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In the early 1920s, author William Faulkner wrote a humorous play called Twixt Cup and Lip. The play is being published for the first time in the latest issue of The Strand Magazine.
Andrew Gulli, managing editor of the Strand, discovered the lighthearted work in in the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small special collections. The Guardian has more about the work:
Twixt Cup and Lip was written by Faulkner in the early 1920s, when the author would have been in his 20s. A one-act play, it is set in the apartment of a “well-to-do bachelor”, and sees two friends of around 30, Francis and Jim, each vying to convince the 19-year-old Ruth to marry them.
By: Maryann Yin,
on 10/1/2015
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At Powell's, we feel the holidays are the perfect time to share our love of books with those close to us. For this special blog series, we reached out to authors featured in our Holiday Gift Guide to learn about their own experiences with book giving during this bountiful time of year. Today's featured giver [...]
The Harry Ransom Center, an institution based at the University of Texas at Austin, has acquired the archive of the late Gabriel García Márquez.
The Nobel Prize-winning writer had passed on earlier this year. Some of the items in the García Márquez archive include letters, photo albums, typewriters, computers, scrapbooks, drafts of his 1982 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and the manuscripts for One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Memories of My Melancholy Whore.
Here’s more from the press release: “Highlights in the archive include multiple drafts of García Márquez’s unpublished novel We’ll See Each Other in August, research for The General in His Labyrinth (1989) and a heavily annotated typescript of the novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981). The materials document the gestation and changes of García Márquez’s works, revealing the writer’s struggle with language and structure…The archive will reside at the Ransom Center alongside the work of many of the 20th century’s most notable authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, William Faulkner, and James Joyce, who all influenced García Márquez.”
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By: Dianna Dilworth,
on 3/12/2013
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The iconic actress Marilyn Monroe may have played the role of a ditzy blonde in many films, but she was actually quite the bookworm whose reading preferences included books by James Joyce and Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Open Culture has more: “Once married to playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe stocked about 400 books on her shelves, many of which were later catalogued and auctioned off by Christie’s in New York City.”
Library Thing has made a list of 261 titles that were a part of Monroe’s personal library. Books on the list include: Out Of My Later Years by Albert Einstein; Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert; The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner; as well as poetry collections from Robert Frost, John Milton, and Edgar Allen Poe, among others. (Via Gothamist).
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Ta-Nehisi Coates recently featured an
interview with William Faulkner that naturally had an incredible array of quotable material, but which focused in part on the responsibility an author has to their art.
The meat:
The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies.
Faulkner comes from the kill, maim, dismember school of artistry, where the work is paramount and the lives that are affected are of secondary concern.
Easy to say. Not so much to do.
Many writers I know, especially memoirists or those who pull material from their real lives, grapple with the morality of affecting personal relationships in order to put forth their writing. When I heard him speak a few weeks back, Jonathan Franzen recounted how he hesitated using a thinly veiled version of his brother in
The Corrections.
How should a writer navigate this tricky path? Does the work of art ultimately reign supreme over the feelings of the people who may be hurt in the process of creating a book? What should an author be prepared to sacrifice? What do writers owe the other people in their lives?
Photograph of William Faulkner by Carl Van Vechten. Please see the Wikimedia Commons page for information on the Vechten estate's requests for reproducing his photographs.
The last time I visited Oxford, Mississippi, at the end of a trip through ancestral haunts in the Delta, I stopped by Faulkner’s grave, Rowan Oak, and Square Books, and consumed my weight in sweet tea and fried catfish with my favorite aunt. I’m sure I’ll do some of the same things this weekend, when I’m in town for the Oxford Conference for the Book to talk online publishing with Jack Pendarvis, Anya Groner, and Michael Bible. Other speakers include Barbara Epler, Josh Weil, Steve Yarbrough, and Ken Auletta, to name just a few.
I found a new polka dotted dress for the occasion, and managed to rope one Carrie Frye into meeting me there. I wish I had an extra day or two to get over to Eudora Welty’s house and my Great Aunt Maude’s official state archives in Jackson, but I fly back Sunday for a couple days before heading to speak at Butler University next week. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to Gulf Coast oysters, mint juleps in their native habitat, and good company.
By: James Preller,
on 11/29/2011
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I won’t make you wait for it. My apologies for the spillover into the sidebar, but it would require actual skill to adjust the size of the photo. So, like, that’s not happening!
This is Mark Twain’s first-floor library in his Hartford, Connecticut, home. How cool is that?
You can thank Emily Temple of Flavorwire for that shot, since she recently compiled a hot batch of photographs featuring the libraries of famous writers, inspired, in part, by the recent publication of Leah Price’s new book, Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books.
Below, a few more of my favorites . . .
Joan Didion, John Dunne, daughter Quintana Roo, and dog.
William Faulkner collected old books, apparently. Oh, wait.
Anne Sexton’s shelves look so . . . normal.
Norman Mailer lived in Brooklyn Heights, not far from my brother. But Norman had more books, and a better apartment. He also liked lamps.
This Rolling Stone gathers no moss, but collects books, obviously. If you are really in a Keith mood, go here for my ultimate “Keef Sings” mix.
By: Maryann Yin,
on 12/7/2010
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Oprah Winfrey picked a classic double header for her latest book club selection, choosing Charles Dickens‘ Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities.
During her announcement, Winfrey noted: “I’m going old, old school … Normally I only choose books that I have read, but I must shamefully admit to you all that I have never read Dickens.”
Winfrey will use Penguin’s new $20 paperback containing both books and nearly 800 pages. Amazon noted yesterday they have free Kindle editions of both titles. Penguin offers a $7.99 digital edition that includes illustrations, author background, and historical information.
continued…
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I've been knee-deep in world-creation these last weeks. I'm writing a retelling of Frankenstein set in a dystopian future, which means the world is mine to make (and break). It got me to thinking about DesCartes. Cogito ergo sum...I think therefore I am. As an author, I not only think my characters into being. I think their world into being. Kind of leaves an all-powerful aftertaste.
You might be a writer if...you've developed a god complex.
And society thought only surgeons could do that. How little does the world know about the secret lives of writers. Saving limbs and lives is nothing in the daily routine of a writer. We create worlds. Destroy them. Shape alternate universes for our own. Rewrite history. And make it all so real, readers cry, laugh, rejoice and hate as passionately as they do in the real world.
It can leave a writer feeling a bit like god.
I have to admit, though, the godliness I experience is not only that of a god of great joy but one plagued by doubt, concern, tears, frustration, and hopelessness. It is an ever so fatally human god. Still, to be a writer means to think like a god. To be willing not only to breathe life into characters and worlds but also to destroy them with wrath, vengeance, or worst of all, for the good of the story. We kill our darlings, in the words of Faulkner.
I giggle to myself guiltily now when my husband (he's a doc himself) talks surgeons and god-complexes. If only he knew, he was living with a writer who suffers than very same complex squared.
At least he hasn't found all of those darlings stuffed under the floorboards yet. Or the alternate worlds that are crammed into the closets. Nobody ever said just because we kill or destroy our darlings we have to throw them away. We writers may be dastardly but we are environmentally conscious. We recycle nixed storylines and characters all of the time. That's the great thing about playing god. We can kill them off one day and bring them back to life the next.
Ah, the joys of being a writer!
Did any of you public radio listeners catch the story about Faulkner this morning? Or maybe there is a Faulkner fan out there or alum of the University of Virginia that already knows about this? At any rate, due to the magic of digital technology and the internet, we can now all listen to William Faulkner’s lectures and other public sessions he gave during his 1957 – 1958 writer-in-residence stay at UVA.
The project was spearheaded by Stephen Railton, professor of English at the university and was definitely a labor of love. It is the creation of digital libraries like this that I would so love to be involved with once I am done with school!
Other than some short stories and Light in August read under duress as I was trying to prepare for the subject GRE test back in the day, I’ve not read any Faulkner. I want to. And I want to be a fan. He seems like an author I would like. Should like. Perhaps after I am done with school and my life is my own again I will attempt a Faulkner project.
Anyway, when you click through for the link to the digital lecture collection you will land on the front page of the site. Notice the audio bar towards the bottom of the page. Click on it and you will get to hear Faulkner himself tell you how to pronounce Yoknapatawpha.
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By: Joanna,
on 12/22/2009
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William Faulkner was arguably the greatest American novelist of the twentieth century. In a new biography of the writer entitled 
Becoming Faulkner: The Art and Life of William Faulkner, Philip Weinstein narrates the events of Faulkner’s life while discussing their impact on his work. Weinstein is Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English at Swarthmore College. In the following excerpt, Weinstein gets inside Faulkner’s head as the novelist struggles with recurring problems involving his family and his addiction to alcohol.
He was not unconscious the whole time. Specific details would flare into focus, then flee as swiftly as they had come. All he knew for sure was that he could not move, though he could not remember why. Where was he anyway?…An image arose in his mind: he was in New York, at his favorite hotel, the Algonquin. He had come here to complete the contracts with Random House for The Unvanquished: which meant that it was November 1937. He had come here to forget something as well – he suddenly knew what that was – but he had less luck there. Meta Carpenter was who he wanted to forget, who now appeared in his mind’s eye with aching clarity. He concentrated again, his screen of consciousness widened. Depressed – he had reasons for it – he had been drinking steadily the night before. He had drifted from bar to bar, then seen no need to stop once he returned to his room. He vaguely remembered the sensation of booze sliding down his throat, the sought-after numbness it radiated. But how had that moment led to this one? Straining once more, he got hold of another image. The last thing he had done was to make his way into the bathroom and settle onto the toilet seat, bottle in hand. Time for one more swig before bed.
Bright sunlight bore down on him, and the room was unaccountably full of cold, moving air… Looking up, he saw an open bathroom window. Had he imagined last night that he was still in Mississippi, where on going to bed he would often open the window a crack, even in winter? Then he recognized the noise he had been hearing for some time now: the hissing sound of a steam pipe, just behind him, his back resting on it. He had passed out in this bathroom. His mind, still whirling, permitted larger oases of lucidity. He realized suddenly that he was in the wrong place: he had no business lying against that pipe. He could tell from its sound how hot it had to be, but his back – which ought to know – had reported no signals of pain. It didn’t even hurt now. How long had he been in this position? When would he find the energy and focus needed to get up again? Like’s Joe Christmas caught in the dietitian’s room in Light in August - lying flat out in his own vomit and realizing that, for better and surely for worse, he was completely in others’ hands – Faulkner waited for someone to come. Eventually someone always did. This was a hell of a way to begin the day.
The moment is emblematic in its self-destructiveness, though its gravity is new. He had been drinking heavily – and occasionally passing out – for over twenty years. But up to now he had been lucky enough to avoid New York hotel steam pipes, as well as other complications linked to a lifetime of boozing. Some time later that morning – minutes? hours? – he heard knocking, at first cautious and then louder…Within a few minutes Jim Devine – Random House fellow writer and boon drinking companion – ha
Do people come up to you and ask you to tell their story? Do you walk away from school visits with loads of new story ideas that kids give you like sticks of gum? Do adults drop hints about stories you could work on?
What about your family? Are they the worst of all?
You might be a writer if...you hear "you should write this" A LOT.
"You should write this" comes out of all corners. For a while, when I was still a newbie to writing, I didn't hear it at all. It's like being the new kid on the block. People around you can't figure out if you're in the writing gig for good, or you're goofing off.
Then that first book or article comes out, and whoa, ideas suddenly come flying toward you.
I didn't know what to do with them at first. Listen and nod politely? File them away? Write them out? Where is the advice on this in the writer operating instructions booklet?
What people want me to do, I've learned through trial and error, varies greatly. Okay, they all hope I write the ideas into something, but how those ideas should turn out is what varies so much.
Kids are the best. At school visits, I get all kinds of ideas tossed at me, like so many colorful balls. I try to volley them back because, you know, I might actually be talking to the next William Faulkner or Stephen King. You never know. Maybe all they need is a little push. I've seen some amazing stuff from kids nobody would ever expect had so much writing talent. So, each time a child tells me "you should write this" I say, "what if you did?" (And then there are a few ideas, I admittedly stick in my pocket. I did mention last week we authors like to pilfer.)
Adults are a little trickier. They sort of expect you to write out an idea if they take the time to tell you about it. Some of them are pretty good. A friend of mine met me and my family at our most favorite donut shop on Saturday before soccer. My family and I LOVE this donut shop. Family run. The donut maker is a real artist. He makes donuts into shapes and then colors them. I've never seen anything like it anywhere. And they taste fantabulous. It's worth traveling to Tulsa just to try them. Believe me. So it's probably not all that surprising that my friend suggested (as I was on my 3rd donut) I do an article on the origins of donuts. Now that happened to be a very good idea. Because I'm just itching to get back in the kitchen and interview this donut master, if he'll let me in. Plus, it turns out, the Dutch came up with donuts. So I'm altering my trip to Europe this summer to make a pass through Amsterdam so I can photograph some Dutch donuts. That was an amazing idea. No strings attached.
The tricky part comes when it's family. My immediate family is one thing. They live with me and they've learned that I pilfer, change up, and turn into something new. If they share an idea with me, who knows what it might turn into or where. And if it's my kids, I try to put the idea right back in their hands and challenge them to write something. I don't always succeed. Case in point. My daughter was at the opera this week. Her first time. She came home with three tickets.
Daughter: (Holds out tickets with huge smile on face) "I've got something for your blog."
Me: "Thanks, sweetie. That's really nice, but why don't you write about your trip?"
Daughter: (Face falls. Hand lowers.) "But I got them for you. I collected them off the floor so you'd have more than one. Can't you use them, please???"
Me: (Guilt-ridden and seriously impressed that her journalistic skills are kicking in so early.) "Okay."
Here they are:
When it comes to my extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, things get really tricky. I am my family's memory keeper. Not their story teller because that would mean I could pilfer and pillage history with abandon and then turn it into anything I want. Not when it's family. I'm the historian. The biographer. The living tape recorder (if such things still exist). When my family gives me an idea, they want it transferred to paper exactly as it happened. If I don't, well, there have been some sticky moments. And disppointment. Pencil thin lips and shaking heads. Sigh. Family events mean double duty. First record then take said events back to my secret writing lab and tinker with until I infuse them with new life Buahahahahhaha. (evil mad scientist laugh)
"You should write this". We get it a lot. It's often pretty helpful. Many of us use it. But what to do about the expectations that are attached to it? Maybe we should follow the movie industry, issue a disclaimer: The characters and events depicted in this piece are purely fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Can I write with abandon now?
Yesterday, an argument deep into the night: What is the value of work that does not reach toward and appeal to the broader spectrum—that does not, through whichever (often mysterious) mechanisms this happens, become, in its own time, popularly known? An old question, certainly not original.
There were three of us, and on the table between us sat Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, a book that I am re-reading for the fourth time which, when it comes to Faulkner and me, often feels like the first time, so wrangled and new are the sentences, the phrasing, the means of disclosure.
And I kept saying, or trying to say, or wanting to say, that those who stand in the margins taking risks, who fight against all odds to get their stories heard by some one, or two right now, today, matter (that is, they, too, have meaning) because they redirect the eye and ear, force a new kind of attending, herald emergent byways.
My words useless and inarticulate, and besides, I should have simply quoted from Faulkner himself, who didn't write sentences the way others did and didn't tell stories that had (over and over) been told and who wasn't writing (I would guess) for the "average" reader, whomever that is. Who mixed up language so newly that horse and his rider got rendered in rigid terrific hiatus and scuttering halt:
They stand in rigid terrific hiatus, the horse trembling and groaning. Then Jewel is on the horse's back. He flows upward in a stooping swirl like the lash of a whip, his body in midair shaped to the horse. For another moment the horse stands spraddled, with lowered head, before it bursts into motion. They descend the hill in a series of spine-jolting jumps, Jewel high, leech-like, on the withers, to the fence where the horse bunches into a scuttering halt again.
I have been at work on a book off and on for two years, as I have previously posted. It's an historical novel, deeply researched, and three voices carry the plot.
Here is the lesson of a multiply voiced novel: Collisions are essential, and they should not look like coincidence. The collisions (between characters, within moments, across voices) must carry meaning. They must signify.
I work on the signifiers now. It is slow but fascinating going. I look to the masters to see how it is done—Louise Erdrich, William Faulkner, and now Jayne Anne Phillips in her new novel, Lark & Termite, which got her a starred PW review, for starters, but more than that, it has Tim O'Brien saying:
What a beautiful, beautiful novel this is—so rich and intricate in its drama, so elegantly written, so tender, so convincing, so penetrating, so incredibly moving. I can declare without hesitation or qualification that Lark and Termite is by far the best new novel I've read in the last five years or so.
I'd love to know of other masters of collision, of when you think multiply voiced novels work.
I have a slight advantage over most people when it comes to looking back over the course of my life to pick one important book and being sure I haven't forgotten to think about any. This is because I'm a huge dork and, after being inspired by an All Things Considered soundbyte in 1999, have been logging every single thing I read--title, author, date, brief comments--into a blue spiral-bound notebook. To make my decision about which book was most important to me, all I would have had to do was flip through.
But in the end, I chose a book that isn't in my notebook because I finished reading it on March 26th, 1999, less than a month before I started keeping the notebook (yes, I remember the date I finished reading it--that should be an argument for its lasting resonance if anything is).
What have I chosen, already?! you're asking. Well, I've committed a sin. I've chosen a very book that every single snobby tall-nosed self-conscious masturbatory pseudo-intellectual tells older men at cocktail parties--particularly their aging bosses who need to be "impressed"--that they loved. I've chosen a book that no one in their right mind actually enjoys reading, but is so effin' pleased with themselves for getting through that they tell everyone they loved it and that it changed their life. And after awhile they begin to think they actually liked it. I might as well have chosen something by James Joyce.
Alas. I have picked THE SOUND AND THE FURY, by William Faulkner. Tragedy of tragedies. I cringe whenever people tell me at a bar, a party, or a job interview that they "love" Faulkner. Pompous cerebral assholes. I know when they say that that they are EXACTLY LIKE ME!--intellectual poseurs. But I can solidly say after a couple hours of flipping through the Book Book that it honestly takes the prize. Here's why--and hopefully not for the reasons you're expecting.
I didn't ever intend to read the book, originally, but it was foisted upon me by the English teacher who changed my life. For the purposes of this blog, let's call her Mrs. Miller. I was in tenth grade at a large rural public school as socially far away from New York City as you can imagine and I was very, very tightly wound about getting into college. Mrs. Miller was in her late seventies at the time, a recovering book editor who had ended up in her second career trapped in a leaking suburban hell and convincing neurotic tenth-graders that they had something to live for besides the SATs. She was--and is--a living legend.
Rumors and horror stories had been passed along down from graduated tenth grader to tenth grader for as many years as anyone could remember. There were often two tests a week, but there was always at least one, on vocabulary and grammar every Friday. And it was hell. Seriously, you can't imagine these tests. The first day of class was a test, in fact, which everyone always failed. My year, it was on Herman Melville's BILLY BUDD, and when the girl next to me got a 76 Mrs. Miller looked positively thwarted. On parent-teacher open house day, she would arrive, every year without hiccup, with a scarlet A pinned to her dress. This was a little cerebral for some of the parents, but most at that point knew we'd suffered through three grueling tests on THE SCARLET LETTER by early October and basically had the book memorized in hopes that we'd avoid the fourth. During our class when we were discussing Hawthorne's use of pathetic fallacy (that is, the literary device that employs weather and other natural indicators to reflect the timbre of the story) a junior named Diego, who had suffered the whole Miller regime and somehow left in one piece, weaseled into our classroom and wrote on the blackboard behind her:
PATHETIC: your grade
FALLACY: thinking you'll ever understand this stuff
We laughed, in our pain.
Another famous Millerism was the spring "Thesis." Everyone spent the entire spring semester working on one piece of American literature and came up with one original thesis on that book, on which they wrote one 20-age paper. No more than 25% of the parenthetical documentation could be taken from the primary source, and no more than 10% from any single secondary source--and yes, she counted. She also spent three weeks following up all of our citations to make sure we hadn't cut any corners. Part of our grade was determined by the index cards on which we were supposed to take our notes--we each turned in at least the required minimum 400 close citations, all color-coded and alphabet catagorized. This was how I learned to index, incidentally.
Even after four pretty darn diligent years at a notoriously intense college, I can still Girl Scout Promise you that this was the single most rigorous piece of academic work I ever did.
In late February, we were to choose our title. We were given a list of acceptable American novels. Deviation from the list was acceptable (with strong argument) but not encouraged. We were to write up 200-word proposals about why we should be allowed to read a particular book on the list. The list was a thinly veiled waterfall from least snooty and erudite to most, and we all saw through that one quickly. We were about to be striated. The last three titles on the list were, in order, AS I LAY DYING, LIGHT IN AUGUST, and THE SOUND & THE FURY.
My arch nemesis, whom for the sake of this blog we shall call Rick O'Malley, the staight A mathlete who printed his vocab homework on cloud-patterned stationary (keep in mind, this was back in the age when most of us didn't even have computers in our houses, never mind printers), went straight for the nuggets with LIGHT IN AUGUST. I saw the knock-down he took about "what would be more appropriate" before he was reassigned A FAREWELL TO ARMS. Oh, SNAP!! My momma didn't raise no fool. I meekly pitched my proposal for THE HOUSE OF MIRTH.
No, nope. That wasn't gonna fly. "Too easy," said Miller. "No laziness from you."
"No laziness," I choked out.
"I think what you WANT to do is THE SOUND AND THE FURY. Isn't that what you want?"
That's right, Rick O'Malley. Straight to the bottom of the list.
The actual reading of the book itself isn't really important. In fact--we're being honest here, and also, I'm anonymous, so you can't even run off and report me to Rick--I didn't get most of the book at all. After reading it twice, cover to cover, and reading more than 30 literary theses on the book, I know all the issues back and forth and inside out. And I LOVE them. But it wouldn't be 100% honest to say that I really enjoyed reading them at the time.
So why was this the book that changed my life? Well, most immediately, because I won Mrs. Miller's respect by doing it. She set me a task, and I rose to it. She annointed me as one of her chosen, wrote my recommendations, grilled me in grammar (she's the reason, for example, that the production manager at my company stopped the production meeting a couple of weeks ago to ask me if I had any idea what the difference between "toward" and "towards" was, and then, after I gave her a 30-second historical usage synopsis, said, "Somehow I just had a feeling you'd know the answer"). She clucked her tongue in disappointment when I confessed I wasn't majoring in English (although she had been a history major herself--"don't repeat my mistakes!" she cried), but then hugged me with relief when it all turned out ok and I veered back toward editorial, the track, I see now, she wanted me on from the beginning.
But is it fair or happy to confess that the book you love most dearly you love because of what it says to someone else about you?
I have yet another confession (but you know how I am with confessions)--I really DO love Faulkner. But it took me years and years to understand how and why. When I finally prised myself away from my "break down every single goshdarn word and understand it!!" approach and let myself sink into impressionistic absorbtion--and yes, that does include plowing through stretched of pages at a time without really taking in what's going on on occasion--I find that I get enough of it to fall in love with the book despite what I've missed. 
But I love his language, and I love what he has to say. I'm certifiably obsessed with his ideas about fictional retelling, although this didn't sink in until I read ABSALOM, ABSALOM! in college, and I have to say that book was even more opaque to me the first time through than TS&TF was. I planned my entire ambitious (and now wisely burned and buried) first novel around what Faulkner taught me about relative truths. But there we go with the overly cerebral again.
So I guess the short story is I love Faulkner mostly because I love what being able to say I've read him means to people at the other end of the conversation, and I hate myself because that's the guiltiest and stupidest reason to love an author. But more deeply and more darkly, I secretly actually do love Faulkner, despite what saying I love him makes people think about me.
I've run my stint as a pseudo-intellectual (funny, I originally typed that as "untellectual") and I got tired and fed up with myself. I don't think I'm a stupid girl, and I'm confident enough in that belief that I'm now comfortable admitting that no, I didn't get the whole novel the first time through. In fact, I still don't get all of it. Yes, the specter of incest throughout haunts me and I still can't decide if I think it actually happened or not, and yes, my solution for reconciling this basic plot misunderstanding is pushing it out of my mind and thinking about some other book. This after ten years.
But you know what? I'm ok with that now. I don't need to fight to be the expert anymore. The impressionism is just fine with me.
So I raise my glass (he was an alcoholic, after all) to Faulkner, who changed my mind and my relationships. Trite as it may be, for Celebrate Reading Month I've got to celebrate you.
By: Kirsty,
on 12/20/2007
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By Kirsty OUP-UK
While Rebecca has been quizzing the publishing world of New York, I have been hounding people a little closer to home: the staff of OUP here in Oxford. Here is what we’ve been reading on this side of the Pond in 2007…
Kate Farquhar-Thomson, Head of Publicity
Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees by Richard Deakin. As an outdoors girl this journey through the woods and forests of both this country and abroad evokes a sense of being at one with nature in all its grandeur. I loved the book and could read it over and over each time discovering something new. (more…)
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In the early 1920s, author William Faulkner wrote a humorous play called Twixt Cup and Lip. The play is being published for the first time in the latest issue of The Strand Magazine.
Intriguing. I'm afraid my "modern sensibilities" cause me to veer away from Faulkner's thoughts on this matter. An artist' art is to be wallowed in, & if the artist has alienated the whole world, who's left to wallow?
This may make me a bit of a jerk, but the people in my life have been informed that I am a writer and, as such, anything they say can and will be used as fodder for my literary ventures. Unless they specifically ask me not to. Does it sometimes make for awkward situations? Yes it does. However, better an awkward situation now than an explosion in my face when they read themselves on paper. (Admittedly, all I've really done is released myself from liability. But, by putting a warning label on myself, I usual find that my friends are more careful what they say around me. Which I also find quite beneficial. (:)
I have also labored with this issue while writing a semi-autobiographical piece. Although the characterization are not insulting, they are far from flattering. Since my perspective in involved, I can't claim that I opt for realism in such depictions. So, I have tried to be fair. My hope is that most will understand, but I expect I'll enrage a few of the more insecure people I know.
E
Here's the thing - I personally believe that the world is a beautiful place, one worth living in and saving. I believe people are, by and large, beautiful creatures, more good than bad.
As writers, we are obligated to write the truth as we understand it. I steal from those around me constantly. I am not a creator, I am a thief. But I've found people have a hard time seeing themselves even when looking in a mirror, let alone under a few layers of fiction. And even if they did - I can be content knowing that I write out of a place of love. If they find it hurtful, that is outside my control. That which is under my control, my motivation and my method, I am at peace with.
That said, I have based a couple of villains on real people I have known. If they were to recognize themselves, which I doubt they would, I could care less. Although I think the vast majority of us are primarily good, there are those that cross the line into something very, very dark, and there's nothing wrong with writing that truth.
As far as Faulkner and his ilk are concerned - ultimately, it's the same principle - write the truth as you understand it. I'm sure a lot of writers genuinely believe the world is a dark and cruel place, and must be navigated as such. But so often it feels like affectation to me, reaction inspired by the fear that happiness reveals a lack intellectual heft. Hemingway's line comes to mind - "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." I say, "BS disaffected malaise is boringly common amongst pseudo-intellectual cowards." Happiness is a choice, and it isn't an easy one. It takes courage to be happy. It takes strength to look the world in the eye and choose love, anyway. "So screw you, Hemingway, you cowardly misogynistic bastard," I say with a smile on my face. "You too, Faulkner."
I owe my friend Matt $20, but that doesn't have anything to do with writing. Actually, now that I think about it, I can probably give him a couple of my books and call it even.
Some days it's good to be a writer.
Other than that, I write fiction, and while some people may act as a primary inspiration, I try to craft unique personalities for my characters.
I owe my family patience and encouragement in their endeavors, because that's what they gave me.
Thankfulness is my first response to the people in my life. Being the friend of "a writer" is strewn with hazards, from getting quoted or, let's call it homaged, to being ignored for weeks.
My book, The Oat Project, is a memoir about the summer in which I sowed 25 wild oats at age 37...with the help of my friends.
Though I haven't pulled punches on what actually happened with things like smoking weed, going clubbing, or at the strip club, I've made sure the story stays focused on me and my experience. That decision helps with family, too--how we see our preacher's kids' upbringing differently, for example.
Also, every friend in the book has had the option of choosing a different name.
We writers have one most basic calling, to truth-telling, whether fiction or nonfiction. That's what I see as Art.
Have I lost friends over the book? Yes. Has it strained other relationships? Yep. But it's also made others deeper and more authentic. Our readers come to know us through our words, and if it calls them to know themselves better or let themselves be known more, then riding the edge of offense is worth it.
This is an awesome question. I agree with you - Faulkner's way is completely accurate in theory but so hard to do. I am sitting on the makings of a memoir that I will probably sit on for most or all of my life because I cannot bear to expose some of the ridiculous moments in the lives of people I love, even those I loved at one time and maybe only respect from a distance at this point. I guess that means there are things more important to me than my burning desire to create. At least when it comes to nonfiction.
Why does one have to exist at the demise of the other?
Consider writing the equivalent of a job. You owe it a certain amount of dedication if you want to succeed.
For the families or partners of the writer, you must also invest time in them, or they'll forget you as much as you've ignored them.
I agree with Hemingway, an intellectual will sometimes see past their noses, a Pollyana won't. That's not always negative, I call it realistic.
Good question. I'm not sure I am up to the task of applying Faulkners cut-throat methods.
In my manuscripts, I take pieces from the people around me. For me, artistry has to come from an honest place. Like Isaiah mentioned, "anything they say can and will be used as fodder for my literary adventures," And the adventures are of my choosing. I'm with Carolyn on this, too. Flaws makes characters more interesting. I pick and choose the ones I want from the people around me, stretch and amplify them until I have what I want. The inspired source usually has no clue- like the saying that every family has at least one crazy person. If you don't know who it is, it's probably you. The people I love are both good and imperfect. As a writer, my imagination can only take me so far. For the rest, I must write what I know.
My environment sparks creativity. If the unflattering characters are similar to anyone I know... it's not my intention to offend and I hope that my friends and family would be happy to know I draw so much inspiration from them.
I'm of the people come first variety, particularly as you can write great work any which way while treating people any way you choose. As has been pretty much proven by the wide variety of successful writers out there. I love Faulkner as a writer, but such comments always strike me as more about the image or persona a writer wants to convey about themselves as it does the artistic process they deem necessary. It's more about the vanity of perception than about the perception of art.
So interesting. I struggle with trying to convince people that I'm not writing about them or myself. It's fiction...I swear!! That being said, there are little nuggets of reality that I pull out of my everyday life to insert into my books because, honestly, how can you not.
Wow, great question, Nathan!
I like your description of Falkner coming from the 'kill, maim, dismember school of artistry.' Ha! :)
This is an ethical choice, which makes me happy. I could talk about ethics all day. :) Where I'm leaning with ethics is that there are definitely wrong answers, but I'm not sure there are definitely right ones. The right ones seem to be a weighing of values, and choosing which value is most important to you.
This one pits doing good in the world through kindness and responibility to other people vs. doing good in the world through your truth and following your calling. It's not an easy one, and it may be the answer is in the grey area.
Since memoir is one thing that I plan to write, I'm sure I'll grapple with this. I think where I'm leaning toward is the Buddhist precept of: Do no harm.
If I genuinely think that something I write will be harmful, I'll try to find another way to write it. But harm is tricky, because just because someone's feelings have been hurt, doesn't mean I've harmed them. They may benefit from being told a difficult truth. But I don't really know that - it's impossible to know in advance how something will affect someone else. And it's none of my business, in some ways, because I don't have the right to decide how someone else is impacted. But I also don't want to be irresponsibly hurtful. So, it's tricky. It could also be argued that holding back on my truth harms me, and that holding back on truth deprives the world of an honest voice and clarity of vision.
So, in this rambling comment (sorry) I once again come to this conclusion:
Ethical responsibility means you make the best choice you can based on your priority of values. In other words, although you may value both, what is ultimately of greater value to you: Kindness or your truth. For me, it's probably truth, when done carefully.
But I believe ethical responsiblity means you do things with your eyes open. Sorry, Falkner, but you don't get to make a blanket statement that it doesn't matter that people got hurt because you choose truth over kindness, you acknowledge that it does matter, but because of your values, that was the best choice you could make. Eyes open. Sometimes sacrifice must be made, but maturity means you acknowledge that and accept the emotional impact of it.
Well, that was fun. I love talking ethics. :) Thanks for giving me a place to work this out, Nathan!
I’m reminded of the quotation whose source eludes me at the moment, though repeated by Anne Lamott- “A writer should write as if their parents are dead.”
Ouch
I think the real point of Faulkner's quote has been overlooked. I don't think it has to do with writing about people you know.
Taylor-
What do you think is his real point?
I don't think in the quote I pulled he meant he was literally going to throw over his mom, but in the extended quote in the article he talks about the real-world consequences of pursuing writing as art, in terms of poverty and relationships. I extended that to memoirists just because it's all in the same ballpark - what real world consequences are writers willing to endure in pursuit of their work?
I understand what he means - and if something is worth doing, it is worth doing wholeheartedly. But . . . what an arrogant, depressing quote: "the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies." I would like to think one human life is worth more than any material - even artistic things - and until all humanity agrees, what a miserable world. And what egotistical, horrible people such a comment makes art-makers seem!
Hmmmm. I hesitate to come down too hard on ole Faulkner (and boy do I love that "old ladies" quote) because what he created wasn't possible without some damage, then I'm not sure I'd change anything. I imagine many of our greatest historical pieces, works of art, etc are built with much pain and suffering not only to the artist but to those around him, as well. It would be a shame to not have those pyramids in Egypt!
Grain of salt!
But I wouldn't do it. I couldn't do it. People first, like Bryan says.
I would rather be a good human than a good writer. No creative endeavor outranks the emotional well-being of my friends.
I am struggling with this very thing and change my mind daily on the ethics - but yet the story haunts and wants out.
Perhaps I can fictualize more of it once the core truth is out there.
What's that line -- just because you're a great writer doesn't mean you can't be a complete jackass? Oh, okay. Maybe that's not a line after all. But it could be!
The excerpt you quoted says, basically, "The end justifies the means."
And we all know the kind of society that yields. Faulkner himself knew. This strikes me as a perfect response from someone with his/her legacy in mind at the time of an interview, not necessarily as advice.
The artists’ children get the last word:
Last Rites: The Death of William Saroyan --- A son's journal written during his father's last days, Last Rites tells a more complex and moving story than the senior Saroyan ever allowed.
Heritage -- A fictionalized autobiography. Rebecca West never forgave her son for depicting in Heritage the relationship between an illegitimate son and his two world-famous, unmarried parents, and for portraying the mother in unflattering terms.
I think the key phrase there is "if he is a good one."
Looking at from the long view:
1. People will get over it.
2. Even if they don't, they will eventually die. (Most without leaving any discernible impact on the world.)
3. A good book will last forever.
well, to write is to want to tell the truth about something.Perhaps, somethings about your environment or even somethings about yourself.There's no better way to do that than by relating with the People around you.Out of the hearts and the things around you that's where you will find some insight into human imperfection or human perfection out of that will you tell the truth.I also personally believe there's such thing as revelation.So, if you only write what is reveal to you.Then that's a different matter.
oluwafemi Balogun
Author of From my soul to life and the society I love.
email me @ [email protected]
Rick Daley hit the nail on the head, especially regarding crafting unique characters. It always puzzles me when writers say that some character is based on (and basically equivalent to) someone they know in real life. It seems a bit lazy to me, in all honesty. I value creativity, and so I prefer that when people are inspired by an event or base a character off someone they know, they add enough twists and depth that transforms the character into something original. (Of course, this is much easier said than done, especially if the person on whom you're basing the character on is colorful and evokes strong feelings on his or her own.)
I'm all for discipline, and I'm all for being inspired by everything around you, but I often don't get this ruthless do-what-you-must-and-damn-the-consequences mentality. However, that's because I'm a novelist; I'm writing fiction, and there's no reason I need to jeopardize a relationship by putting a carbon copy of someone on my pages. When it comes to non-fiction and memoirs, the situation gets stickier. One has to consider the consequences to the relationship against the benefits gained or truth served of painting someone in an unflattering (or worse) light. I suppose, if nothing else, the writer must be prepared to sacrifice that relationship and understand the fallout that may occur with other mutual friends, relatives, or acquaintances.
For supportive relationships, I also agree with Rick Daley that those who provide patience and encouragement are owed the same. Everyone has dreams and troubles. Writers don't get special privileges in those areas.
Right on, maloneycj.
Except for a handful of true geniuses in a generation, the result won't justify the cost. In any case, it's an incredibly egotistical idea. "My art is more important than you." Oh yeah? Your art better be spec-fu**ing-tacular, then, buddy.
Some might ask, "How do you know if you're one of those geniuses if you don't sacrifice all else for your art? Shouldn't you try?" I might answer, "If you have to ask the question, you ain't it."
Write as if it were your last day alive.
Scratch that.
Write as if you're already dead.
I don't put my husband into my books. Or my parents, my sister, or my stepchild. I rarely blog about them. None of them are writers, and they haven't chosen to make themselves somewhat public, the way I have.
But all of them have made certain sacrifices to support my writing: sacrifices of time, energy, money. Not seeing me as much as they'd like to.
On the other hand, that would also be true if I were a doctor, a pilot, or the Secretary of State. Our callings ask a price of us and our loved ones. To me that's part of living a fulfilling life. My husband could see me more often if I didn't write, but he'd be seeing a miserable me, because that's how I get when I don't write.
The balance is something each of us strike individually. Sometimes we're shut away writing. Sometimes we turn our backs on the writing desk to engage with those around us.
I have been thinking about the memoir issue you raised, though, having just finished reading Joyce Maynard's AT HOME IN THE WORLD, about her relationship with JD Salinger.
Could a poet who'd robbed his mother have written "Ode on a Grecian Urn"?
I write under a pen name as well as my own name. Because I incorporate personalities, stories and tidbits of people and situations I am more comfortable knowing that they and I will remain anonymous.
A great writer has the ability, the inspiration, the integrity to write the truth-- not at the expense of others, only at their own expense.
It would have been a different poem, maybe a better one...
Thanks for asking the question. It has made me realize one of my biggest blocks in writing fiction is an attempt to protect those individuals, specifically one individual, who figure prominently in most of my stories. I have often argued with myself that this person does not really deserve protection - prior warning and deplorable behavior and all that - but all I've managed to do is bury it and keep the stories to myself. All your answers in the comments have helped me realize this and the importance of letting it out and letting it go. And hey, there's always a chance that the person in question won't recognize themselves in my work :)
Unless you're a memoirist, in which case your on the chopping block from the get-go, what do you need to worry about? People almost never recognize themselves as characters and most writers tend to flavor even the most realistic portrayal of a friend or family member. But, if someone does recognize themselves and feels insulted, you can always lie and say you based your character on someone else to save their feelings. You don't need to be deliberately hurtful to create art; in fact, basing a character on someone should make you more creative.
And...as long as you give the people you love some of your time, I tend to think they'll still love you during the "Faulkner" stages of writing.
Faulkner was obviously not a mom. Read my post @ Linda Clare's Writer's Tips http://www.lindasclare.com
I have the right to my story, and the responsibility to respect that my family and friends have the same right; the right to my creative passion, and the responsibility to respect that right for those around me. While I would like to think I wouldn't steal from my mother for my art, I have no problems telling my kids to go make their own snacks because Mommy is writing.
I have to think about this for a while. It might take some time, too. Don't laugh either. I've often wondered about this.
For writing memoirs, Anne Lamont had this to say: “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
As far as behaving well ourselves, I aim for a balanced life. That means time for writing and time for the people I love. Why does it have to be one or the other?
I have at least one manuscript that I've thrown to the digital weeds because my then-hubby thought one of my characters was close to him in some way. And because of this same person, an official ex-hubby, I've resisted doing a contemporary story because he asked me not to depict him in a story. I agreed. Didn't owe it to him, but was willing to acquiesce.
I struggle with conflicting thoughts about this topic all the time.
I agree with Faulkner 100%. But I'm rightfully scared of his advice as well. I chose to create a pen name in order to offer a bit of a privacy buffer to myself, my friends, my family, and my enemies as well. I think everyone deserves privacy and the right to be left alone.
It gets more complicated in our circumstances vs. Faulkner's, what with the internet. Books aren't being disseminated to strangers as often as they are to the author's friends and family. In that scenario, you might be more likely to get something like that "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy decides to become a novelist and stick Ricky, Fred and Ethel in there. And then everybody sues for libel.
Art is whatever you can get away with according to Andy Warhol and almost everyone else who's "made it." But you have you make SURE you have the psychological fortitude to get away with it. I think the important thing is to be patient and sort out your feelings.
But ultimately, your life experiences are your property and your right. The people around you can't help but become a part of your life's story.
I think it's one thing for a writer to base a character on someone he or she knows. But I think it's another thing if a writer were to reveal secrets told to him or her in confidence, even if those secrets were "fictionalized". If that happened to me, I'd feel angry and violated.
I love Faulkner, but I don't subscribe to his theory of the artist. Writers are not a strange species with its own morality; we are still people who owe things to our parents and friends and spouses and children. I think that writing should be integrated with relationships so that the two feed each other, rather than destroying each other. It may be a hard balance to achieve, but it can be done.
On the subject of taking elements from people we know for characters, or the more delicate matter of writing memoirs, writers can tell the truth, but with respect. I've read blog posts where writers say horribly insulting things about one parent, while praising the other parent to the sky. That may be their opinion, but it's off-putting since the reader feels the lack of respect.
To be sure, writing is about our emotions and our raw experience, but I think they must be recollected in tranquility and made sense of by the activity of our minds. If that's the case, it should be a matter of course to take memories, even painful ones involving other people, and present them in such a way that they retain their power, but don't lash out at those involved.
I've been in a situation where I neglected my partner so I could spend most of my time on the computer writing, composing, illustrating my stories. I was obsessed with it back then and only really happy when creating something. Ironically, after he left because of loneliness and neglect, I began tapering off creative work. I just didn't realise or think how my total committment to creativity was affecting him, although sometimes I felt guilty when he popped his head around the office door with a humorous anecdote from something he'd just watched on TV. I realise, with horror, that I was selfish. However, he did ask to come back some years later, so maybe the situation wasn't that horrendous.
I also realise now that if one appreciates the people in one's life, they must be shown this appreciation and effection otherwise they will leave - and are entitled to. Sometimes the shock and pain of their loss is enough to make such inroads into our energy and creativity that we lose both our love and our gift. So being generous with our time and affection towards the ones we love is definitely a win-win.
The other aspect you raised, Nathan, about basing a character on someone you know is also a position I've been in. I know a very elderly lady who is such a quirky and incredible person that I started writing a whole book about her. When she visited, I'd sit beside the laptop typing down her words as she spoke. This was all with her permission and good will. We'd laugh at our (usually one-sided) conversations when I read it back afterwards. I also based a character on someone whom I didn't like nearly as much. I used a different name and place so he was fairly unrecognizable. He didn't seem to mind when he read the scenes involving his character. I never mentioned it was him, but he guessed from the familiarity of the dialogue. It was strange that he didn't mind being recreated as the bad guy. Well, at least, that was the impression he gave. *gulp* I also realise now that the feelings of one's friends and acquaintances have to be treated with a whole lot of tenderness and respect as we all have fragile self esteems that can be undermined so easily. Without a healthy self-esteem it's very hard to achieve and become successful at anything or even form satisfying relationships, so we have to be mindful at all times of not eroding this important aspect of those around us - even if it means undercutting our own ego. Just thought of a popular saying: If you forget yourself, then others will remember you.
This is a quote I live by:
"No success in life can compensate for failure in the home." ~David O. McKay
I'm certain when lying on their deathbed, no one ever said they wished they had spent more time at the office. There needs to be balance.
Fiction can be a wonderful disguise for real life characters, but be careful. When my dad read my first attempt at a novel he wanted to kick my husband's butt.
Wow. In a way I've spent my whole life thinking about Faulkner's words. I beleived them when I was a young person. I think that his attitude can be extremely damaging to a young person that wants to become a writer, and here's why. I interpet him to be saying that not only as a writer is his work worth more than a regular person is worth, but that he, himself, is not a regular person. But the truth is that we are all "regular" people and a young writer has a long way to go - the sheer amount of time it takes to learn to write, let alone to become successful at it. To live as Faulkner suggests is to live in a climate of isolation and hostility towards the world, I think. It's taken me my entire writing life to arrive at a place where I understand that my writing is not opposed to the rest of my life, but rather the two inform and enrich one another; that I am not different or better than other people, writing is just the way that I express my creativity. Other people express theirs in other ways but it's all the same energy. The writer part of myself is not better or separate from the other parts of myself. This is such a complicated issue, especially when you throw in what it's like to have to make a living in spite of your writing ambitions. I actually spent seventeen years writing a novel about this exact issue as I tried to work it out for myself.
This post reminded me of a t-shirt I once saw, "Don't mess with me or I'll put you in my novel!"
I think writers owe people in their lives respect. By that, I mean yes, of course writers are inspired by real events and by real people they know, so there is no way you can be immune to the way they seep into your creative process. But it also makes for better writing when you massage reality and blend events and mix them up and change a character trait or two. That's where the creativity comes in, and that also is how one's writing taps into universal characters and themes and gets to a deeper story.
If my family didn't want to end up in my writing, they shouldn't have been so evil.
I found this pretty hard to do as I was writing my first book. When I started writing it, I used people's names and then realized that would easily backfire so I changed the names. Still, I struggled with the thought of how I could be offending/ hurting people by even using any likeness of them in a very real story about my life/ personal growth. In the end, I decided that the story was about me and my life, and how said persons had interacted with it at one point or another. I still tried to be as tactful and respectful as possible, but went with the story I had burning inside of me. Had it just been about me and no other characters, it would not have been as interesting.