{"id":5196,"date":"2020-10-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=5196"},"modified":"2020-10-12T20:46:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T03:46:18","slug":"a-piece-of-faulkner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2020\/10\/a-piece-of-faulkner\/","title":{"rendered":"A Piece of Faulkner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I just finished Faulkner\u2019s Absalom! Absalom! <\/em>Something\nin the air drew me to read it again. Faulkner was wrestling with his inheritance\u2014the\nlegacy of the American South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He writes a fictional story that holds his experience. He lives\non the edge of a conquered land. The story is not easy at all\u2014at no point do we\nhear the voice of the main character. We hear the memories and the inferences\nof the people who were connected or controlled by him, by Thomas Sutpen, the\ndemon hero of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sutpen controls the people around him and no one stands\nagainst him. They seem to admire what he can do so much they allow all the collateral\ndamage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is the embodiment of a pure single-minded vision, and the\npeople around him fall into it and give him what he wants. They are mesmerized,\nwanting to see what will happen. Will he make his dream come true?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main narrator\u2014not the only narrator\u2014is Quentin. He\u2019s not\nrelated to any of the characters, but his grandfather knew the demon Sutpen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quentin is trying to piece together what happened. Everyone\nfrom his hometown has their version of the story. No one can leave it alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They pull his sleeve, telling him what really<\/em>\nhappened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is stuck trying to make sense of it. What happened?\nBetween all their versions he is not sure of the basic facts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The others are sure. And he\u2019s heard the stories his whole\nlife so he knows the basic facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until he thinks about it. He is trying to sort it all out\nwith his college roommate. Now that he is not at home where everyone is so sure,\nhe himself is not so sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He talks it over and over with his roommate. They piece\ntogether what he never saw clearly, what was hidden in plain sight, this dark dark\ndark story of the American South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a masterpiece and it is not for the fainthearted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the piece that I can break off for you all:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know there are stories I\u2019ve heard and accepted my whole\nlife. Sometimes, when I look at them now, they aren\u2019t true anymore. They may have\nbeen true once. But they don\u2019t have to be true now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is worth sifting out the jagged edges to find the things\nthat aren\u2019t true anymore. The assumptions can be discarded. I deserve to have\nthe true truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished Faulkner\u2019s Absalom! Absalom! Something in the air drew me to read it again. Faulkner was wrestling with his inheritance\u2014the legacy of the American South. He writes a fictional story that holds his experience. He lives on the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5197,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5196\/revisions\/5197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}