runs through the series of novels of the "Yoknapatafa" pedigree: he takes care of the southern people who are at a loss in the face of the new economic form and civilization; He reveals the common phenomenon that modern people in the western world are alienated by highly developed material civilization; He is deeply concerned about the survival civilization of all mankind and devoted himself to revealing the ways for human beings to achieve purification and self-transcendence.
It is this genealogy novel that not only shows the living conditions of southerners in the United States, touches the essence of social problems in the southern United States, but also has universal significance to all mankind, making people realize that Faulkner is a modern conscious scholar with both depth and breadth, a sense of history and a local flavor, which greatly improves Faulkner's literary status.
The article first appeared in China People's Reading.