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The Snopes Trilogy #2
The Town
This is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South. Like its predecessor The Hamlet & its successor The Mansion, The Town is completely self-contained, but it gains resonance from being read with the other two. The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, the book is rich in typically Faulknerian episodes of humor & of profundity.
379 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1957
63 people are currently reading
2926 people want to read
About the author
William Faulkner
1,352 books10.7k followersWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. A Nobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and often is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature.
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.
Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.
Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
September 21, 2024
Just as in The Hamlet, the saga of Flem Snopes drives the plot here and we learn about him only from the observations and opinions of others, i.e. the three narrators, sewing machine salesman and gossip savant V.K. Ratliff, chivalrous County Attorney Gavin Stevens, and his nephew Charles "Chip" Mallison.
They relate Flem's rise from working in a back alley restaurant in Jefferson, Mississippi, to the pinnacle of its economic and social elite as bank president, while wife Eula and Mayor Manfred de Spain cuckold him, and the impact of these things on the Snopes's daughter Linda, in the years before and after World War I.
Livening things up: a peep show does a good trade until it's raided, one of the newfangled automobiles invading Jefferson accidentally kills old Colonel Sartoris, a Snopes embezzles a bank, the drug store is robbed of cash and narcotics, and there's even still some good old-fashioned crooked mule dealings going on.
Because the tragedy of life is, it must be premature, inconclusive and inconcludable, in order to be life; it must be before itself, in advance of itself, to have been at all.
He doesn't just think on the past.
They relate Flem's rise from working in a back alley restaurant in Jefferson, Mississippi, to the pinnacle of its economic and social elite as bank president, while wife Eula and Mayor Manfred de Spain cuckold him, and the impact of these things on the Snopes's daughter Linda, in the years before and after World War I.
Livening things up: a peep show does a good trade until it's raided, one of the newfangled automobiles invading Jefferson accidentally kills old Colonel Sartoris, a Snopes embezzles a bank, the drug store is robbed of cash and narcotics, and there's even still some good old-fashioned crooked mule dealings going on.
Because the tragedy of life is, it must be premature, inconclusive and inconcludable, in order to be life; it must be before itself, in advance of itself, to have been at all.
He doesn't just think on the past.
May 15, 2025
Superb, this, the second in the Snopes trilogy, is an improvement from and much more accessible than The Hamlet, the trilogy's first, and than all Faulkner other than The Unvanquished, which is a series of shorts, and Light in August.
I was most certainly surprised, saddened and ultimately edified upon learning of the fate of a critical and highly symbolic character, bound to doom by the growing commercialization of the American South in the first few decades of the 20th Century.
I was most certainly surprised, saddened and ultimately edified upon learning of the fate of a critical and highly symbolic character, bound to doom by the growing commercialization of the American South in the first few decades of the 20th Century.
April 7, 2024
I like this second novel of The Snopes trilogy (it can certainly be read as a stand-alone) much more than the first one, The Hamlet, though it's partly a retelling of the first (the first 1/3 is mostly flashbacks though by different voices, a Faulknerian trait, for sure) but of course more of it is a continuation, told from three viewpoints, to be taken as a sampling of the community. Within the narration of these three, there is much humor to be found, at least in the first 3/4 of the book, and perhaps that was what was missing for me in The Hamlet, which I know is supposed to have its own humor, but for me it was ponderous and laborious.
Sarcasm and ludicrousness sprinkled here and there produced chuckles of recognition, but somewhere in the middle is a hilarious set-piece (also published as the short story 'Mule in the Yard'). It starts with a mule trespassing on the handkerchief-sized yard of Mrs. Hait, and I immediately thought of Betsey Trotwood and the donkeys on her own patch of green in David Copperfield (Mrs. Hait even has her own Janet, by the name of old Het), but with Faulkner the premise is run amok, with fog, a cow, chickens and ... well, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. The ending of the piece is dark, but perfect. As County Attorney Gavin Stevens says after the incident when Flem Snopes asks how much he owes him: ... started to say One dollar ... or your knife or your pencil or just anything so that when I wake up tomorrow I'll know I didn't dream this.
I suppose I could've given this one more star, except that it's not of the best of Faulkner. For example, though I realize her story is filtered through one of the narrators, when Eula spoke at the end it was exactly as if Stevens was speaking and it took me way out of the story.
The ending of the novel, a great set-piece on its own, almost feels tacked-on and is different in tone than the rest of the novel, which I don't think is a problem for the theme, but in a way it seemed forced and might have fit better with the first novel.
Sarcasm and ludicrousness sprinkled here and there produced chuckles of recognition, but somewhere in the middle is a hilarious set-piece (also published as the short story 'Mule in the Yard'). It starts with a mule trespassing on the handkerchief-sized yard of Mrs. Hait, and I immediately thought of Betsey Trotwood and the donkeys on her own patch of green in David Copperfield (Mrs. Hait even has her own Janet, by the name of old Het), but with Faulkner the premise is run amok, with fog, a cow, chickens and ... well, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. The ending of the piece is dark, but perfect. As County Attorney Gavin Stevens says after the incident when Flem Snopes asks how much he owes him: ... started to say One dollar ... or your knife or your pencil or just anything so that when I wake up tomorrow I'll know I didn't dream this.
I suppose I could've given this one more star, except that it's not of the best of Faulkner. For example, though I realize her story is filtered through one of the narrators, when Eula spoke at the end it was exactly as if Stevens was speaking and it took me way out of the story.
The ending of the novel, a great set-piece on its own, almost feels tacked-on and is different in tone than the rest of the novel, which I don't think is a problem for the theme, but in a way it seemed forced and might have fit better with the first novel.
August 10, 2025
“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” — William Faulkner, on receiving the Nobel Prize
And with those beautiful words from Willian Faulkner when presented with the Nobel Prize, The Town, the second volume of Faulkner’s trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping and destructive element in the postbellum South, was published in 1957 followed by the last book in the trilogy, The Mansion published in 1959.
The Town is considered a key book in the Snopes Trilogy as it explores themes of greed, ambition, and the struggle for respectability in post-Civil War Mississippi. The narrative centers around Flem Snopes who seeks control of Jefferson, Mississippi, just as he ruthlessly seized control of Frenchman’s Bend through his marriage to Eula Varner, the daughter of a prominent local landowner. It is in this narrative that we come to know various characters opposed to Flem Snopes plans, namely Gavin Stevens, a lawyer dedicated to defending the town’s integrity as has his father, Judge Stevens. And then there is the salesman, V.K. Ratliff, a man who embraces the perspective of the citizenry. As tensions escalate, The Town is a rich and riveting exploration of the darker side of the human condition. I certainly could relate to this book so much more than the previous book in the trilogy and am looking forward to reading the final book in the Snopes Trilogy.
July 10, 2024
This work is the second part of the saga of the cunning Snopes family. The humor and irony already highlighted by the author in the first book of the trilogy, "The Hamlet," are maintained. I recommend it despite Faulkner not being a very accessible read.
April 12, 2022
The Town is nearly perfect judged as a section of Snopes. As a stand-alone novel it is merely great.
Faulkner's use of three disparate narrators allows many opportunities for clever and inventive prose.
Snopes, however, must be read in its entirety (The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion, in that order) for the reader to wholly appreciate the grandeur of the author's vision.
Faulkner's use of three disparate narrators allows many opportunities for clever and inventive prose.
Snopes, however, must be read in its entirety (The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion, in that order) for the reader to wholly appreciate the grandeur of the author's vision.
November 1, 2021
"Como dijo Ratliff, al señor Snopes se le escapaba probablemente gran parte de lo que la gente decía a sus espaldas, pero no se le escapaba lo que la gente no le decía a la cara."
Cuando me sumergí en esta segunda novela de la serie de los Snopes, pensé que no habría ya mucho que me fuera a sorprender. Hace menos de un mes leí “El Villorrio” y ahí ya se despliegan una serie de personajes en torno a la figura central de Flem Snopes, un arribista, ambiguo y amoral a quien no le importa barrer a quien se le ponga en el camino para conseguir sus fines, todos en torno al dinero. He leído por ahí que en La Ciudad está considerada una novela menor, que funciona como un satélie de la primera de la serie, y sin embargo, a mi me ha parecido justo lo contrario. En La Ciudad, Faulkner no solo lleva a las últimas consecuencias muchos de los temas planteados en El Villorrío, sino que no le importa arriesgar y convertir en personajes humanos (con sus virtudes y sus defectos) dos personajes que habían funcionado como simbolos o incluso metáforas, y me estoy refiriendo a Eula Varner y al mismísimo Flem Snopes.
"-Invierte usted demasiado tiempo en esperar. No espere. Usted simplemente existe, necesita, ha de conseguir y por tanto actúa. Eso es todo. No pierda el tiempo esperando."
William Faulkner creó El Villorrio como una metáfora de la caída del Sur tras la Guerra Civil, y en La Ciudad continúa con su obsesión por la simbologia que impregna el imaginario condado de Yoknapatawpha: plantaciones fantasmales, campos de batalla y tumbas por doquier, esclavos que aunque ya no lo sean, mentalmente lo siguen siendo a través de una fidelidad a lo que queda de la aristocracia sureña, en definitiva fantasmas que pululan no solo metafóricamente sino a través de muchos personajes que no son capaces de gestionar este cambio de los tiempos.
"...pero lo cierto es que me metió en la cabeza la idea, igual que había hecho con Gowan, de que los Snopes se cernían sobre Jefferson como una invasión de serpientes o alimañas procedentes de los bosques, y de que tío Gavin y él eran los únicos que se daban cuenta del peligro y de la amenaza que suponían...".
En La Ciudad, Faulkner sigue con la historia del ascenso social de Flem Snopes, que tras su paso por Frenchman’s Bend y haberse hecho un hueco, se le queda pequeña la aldeíta, se traslada y se centra en la ciudad más grande de Jefferson, que es la localización de esta segunda novela de la serie. A través de 3 narradores, cuya objetividad a veces resulta un tanto ambigua, se van narrando los hechos de este ascenso de Flem Snopes, haciéndose dueño poco a poco de lo que le rodea. Un detalle que me fascina de la técnica narrativa de Faulkner es que hasta ahora y por lo que llevo leído de él, cuenta la historia a través de varios narradores, de rumores, de cotilleos, de anécdotas del pasado… y llegado un punto el lector se tiene que plantear si lo que le está llegando argumentalmente, es realmente objetivo o solo resultado de estos rumores locales, historias que se van transformando de unos a otros, perdiéndose la historia original en el camino. Llegado un punto el lector sabe que no le queda otra que creerse lo que le está contando el narrador no fiable, y que es casi imposible bucear entre esta maraña de historias y versiones de la misma historia, un detalle que me parece esencial en la estructura narrativa de sus novelas para comprender la mentalidad y el pensamiento de sus gentes. La novela está dividida en 24 capítulos repartidos entre estos 3 narradores… ¿cuál de ellos es el más objetivo cuando dos de ellos odian a muerte a Flem Snopes????
"Era su padre, y si no la había dejado ir a la universidad fue porque la quería, puesto que ésa era la razón que todos los padres parecen tener para las cosas que no dejan hacer a sus hijos..."
No voy a detenerme mucho más en esta reseña, porque lo más esencial de esta serie de los Snopes lo desglosé en mi reseña de El Villorrio, pero si es verdad que aunque en general la crítica diga lo contrario, en La Ciudad noto que Faulkner ha evolucionado porque como ya mencionaba al principio hay dos personajes centrales, que funcionaban como simbolos (por una parte el de Eula Varner que representa la tierra, la naturaleza en su estado más puro, y por otra parte, el personaje de Flem Snopes, que representa la falta de moral y de ideales), en esta novela ya Faulkner deja esta simbologia y los convierte en personajes humanos, a ras de suelo, capaces de desesperación e incluso de momentos de dudas. En fin, que una vez más me tengo que poner a los pies de William Faulkner en una novela donde desglosa la esencia de la condición humana. El último capítulo es fascinante porque se convierte en una especie de relato de terror sobre la condición humana en su estado más esperpéntico. Genio.
"De manera que cuando vimos por primera vez a la señora Snopes cruzar la plaza dando la terrible impresión de que al cabo de un segundo su misma piel quemaría la ropa que llevaba, sin dejar siquiera un velo de cenizas entre ella y la luz del día, nos pareció que estabamos viendo con nuestros propios ojos al Destino..."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
Cuando me sumergí en esta segunda novela de la serie de los Snopes, pensé que no habría ya mucho que me fuera a sorprender. Hace menos de un mes leí “El Villorrio” y ahí ya se despliegan una serie de personajes en torno a la figura central de Flem Snopes, un arribista, ambiguo y amoral a quien no le importa barrer a quien se le ponga en el camino para conseguir sus fines, todos en torno al dinero. He leído por ahí que en La Ciudad está considerada una novela menor, que funciona como un satélie de la primera de la serie, y sin embargo, a mi me ha parecido justo lo contrario. En La Ciudad, Faulkner no solo lleva a las últimas consecuencias muchos de los temas planteados en El Villorrío, sino que no le importa arriesgar y convertir en personajes humanos (con sus virtudes y sus defectos) dos personajes que habían funcionado como simbolos o incluso metáforas, y me estoy refiriendo a Eula Varner y al mismísimo Flem Snopes.
"-Invierte usted demasiado tiempo en esperar. No espere. Usted simplemente existe, necesita, ha de conseguir y por tanto actúa. Eso es todo. No pierda el tiempo esperando."
William Faulkner creó El Villorrio como una metáfora de la caída del Sur tras la Guerra Civil, y en La Ciudad continúa con su obsesión por la simbologia que impregna el imaginario condado de Yoknapatawpha: plantaciones fantasmales, campos de batalla y tumbas por doquier, esclavos que aunque ya no lo sean, mentalmente lo siguen siendo a través de una fidelidad a lo que queda de la aristocracia sureña, en definitiva fantasmas que pululan no solo metafóricamente sino a través de muchos personajes que no son capaces de gestionar este cambio de los tiempos.
"...pero lo cierto es que me metió en la cabeza la idea, igual que había hecho con Gowan, de que los Snopes se cernían sobre Jefferson como una invasión de serpientes o alimañas procedentes de los bosques, y de que tío Gavin y él eran los únicos que se daban cuenta del peligro y de la amenaza que suponían...".
En La Ciudad, Faulkner sigue con la historia del ascenso social de Flem Snopes, que tras su paso por Frenchman’s Bend y haberse hecho un hueco, se le queda pequeña la aldeíta, se traslada y se centra en la ciudad más grande de Jefferson, que es la localización de esta segunda novela de la serie. A través de 3 narradores, cuya objetividad a veces resulta un tanto ambigua, se van narrando los hechos de este ascenso de Flem Snopes, haciéndose dueño poco a poco de lo que le rodea. Un detalle que me fascina de la técnica narrativa de Faulkner es que hasta ahora y por lo que llevo leído de él, cuenta la historia a través de varios narradores, de rumores, de cotilleos, de anécdotas del pasado… y llegado un punto el lector se tiene que plantear si lo que le está llegando argumentalmente, es realmente objetivo o solo resultado de estos rumores locales, historias que se van transformando de unos a otros, perdiéndose la historia original en el camino. Llegado un punto el lector sabe que no le queda otra que creerse lo que le está contando el narrador no fiable, y que es casi imposible bucear entre esta maraña de historias y versiones de la misma historia, un detalle que me parece esencial en la estructura narrativa de sus novelas para comprender la mentalidad y el pensamiento de sus gentes. La novela está dividida en 24 capítulos repartidos entre estos 3 narradores… ¿cuál de ellos es el más objetivo cuando dos de ellos odian a muerte a Flem Snopes????
"Era su padre, y si no la había dejado ir a la universidad fue porque la quería, puesto que ésa era la razón que todos los padres parecen tener para las cosas que no dejan hacer a sus hijos..."
No voy a detenerme mucho más en esta reseña, porque lo más esencial de esta serie de los Snopes lo desglosé en mi reseña de El Villorrio, pero si es verdad que aunque en general la crítica diga lo contrario, en La Ciudad noto que Faulkner ha evolucionado porque como ya mencionaba al principio hay dos personajes centrales, que funcionaban como simbolos (por una parte el de Eula Varner que representa la tierra, la naturaleza en su estado más puro, y por otra parte, el personaje de Flem Snopes, que representa la falta de moral y de ideales), en esta novela ya Faulkner deja esta simbologia y los convierte en personajes humanos, a ras de suelo, capaces de desesperación e incluso de momentos de dudas. En fin, que una vez más me tengo que poner a los pies de William Faulkner en una novela donde desglosa la esencia de la condición humana. El último capítulo es fascinante porque se convierte en una especie de relato de terror sobre la condición humana en su estado más esperpéntico. Genio.
"De manera que cuando vimos por primera vez a la señora Snopes cruzar la plaza dando la terrible impresión de que al cabo de un segundo su misma piel quemaría la ropa que llevaba, sin dejar siquiera un velo de cenizas entre ella y la luz del día, nos pareció que estabamos viendo con nuestros propios ojos al Destino..."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
August 8, 2014
A masterpiece.
Everyone puts The Hamlet on a pedestal and although i enjoyed it, personally speaking The Town is Faulkner at his utter and inimitable best.
First, all the Snopes characters in the trilogy are so singular and unforgettable that you can tell Faulkner was writing for eternity when he composed this trilogy. First we have the devious, intelligent, empire-building Flem Snopes who proceeds to slowly take over the town of Jefferson here bit by bit. Think about that title - The Town - so simple but perfect. Not only does it represent the ever-increasing size and sweep of Flem's ascending empire since The Hamlet but it also represents the citizens of Jefferson, their jealousy (as far as I can see) for his rapid rise and success and their condemnation of various moral outrages that occur in this story, some which can be laid at Flem's door, others not. Then we have I. O. Snopes who often has money problems (I like the wry joke by Faulkner there - "I owe (Snopes)") and is involved in some fishy business whether it is sending his half-breed Indian children to Jefferson or trying to sell off mules. Then we have Montgomery Ward Snopes and his pornographic picture shop. And my personal favourite Wallstreet Panic Snopes, who is a young and up-and-coming whippersnapper running successful downtown grocery stores and possibly the only threat to Flem's small-town empire.
Then you have the other great characters in this book - Mr. de Spain, son of Major de Spain an unforgettable character in the hunting stories of Go Down, Moses. I remember being shocked when I read Sanctuary, when I finally found out how the corncob pipe had been used and I'll never be able to think the same about it again. How could you? Same with the corsage in this story - the unsavoury 'gift' that de Spain presents to Gavin Stevens, without giving more away. Gavin Stevens and V.K. Ratklif have to be my personal favourites though - Stevens is a lawyer with strong values and someone intent on stopping the Snopes if anyone at all is going to but someone who always gets caught up in the whirlwind of beautiful women, just like in other books. A sucker for anything that wiggles in skirts basically. Ratklif, on the other hand, is the model citizen, albeit a slightly uneducated one at that, but who seems to have the town's interests at heart. Both he and Stevens are two of the main narrators of this story along with Charles Mallison, Stevens' nephew who narrate parts of the story from the child's viewpoint, much like Vardaman does in As I Lay Dying. Maggie, Steven's twin sister is the backbone of rectitude which holds both of them together and she is one of the strongest women in Faulkner's canon I feel.
Finally, we have of course the unforgettable, sexy and voluptuous Eula Varner (who becomes Mrs. Flem Snopes) a veritable Jezzebel if there ever was one and the eye candy crush of Jefferson. I could never figure out if Stevens was more in love with Eula or with her equally beautiful daughter Linda...or both, if it is possible to be in love with two people at the same time.
Other things I learned from Faulkner from reading this trilogy.
1. You don't need to always spell things out for the reader to understand what happens. Often Faulkner will drop subtle hints along the way until finally it clicks that 'oh someone just got murdered' or 'knocked up' or whatever.
2. The power of rumour in his books is amazing - through narrators and the lack of alter-narratives (or rumours to the contrary), the reader finds oneself having no choice but to believe the rumour circulated within the narrative because there is no other way to situate the characters. This is something that blew me away in Faulkner's work and largely reflects the effect second-hand narratives can have on us in real life.
3. Writing does not have to be smooth, just like life. I like how Faulkner lets out a belt/string of adjectives (Kerouac does this too in what he calls a 'scatalogical pile-up of words') which does full justice to the spectrum of the writer's vocabulary stockpile at any given moment and it is far more powerful than cleanly revised stripped-down edited prose.
Going to take a short break from Faulkner for a while and come back in a few weeks and read the finale to this great trilogy. This book is my all-time favourite of his because a) the story is so gripping I couldn't put it down and b) the prose is immaculate. Damn this man had a lot of talent.
Thanks to Rikkyo University Library for having a copy of this in stock which I could borrow.
Everyone puts The Hamlet on a pedestal and although i enjoyed it, personally speaking The Town is Faulkner at his utter and inimitable best.
First, all the Snopes characters in the trilogy are so singular and unforgettable that you can tell Faulkner was writing for eternity when he composed this trilogy. First we have the devious, intelligent, empire-building Flem Snopes who proceeds to slowly take over the town of Jefferson here bit by bit. Think about that title - The Town - so simple but perfect. Not only does it represent the ever-increasing size and sweep of Flem's ascending empire since The Hamlet but it also represents the citizens of Jefferson, their jealousy (as far as I can see) for his rapid rise and success and their condemnation of various moral outrages that occur in this story, some which can be laid at Flem's door, others not. Then we have I. O. Snopes who often has money problems (I like the wry joke by Faulkner there - "I owe (Snopes)") and is involved in some fishy business whether it is sending his half-breed Indian children to Jefferson or trying to sell off mules. Then we have Montgomery Ward Snopes and his pornographic picture shop. And my personal favourite Wallstreet Panic Snopes, who is a young and up-and-coming whippersnapper running successful downtown grocery stores and possibly the only threat to Flem's small-town empire.
Then you have the other great characters in this book - Mr. de Spain, son of Major de Spain an unforgettable character in the hunting stories of Go Down, Moses. I remember being shocked when I read Sanctuary, when I finally found out how the corncob pipe had been used and I'll never be able to think the same about it again. How could you? Same with the corsage in this story - the unsavoury 'gift' that de Spain presents to Gavin Stevens, without giving more away. Gavin Stevens and V.K. Ratklif have to be my personal favourites though - Stevens is a lawyer with strong values and someone intent on stopping the Snopes if anyone at all is going to but someone who always gets caught up in the whirlwind of beautiful women, just like in other books. A sucker for anything that wiggles in skirts basically. Ratklif, on the other hand, is the model citizen, albeit a slightly uneducated one at that, but who seems to have the town's interests at heart. Both he and Stevens are two of the main narrators of this story along with Charles Mallison, Stevens' nephew who narrate parts of the story from the child's viewpoint, much like Vardaman does in As I Lay Dying. Maggie, Steven's twin sister is the backbone of rectitude which holds both of them together and she is one of the strongest women in Faulkner's canon I feel.
Finally, we have of course the unforgettable, sexy and voluptuous Eula Varner (who becomes Mrs. Flem Snopes) a veritable Jezzebel if there ever was one and the eye candy crush of Jefferson. I could never figure out if Stevens was more in love with Eula or with her equally beautiful daughter Linda...or both, if it is possible to be in love with two people at the same time.
Other things I learned from Faulkner from reading this trilogy.
1. You don't need to always spell things out for the reader to understand what happens. Often Faulkner will drop subtle hints along the way until finally it clicks that 'oh someone just got murdered' or 'knocked up' or whatever.
2. The power of rumour in his books is amazing - through narrators and the lack of alter-narratives (or rumours to the contrary), the reader finds oneself having no choice but to believe the rumour circulated within the narrative because there is no other way to situate the characters. This is something that blew me away in Faulkner's work and largely reflects the effect second-hand narratives can have on us in real life.
3. Writing does not have to be smooth, just like life. I like how Faulkner lets out a belt/string of adjectives (Kerouac does this too in what he calls a 'scatalogical pile-up of words') which does full justice to the spectrum of the writer's vocabulary stockpile at any given moment and it is far more powerful than cleanly revised stripped-down edited prose.
Going to take a short break from Faulkner for a while and come back in a few weeks and read the finale to this great trilogy. This book is my all-time favourite of his because a) the story is so gripping I couldn't put it down and b) the prose is immaculate. Damn this man had a lot of talent.
Thanks to Rikkyo University Library for having a copy of this in stock which I could borrow.
February 12, 2016
The first book in the trilogy is on Bloom's Western Canon, but not this and the third in the series. I think Mr. Bloom has said there were books left out and some that he might not have put on there had he taken more time to think about it. I'm thinking he might have just put this trilogy on there and still have had just the one entry.
V.K. Ratliff continues to be a narrator in this, as do two new characters: young Charles Mallison, whose first entries remind us he wasn't born yet when the events happened, and Gavin Stevens, twin brother to Charles Mallison's mother and therefore "Uncle Gavin", and who is also the city attorney and is called "Lawyer" by Ratliff. We do learn something about the characters of these three, but Flem Snopes is really the central character; what he does and why. This continues the brilliant character study begun in The Hamlet, and which I expect will continue in The Mansion.
Again, Faulkner's prose in this is not stream of consciousness, per se, but there is often more than one thought in any sentence and many of the sentences become small scenes.
I look forward to reading the third and final installment. In fact, I may have decided with this to become a Faulkner completionist. A full, robust, five stars here.
V.K. Ratliff continues to be a narrator in this, as do two new characters: young Charles Mallison, whose first entries remind us he wasn't born yet when the events happened, and Gavin Stevens, twin brother to Charles Mallison's mother and therefore "Uncle Gavin", and who is also the city attorney and is called "Lawyer" by Ratliff. We do learn something about the characters of these three, but Flem Snopes is really the central character; what he does and why. This continues the brilliant character study begun in The Hamlet, and which I expect will continue in The Mansion.
Again, Faulkner's prose in this is not stream of consciousness, per se, but there is often more than one thought in any sentence and many of the sentences become small scenes.
Because we had all seen Mrs. Snopes by now, what few times we did see her which was usually behind the counter in the restaurant in another greasy apron, frying the hamburgers and eggs and ham and the tough pieces of steak on the grease-encrusted kerosene griddle, or maybe once a week on the Square, always alone; not, as far as we knew, going anywhere: just moving, walking in that aura of decorum and modesty and solitariness ten times more immodest and a hundred times more disturbing than one of the bathing suits young women would begin to wear about 1920 or so, as if in the second just before you looked, her garments had managed in one last frantic pell-mell scurry to overtake and cover her. Though only for a moment because in the next one, if only you followed long enough, they would wilt and fail from that mere plain and simple striding which would shred them away like the wheel of a constellation through a wisp and cling of trivial scud.Should the reader not have read The Hamlet, one can only imagine why such a creature would be the wife of the abhorrent Flem Snopes. This thought is integral to The Town because the small town of Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi (I can neither spell nor pronounce the name of this county) really is no place for a woman who can walk in such a way and feel perfectly comfortable doing so.
I look forward to reading the third and final installment. In fact, I may have decided with this to become a Faulkner completionist. A full, robust, five stars here.
March 12, 2021
This, the second novel in the Snopes trilogy, features the amusing Ratliff, the traveling salesman of sewing-machines. He analyzes what's wrong with news since Trump, TV viewers "already wanting to believe (Fox)" so not listening [see next paragraph]. The first novel in the trilogy was The Hamlet, and last may be the greatest of his novels in its moral displacement of this reader. I have taught The Mansion a couple times.
Ratliff the canny though ungrammatical talker offers teaching insights we can use with media in 2017. He can’t tell the lawyer Gavin Stevens what he knows, “Because he wouldn’t believe me. This here is the kind of thing a man has to know his—himself.” "he knowed--knew," "without no--any hard feelings." Ratliff corrects himself before Mallison, Jr. who’s been to Harvard (though he begins the book as a kid of five). “Because what somebody else tells you, you jest half believe, unless it was something you already wanted to believe…In that case, you don’t even listen to it, because you had done already agreed, and so all it does is make you think what a sensible feller it was that told you”(258). Pretty good analysis of Fox News, or alternatively, the NYT if only it didn’t get the facts right so much.
Then, on our US Prez, “a feller that jest wants money for the sake of money, there’s a few things right at the last that he wont do, will stop at. But a feller that come—came up from where he did…if there was to be any meaning in his life…there ain’t nothing he won’t do to get it…Respectability” (258). Nothing, not even eliminating Law and the FBI.
The novel has lots of humor and Ratliff’s irony in it, though mostly I’m quoting serious insights directly said. One major theme is how criminals get control of banks—here, the worst of the worst, Flem Snopes, who robs his whole family of their lands and wealth, eventually heading the bank where he does not risk his own money.
Gavin Stevens, the lawyer, summarizes this:
“He didn’t merely know that banks could be looted (his cousin Byron which he had witnessed himself), he believed, it was a tenet of his very being, that they were constantly looted; that the normal condition of a bank was a steady and decorous embezzlement, its solvency an impregnable illusion like the reputation of a woman whom everybody knows has none….Because that—the looting of them— was the reason for banks, the only reason why anybody would go to the trouble and expense of organizing one and keeping it running” (265).
The bank thief moves to Texas where he rears four kids from an Indian woman, maybe from Mexico; at any rate, they're sent back to Mexico. The kids end up self-sufficient and very aggressive (with a knife), impossible to care for. The novel ends with their being lured into town and shipped back to Texas on the train with tags on them, “Byron Snopes, El Paso, Texas.” Ratliff brings a box of oranges and apples and candybars, approaches to offer them; he says to Chick Mallison, "Come on; you ain't quite growed so they may not snap at you"(371).
Ratliff the canny though ungrammatical talker offers teaching insights we can use with media in 2017. He can’t tell the lawyer Gavin Stevens what he knows, “Because he wouldn’t believe me. This here is the kind of thing a man has to know his—himself.” "he knowed--knew," "without no--any hard feelings." Ratliff corrects himself before Mallison, Jr. who’s been to Harvard (though he begins the book as a kid of five). “Because what somebody else tells you, you jest half believe, unless it was something you already wanted to believe…In that case, you don’t even listen to it, because you had done already agreed, and so all it does is make you think what a sensible feller it was that told you”(258). Pretty good analysis of Fox News, or alternatively, the NYT if only it didn’t get the facts right so much.
Then, on our US Prez, “a feller that jest wants money for the sake of money, there’s a few things right at the last that he wont do, will stop at. But a feller that come—came up from where he did…if there was to be any meaning in his life…there ain’t nothing he won’t do to get it…Respectability” (258). Nothing, not even eliminating Law and the FBI.
The novel has lots of humor and Ratliff’s irony in it, though mostly I’m quoting serious insights directly said. One major theme is how criminals get control of banks—here, the worst of the worst, Flem Snopes, who robs his whole family of their lands and wealth, eventually heading the bank where he does not risk his own money.
Gavin Stevens, the lawyer, summarizes this:
“He didn’t merely know that banks could be looted (his cousin Byron which he had witnessed himself), he believed, it was a tenet of his very being, that they were constantly looted; that the normal condition of a bank was a steady and decorous embezzlement, its solvency an impregnable illusion like the reputation of a woman whom everybody knows has none….Because that—the looting of them— was the reason for banks, the only reason why anybody would go to the trouble and expense of organizing one and keeping it running” (265).
The bank thief moves to Texas where he rears four kids from an Indian woman, maybe from Mexico; at any rate, they're sent back to Mexico. The kids end up self-sufficient and very aggressive (with a knife), impossible to care for. The novel ends with their being lured into town and shipped back to Texas on the train with tags on them, “Byron Snopes, El Paso, Texas.” Ratliff brings a box of oranges and apples and candybars, approaches to offer them; he says to Chick Mallison, "Come on; you ain't quite growed so they may not snap at you"(371).
September 7, 2024
The Town is the second volume of Faulkner’s Snopes Trilogy. In the first book, The Hamlet, new arrival Flem Snopes led an invasion of Snopeses into the hamlet of Frenchmen’s Bend in Mississippi’s Yoknapatawpha County.
In this second volume, having experienced success in the hamlet, the ruthlessly ambitious and greedy Flem takes his young wife Eula and new baby Linda with him to the town, the Yoknapatawpha County seat of Jefferson. There we see Flem use the new resources in Jefferson to feed his desire to control and for money. A great advantage for Flem is his marriage with Eula, daughter of Will Varner, chief property owner in Frenchmen’s Bend.
Watching and sometimes participating in the events occurring in Flem’s pursuit of his desires include three characters who act as narrators of alternating chapters in this volume:
- Gavin Stevens, a young lawyer educated in Heidelberg, who is greatly fond of both Eula and Linda Snopes. Stevens feels a moral responsibility to both protect the town against the Snopes and to get Linda off to college and away from the town and Flem.
- V. K. Ratliff, a good-natured sewing machine salesman who, though uneducated, is looked to by many for his common-sense advice.
- Charles (Chick) Mallison, Stevens’s nephew who has been observing the Snopes’ activities in Yoknapatawpha County from his early childhood through adolescence.
The novel covers an approximately 20-year time period, from shortly after the birth of Eula’s daughter Linda Snopes, until Linda is approximately twenty. Besides Flem’s pursuits, vital storylines center on Eula and Linda’s attempts to distance themselves from Flem.
This second volume continued on with the best qualities of The Hamlet. Faulkner’s style had a rhythm and flow that was entrancing, and his well-drawn characters had personalities that resulted in many humorous and/or grotesque but always entertaining moments.
But I thought this novel was an improvement on the first one. The use of the alternating narrators provided for a better and clearer plot development, descriptions and scene depictions. The increased clarity was partially due to the book’s lesser reliance on previously published stories and tales for its content.
It was also more humorous and entertaining than The Hamlet. I found myself smiling through almost the entire read. This was a strange and uniquely enjoyable reading experience that was almost a 5-star read. I rate it as 4+stars.
In this second volume, having experienced success in the hamlet, the ruthlessly ambitious and greedy Flem takes his young wife Eula and new baby Linda with him to the town, the Yoknapatawpha County seat of Jefferson. There we see Flem use the new resources in Jefferson to feed his desire to control and for money. A great advantage for Flem is his marriage with Eula, daughter of Will Varner, chief property owner in Frenchmen’s Bend.
Watching and sometimes participating in the events occurring in Flem’s pursuit of his desires include three characters who act as narrators of alternating chapters in this volume:
- Gavin Stevens, a young lawyer educated in Heidelberg, who is greatly fond of both Eula and Linda Snopes. Stevens feels a moral responsibility to both protect the town against the Snopes and to get Linda off to college and away from the town and Flem.
- V. K. Ratliff, a good-natured sewing machine salesman who, though uneducated, is looked to by many for his common-sense advice.
- Charles (Chick) Mallison, Stevens’s nephew who has been observing the Snopes’ activities in Yoknapatawpha County from his early childhood through adolescence.
The novel covers an approximately 20-year time period, from shortly after the birth of Eula’s daughter Linda Snopes, until Linda is approximately twenty. Besides Flem’s pursuits, vital storylines center on Eula and Linda’s attempts to distance themselves from Flem.
This second volume continued on with the best qualities of The Hamlet. Faulkner’s style had a rhythm and flow that was entrancing, and his well-drawn characters had personalities that resulted in many humorous and/or grotesque but always entertaining moments.
But I thought this novel was an improvement on the first one. The use of the alternating narrators provided for a better and clearer plot development, descriptions and scene depictions. The increased clarity was partially due to the book’s lesser reliance on previously published stories and tales for its content.
It was also more humorous and entertaining than The Hamlet. I found myself smiling through almost the entire read. This was a strange and uniquely enjoyable reading experience that was almost a 5-star read. I rate it as 4+stars.
August 26, 2013
I hate William Faulkner.
I hate the fact that I can't even give this book a five because I would have to give The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! six or sevens. I hate the fact that he could both write with the utmost complexity and utmost simplicity. I hate the fact that to me, he's so good that I can place five of his books on my personal top 10 without flinching.
I hate how even years removed from reading his other novels that I can remember who Bayard Sartoris was, who Lucas Beauchamp was, who Thomas Sutpen, who Horace Benbow was, because all of them are colorful characters.
Among them, however, I admire Gavin Stevens the best, and he is one of the central characters in this novel.
Stevens is, in a word, the conscience of Yoknapatawpha. He is the force of good, and certain parallels in our lives - that he treasures good over women, and that he has remained a bachelor even though intelligent and kind, resonates within me.
He believes in the 'uxorious and rigid respectability which remains strong and undecadent only so long as it still produces an incorrigible unreconstructible with the temerity to assail and affront and deny.' He believes in the virtue and the chastity of women and he seeks to protect those. He was even asked by a character, his brother-in-law, mockingly as to where his white horse and lance was. But he tries to still be a decent person even though he is undeniably human: he even falls in love with the femme fatale Eula Snopes.
Damn Faulkner. Damn his genius.
I hate him.
I hate him so much. I hate how I can't write as well as him as yet.
I hate him for being so damn good.
I hate the fact that I can't even give this book a five because I would have to give The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! six or sevens. I hate the fact that he could both write with the utmost complexity and utmost simplicity. I hate the fact that to me, he's so good that I can place five of his books on my personal top 10 without flinching.
I hate how even years removed from reading his other novels that I can remember who Bayard Sartoris was, who Lucas Beauchamp was, who Thomas Sutpen, who Horace Benbow was, because all of them are colorful characters.
Among them, however, I admire Gavin Stevens the best, and he is one of the central characters in this novel.
Stevens is, in a word, the conscience of Yoknapatawpha. He is the force of good, and certain parallels in our lives - that he treasures good over women, and that he has remained a bachelor even though intelligent and kind, resonates within me.
He believes in the 'uxorious and rigid respectability which remains strong and undecadent only so long as it still produces an incorrigible unreconstructible with the temerity to assail and affront and deny.' He believes in the virtue and the chastity of women and he seeks to protect those. He was even asked by a character, his brother-in-law, mockingly as to where his white horse and lance was. But he tries to still be a decent person even though he is undeniably human: he even falls in love with the femme fatale Eula Snopes.
Damn Faulkner. Damn his genius.
I hate him.
I hate him so much. I hate how I can't write as well as him as yet.
I hate him for being so damn good.
July 12, 2014
Faulkner wrote many novels and many short stories. Almost all are acclaimed. I haven’t read but one of those novels- The Reivers.
That was up until my wife persuaded me to read “The Snopes Family Trilogy” comprised of the novels, The Hamlet,The Town, and The Mansion.
Of those three titles, I’ve so far read only the first two entries.
This morning I finished The Town. I am still reeling.
This novel has three distinct narrators: young Charles (“Chick”) Mallison, his uncle Gavin (“Lawyer”) Stevens, and the unforgettable V. K. Ratliff.
Each character relates or furthers the others’ accounts of the events that transpire. It is a tale of wonder, mystery, and outrage. It is by turns quite hilarious, mysterious, suspenseful, infuriating, and stunningly poignant.
I can’t imagine Faulkner having written any lines that could be more powerful or more poignant or simply beautiful than the passages found in this novel.
It is a heartbreaker.
Not that its characters are doomed or forsaken, just that it is beyond my capacity to believe that William Faulkner could have ever written anything approaching the brilliance that struts across these pages.
I completely loved this novel.
Highest possible recommendation.
July 8, 2020
It's been a long time since I read The Hamlet, first in this trilogy, but it didn't seem to matter too much. The Town was more riveting the longer I read, with the continuing saga of Flem Snopes, his Marilyn Monroe-ish wife Eula, her daughter Linda, and the county attorney, "Lawyer Stephens," along with the continuing character V.I. Ratliff and the boy Charles Mallison, nephew of Stephens. The roving narrators give us the main story and many side stories along the way, some of which are laugh-out-loud funny, and some are tragic. This will certainly propel me to get to the 3rd book, The Mansion, pretty soon.
September 28, 2018
Faulkner lets the insidious Snopes roots take hold in an actual town, where we find America burgeoning with the advent of the car, banking, somewhat more officious law enforcement/judiciary, etc. This book seems less stylistically and structurally adventurous than The Hamlet, but holds together more cohesively and really enmeshes the reader in time and place. The machinations of Flem Snopes are utterly fascinating and no one seems safe from, or clever enough to match, his ambition/compulsion.
May 18, 2020
"ის ხომ არ გგონია - ქალაქი იმას დაიჯერებს დედამიწაზე ისეთი მოძღვარი მოიძებნება- იმ ქალს ჯეფერსონის გვერდის ავლით სამოთხის გზა დაულოცოსო? თუ გგონია იესო ქრისტე, რომ იესო ქრისტეა, ის შეიძლება სამოთხეში შეეყვანა, ჯეფერსონის გავლით? "
ან მე ვარ უგზოუკლოდ შეპყრობილი ამ კაცით ან უბრალოდ არ შეუძლია რომ არ შეგძრას თავიდან ბოლომდე მისი ისტორიებითა და იმ სიტყვებით რომლებითაც ამბის მოყოლას ცდილობს... დარწმუნებული ვარ არავის შეუძლია ასეთი სიუჟეტის ასეთი პერსონაჟების შექმნა ამიტომ
არ მესმის რატომ არის ეს რომანი ასეთი დაუფასებელი მკითხველებს შორის.
სამი ბავშვი სამი ფირფიტა მატარებლის სადგური და ჩემი არეული ფიქრები...
ან მე ვარ უგზოუკლოდ შეპყრობილი ამ კაცით ან უბრალოდ არ შეუძლია რომ არ შეგძრას თავიდან ბოლომდე მისი ისტორიებითა და იმ სიტყვებით რომლებითაც ამბის მოყოლას ცდილობს... დარწმუნებული ვარ არავის შეუძლია ასეთი სიუჟეტის ასეთი პერსონაჟების შექმნა ამიტომ
არ მესმის რატომ არის ეს რომანი ასეთი დაუფასებელი მკითხველებს შორის.
სამი ბავშვი სამი ფირფიტა მატარებლის სადგური და ჩემი არეული ფიქრები...
June 24, 2019
More like 3.5 stars. Can a Faulkner novel really be a 3?
As Faulkner novels go, The Town is not one of his best, though given Faulkner’s artistry that doesn’t mean it’s a bad novel—it’s just not anywhere close, in terms of emotional angst, richness, and power, to Absalom, Absalom!, Go Down, Moses, and The Sound and the Fury (and a few others). Most people believe that Faulkner’s artistry declined after World War II, and I would agree, and I believe you can see that in this late novel.
It’s not easy to pinpoint exactly the reasons for the The Town’s flatness, as most of Faulkner's standard narrative techniques are at work: multiple narrators, striking language, strange and wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) characters who disrupt the everyday life of Yoknapatawpha. A couple of things come to mind. First: One of the narrator’s, Gavin Stevens, just seems so long-winded, overly-romantic (he’s obsessed not just with Eula Snopes and her daughter Linda, but more generally with “Woman”), and ineffectual, rarely accomplishing what he sets out to. He’s sort of a sad-eyed Quixote, and after a while he gets a little tiresome (he’s more interesting in some of Faulkner’s other works). Second: Much of Faulkner’s focus here is on attacking the bourgeois standards and hypocrisy of the town, employing a good deal of social satire. No problem with that, except that the satire here lacks the power and scope of much of Faulkner’s earlier work, which is less concerned with social hypocrisy (though it’s certainly there) than with the roiling complexities that shape everyday existence, and particularly the crushing pressures of history and responsibility—to self, ideals, and community. Put another way: the earlier work is more tragic than satiric. Satire of course can be great, but not in Faulkner's hands (at least, not here).
Of particular note in the novel is Flem Snopes and his rise to power and prominence. For all the scorn that gets heaped on Flem by the townsfolk (and by many readers), he is actually not all that different from everybody else in the town—almost everyone in Faulkner’s world is on the make, one way or the other, even if they don’t admit it to themselves or to others. So, rather than being the outsider destroying the town, as he is frequently characterized, Flem is more the outsider revealing the town’s true nature. He’s not likable, but he’s certainly fascinating--and revelatory.
As Faulkner novels go, The Town is not one of his best, though given Faulkner’s artistry that doesn’t mean it’s a bad novel—it’s just not anywhere close, in terms of emotional angst, richness, and power, to Absalom, Absalom!, Go Down, Moses, and The Sound and the Fury (and a few others). Most people believe that Faulkner’s artistry declined after World War II, and I would agree, and I believe you can see that in this late novel.
It’s not easy to pinpoint exactly the reasons for the The Town’s flatness, as most of Faulkner's standard narrative techniques are at work: multiple narrators, striking language, strange and wonderful (and not-so-wonderful) characters who disrupt the everyday life of Yoknapatawpha. A couple of things come to mind. First: One of the narrator’s, Gavin Stevens, just seems so long-winded, overly-romantic (he’s obsessed not just with Eula Snopes and her daughter Linda, but more generally with “Woman”), and ineffectual, rarely accomplishing what he sets out to. He’s sort of a sad-eyed Quixote, and after a while he gets a little tiresome (he’s more interesting in some of Faulkner’s other works). Second: Much of Faulkner’s focus here is on attacking the bourgeois standards and hypocrisy of the town, employing a good deal of social satire. No problem with that, except that the satire here lacks the power and scope of much of Faulkner’s earlier work, which is less concerned with social hypocrisy (though it’s certainly there) than with the roiling complexities that shape everyday existence, and particularly the crushing pressures of history and responsibility—to self, ideals, and community. Put another way: the earlier work is more tragic than satiric. Satire of course can be great, but not in Faulkner's hands (at least, not here).
Of particular note in the novel is Flem Snopes and his rise to power and prominence. For all the scorn that gets heaped on Flem by the townsfolk (and by many readers), he is actually not all that different from everybody else in the town—almost everyone in Faulkner’s world is on the make, one way or the other, even if they don’t admit it to themselves or to others. So, rather than being the outsider destroying the town, as he is frequently characterized, Flem is more the outsider revealing the town’s true nature. He’s not likable, but he’s certainly fascinating--and revelatory.
July 27, 2018
"And it don't take no especial coward to not want to walk into that store and up to old man Will Varner and tell him his daughter aint reformed even yet, that she's been sleeping around again for 18 years now, with a feller she ain't married to, and that her husband aint got guts enough to know what do do about it," writes Faulkner of the central plot of this work. One could argue that lots of characters in "The Town" (and other Faulkner works) need reforming, but they won't, they never will. After all, we're in Faulkner's Southern Goth world, and its a hurtful place and usually gives us painful reads. Think it's gone? Think again: that's why we still read Faulkner.
March 9, 2025
“The poets are wrong of course, according to them I should even have known the note was on the way, let alone who it was from, as it was, I didn’t even know who it was from after I read it. But then, poets are almost always wrong about facts, that’s because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it”
"إن الشعراء مخطئون بالطبع، فوفقاً لهم كان ينبغي لي أن أعرف أن الرسالة كانت في طريقها إليّ، ناهيك عن معرفة من أرسلها، ولكنني لم أعرف حتى من أرسلها بعد أن قرأتها. ولكن الشعراء مخطئون دائماً تقريباً فيما يتعلق بالحقائق، وذلك لأنهم لا يهتمون بالحقائق حقاً: بل يهتمون بالحقيقة فقط: ولهذا السبب فإن الحقيقة التي يتحدثون بها صادقة إلى الحد الذي يجعل حتى أولئك الذين يكرهون الشعراء بدافع الغريزة الطبيعية البسيطة يشعرون بالفخر والرعب من هذه الحقيقة"
"إن الشعراء مخطئون بالطبع، فوفقاً لهم كان ينبغي لي أن أعرف أن الرسالة كانت في طريقها إليّ، ناهيك عن معرفة من أرسلها، ولكنني لم أعرف حتى من أرسلها بعد أن قرأتها. ولكن الشعراء مخطئون دائماً تقريباً فيما يتعلق بالحقائق، وذلك لأنهم لا يهتمون بالحقائق حقاً: بل يهتمون بالحقيقة فقط: ولهذا السبب فإن الحقيقة التي يتحدثون بها صادقة إلى الحد الذي يجعل حتى أولئك الذين يكرهون الشعراء بدافع الغريزة الطبيعية البسيطة يشعرون بالفخر والرعب من هذه الحقيقة"
April 11, 2025
A veces puedo ser como Ratliff, tengo toda la información, he visitado ( sin vender ni una máquina de coser) las casas del condado con la lectura de cada capítulo pero me cuesta discernir, interpretar y destilar todas las capas que esta novela tiene. El matrimonio Snopes domina Jefferson y la novela, lo hacen con muy pocas apariciones. Sus antagonistas son los narradores, Gavin (un acartonado caballero andante de Mississippi), su sobrino Chick y Ratliff ( que arrastra su interés por la Snopeslogía desde "El Villorio")
Siento que la novela va a más, me disgustó el juego de nombres, y confusiones de parentesco ( Gavin, Groover, el padre del padre del sobrino) que se trae Faulkner en los primeros capítulos pero superado es ya todo disfrute literario.
Siento que la novela va a más, me disgustó el juego de nombres, y confusiones de parentesco ( Gavin, Groover, el padre del padre del sobrino) que se trae Faulkner en los primeros capítulos pero superado es ya todo disfrute literario.
February 24, 2021
The communal crisis of The Town's plot is reflected in the nature of its three narrator's: the attorney Gavin Stevens, his pre-adolescent nephew Charles Mallison and entrepreneur V.K. Ratliff.
If anyone ever had any doubts about how much Faulkner intended the town to serve as a character in his work, they might find an answer in the Charles Mallison’s opening to The Town,: “when I say ‘we’ and ‘we thought’ what I mean is Jefferson and what Jefferson thought (3).” Just as Faulkner finds the town is complicit in the crime at the center of his short story "Rose for Emily," the three narrators will vary on Jefferson's culpability in the sins of the Snopes, particularly Flem and his wife Eula Varner.
Without spoiling the plot, The Town tells of Flem's attempt to keep rising from his son-of-a-sharecropper origins and Stevens & Ratliff's attempt to keep him from doing so. Along the way, Stevens is smitten by Eula. Stevens' evolution as a character alone is worth the read; the revelations about Eula & Flem are even more astonishing, especially for anyone familiar with The Town's precursor, The Hamlet.
One question I have for other readers is what does Faulkner's preponderance of the phrase "All right" signify? The phrase seems to appear more often than it does in his other novels, and it seems that the phrase is usually ironic since so little is "all right."
The other question I have is about "women" who are not interested in romance (322). Joyce Carol Oates once described Faulkner as a "misogynist," but he seems to me more misanthropic about people as a group and downright affectionate in his regard for individual characters. Eula's take on people is filled with intentional dramatic irony as she tells Stevens about the town gossiping about her affair with a banker: “people are really kind, you know. All the people in Yoknapawtawpha County that might have made sure Mamma knew us for her own good” (329). To say Faulkner disliked women more than men is to ignore the collective view of people beyond gender with which people are characterized in this novel. Stevens later says clergy was “Sent by a damned lot of damned old women of both sexes, including none” (343). Here the dislike goes beyond gender, becoming perhaps a definitive statement on lost humanity.
But Faulkner is not a pessimist. Stevens marvels at Eula's "capacity for love," especially where her daughter Linda Snopes is concerned. Far from being an indictment of a gang mentality, the novel raises perhaps the most significant of all life questions: Does a child believe his/her parents possess the passion or capacity to create a child like him/her (305)? Eula resolves her key crisis with a cold consideration of the romance her community holds for the role of a woman. How ironic it is that in Southern culture, they really don't like a real reb' like Eula except under a certain circumstance.
If anyone ever had any doubts about how much Faulkner intended the town to serve as a character in his work, they might find an answer in the Charles Mallison’s opening to The Town,: “when I say ‘we’ and ‘we thought’ what I mean is Jefferson and what Jefferson thought (3).” Just as Faulkner finds the town is complicit in the crime at the center of his short story "Rose for Emily," the three narrators will vary on Jefferson's culpability in the sins of the Snopes, particularly Flem and his wife Eula Varner.
Without spoiling the plot, The Town tells of Flem's attempt to keep rising from his son-of-a-sharecropper origins and Stevens & Ratliff's attempt to keep him from doing so. Along the way, Stevens is smitten by Eula. Stevens' evolution as a character alone is worth the read; the revelations about Eula & Flem are even more astonishing, especially for anyone familiar with The Town's precursor, The Hamlet.
One question I have for other readers is what does Faulkner's preponderance of the phrase "All right" signify? The phrase seems to appear more often than it does in his other novels, and it seems that the phrase is usually ironic since so little is "all right."
The other question I have is about "women" who are not interested in romance (322). Joyce Carol Oates once described Faulkner as a "misogynist," but he seems to me more misanthropic about people as a group and downright affectionate in his regard for individual characters. Eula's take on people is filled with intentional dramatic irony as she tells Stevens about the town gossiping about her affair with a banker: “people are really kind, you know. All the people in Yoknapawtawpha County that might have made sure Mamma knew us for her own good” (329). To say Faulkner disliked women more than men is to ignore the collective view of people beyond gender with which people are characterized in this novel. Stevens later says clergy was “Sent by a damned lot of damned old women of both sexes, including none” (343). Here the dislike goes beyond gender, becoming perhaps a definitive statement on lost humanity.
But Faulkner is not a pessimist. Stevens marvels at Eula's "capacity for love," especially where her daughter Linda Snopes is concerned. Far from being an indictment of a gang mentality, the novel raises perhaps the most significant of all life questions: Does a child believe his/her parents possess the passion or capacity to create a child like him/her (305)? Eula resolves her key crisis with a cold consideration of the romance her community holds for the role of a woman. How ironic it is that in Southern culture, they really don't like a real reb' like Eula except under a certain circumstance.
July 17, 2018
William Faulkner's The Town picks up the Snopes family and the depredations it imposes upon the town of Jefferson and Yoknapatawpha County with a focus on Flem Snopes and his rise from crude, calculating interloper to president of the bank formerly controlled by men surnamed Sartoris and de Spain. Apparently Faulkner thought he was writing a funny book--and it is a funny book in some measure--before developing the tragic element of a woman (Eula) Flem lost to adultery and a daughter (Linda) who wasn't his. Indeed, Eula Varner Snopes (1889-1927) conveys Faulkner's customary darkness convincingly and her daughter, Linda, expresses well Faulkner's conviction that one must escape the past yet one can never escape the past.
Among most critics, The Town is an unpopular book, and it is easy to see why. The chapters are narrated by a series of participants in varying and not always complementary tones and registers (think of As I Lay Dying as an example of greater success using this technique) and there are moments when Faulkner's ceaseless tendency to describe things backwards and inside out grow wearisome. Beyond that, Flem Snopes isn't one of the voices employed, so he doesn't roar at you like Jason Compson in The Sound and the Fury...much to The Town's detriment, depriving it of a central character's internal passions and contradictions.
Even so, there are many fine moments of clear-headed analysis by the lawyer Gavin Stevens (central to Intruder in the Dust), who successively falls in love with Eula and then, many years later, Linda, and cannot let himself have either, understanding the doom they carry within them. Eula makes him a wonderful "Let's do it, then" offer in a memorable scene early in the book that flat-out overwhelms him. Linda knows what he's feeling for her, later on, but he can't bring himself to prey upon her, a teenager to his graying maturity of thirty something, approaching forty.
The sweep of the story essentially is this: Jefferson is succumbing to Snopesism, which is vulgar but hard-working commercialism that lacks any connection to ante-bellum South, including decorum, education, and decency. That's not to say Faulkner presents the traditional South in a good light, but its demise at the hands of a Flem Snopes is an indignity (which Faulkner obviously intended to deal with satirically when he thought The Town was going to be a funny book.)
There is enough here to remind one of Faulkner's writing when his powers were greater to justify reading The Town. But if The Town is the first Faulkner novel you've ever read, you likely won't finish it or pick up another, which would be a great pity.
Among most critics, The Town is an unpopular book, and it is easy to see why. The chapters are narrated by a series of participants in varying and not always complementary tones and registers (think of As I Lay Dying as an example of greater success using this technique) and there are moments when Faulkner's ceaseless tendency to describe things backwards and inside out grow wearisome. Beyond that, Flem Snopes isn't one of the voices employed, so he doesn't roar at you like Jason Compson in The Sound and the Fury...much to The Town's detriment, depriving it of a central character's internal passions and contradictions.
Even so, there are many fine moments of clear-headed analysis by the lawyer Gavin Stevens (central to Intruder in the Dust), who successively falls in love with Eula and then, many years later, Linda, and cannot let himself have either, understanding the doom they carry within them. Eula makes him a wonderful "Let's do it, then" offer in a memorable scene early in the book that flat-out overwhelms him. Linda knows what he's feeling for her, later on, but he can't bring himself to prey upon her, a teenager to his graying maturity of thirty something, approaching forty.
The sweep of the story essentially is this: Jefferson is succumbing to Snopesism, which is vulgar but hard-working commercialism that lacks any connection to ante-bellum South, including decorum, education, and decency. That's not to say Faulkner presents the traditional South in a good light, but its demise at the hands of a Flem Snopes is an indignity (which Faulkner obviously intended to deal with satirically when he thought The Town was going to be a funny book.)
There is enough here to remind one of Faulkner's writing when his powers were greater to justify reading The Town. But if The Town is the first Faulkner novel you've ever read, you likely won't finish it or pick up another, which would be a great pity.
October 23, 2020
Recommended to me by a Faulkner aficionado on here, Dr Alan Powers. Like most of Faulkner's oeuvre, it takes place in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, and characters move fluidly from one book to the next. This is part of a loose trilogy, after The Hamlet (I found that I needed to look up a summary of that book's plot, and still had trouble following) and followed by The Mansion, about the lives of the Snopes family. The core of the book is about the scheming Flem Snopes and his growing empire, though subplots about other family members (including the wonderfully named "Wallstreet Panic" Snopes) abound. There is shooting, cheating, adultery, suicide, and an artsy atelier that turns out to be a "dirty picture gallery". The book is narrated in turns by three characters with very different voices, and while linguistically less experimental than novels like The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner's sentences and dialogue are rich and complex. The audiobook narrator (Joe Barrett) does a good job switching between a range of voices black and white, higher- and lower-class, male and female.
Faulkner was famously out of print in the US when he won the Nobel prize in 1949. The money from the Paul Newman film The Long Hot Summer (based on The Hamlet) as well as a 1959 adaptation of The Sound and the Fury finally brought him some financial success. His stories can sometimes seem overloaded with passion and restless dramatic energy, but at a sentence level he is a master of his craft.
Faulkner was famously out of print in the US when he won the Nobel prize in 1949. The money from the Paul Newman film The Long Hot Summer (based on The Hamlet) as well as a 1959 adaptation of The Sound and the Fury finally brought him some financial success. His stories can sometimes seem overloaded with passion and restless dramatic energy, but at a sentence level he is a master of his craft.
Read
February 7, 2017Right. So, I’m going to just review both of these together, since I read them one after the other and my thoughts apply to both. Faulkner’s prose is, for my soon-to-be-rapidly-depreciating-US-dollar, about as good as you’re going to find. It’s like jumping into cold water, painful at first, and then innervating – the compulsive sentences rolling downward, the bits that are deliberately left unsaid, the clever obfuscations, the profane jokes. And his plotting is fiendishly clever, something which you one very rarely finds oneself saying about ‘literary’ writers. In his big reveals, in his nested secrets and sudden murders, there is a whiff of the genre ghetto to Faulkner (no surprise he wrote the screenplay for Big Sleep, even if he kind of fucked the pooch on the ending). And both of these qualities are on display in these two, the second and third books in the Snopes Trilogy, which details the life of one Flem Snopes, an amoral backwoods savage with a genius for a sharp trading and a desire to attain respectability.
I devoured these, laughed loudly at them in bars, kept yelling at acquaintances about it. And yet…well, obviously, when one is reading one of the great writers of the age, as indeed I believe Faulkner to be, one is not just asking ‘is this a good book’, because of course it’s a good book, even the shit Faulkner tossed out just for money (The Reivers, I’m looking at you) are really good. What one is asking is, ‘is this one of the works which cements the authors place in the canon’, and the answer to this trilogy is, no, not quite, not to my mind. The main characters in the book – Lawyer Stevens, Eula and Linda, and of course Flem himself – never quite come together. Various smaller bits, about the rest of the Snopes clan and pitiful folk they abuse, are far stronger, but the motivations for the major characters felt, ultimately, either vague or kind of unconvincing.
Which is to say, I suppose, that if you haven’t read Faulkner, read Faulkner but maybe don’t start here, and if you’ve already read Absalom, Absalom, etc. then you could do a lot worse than counting on with the Snopes trilogy.
I devoured these, laughed loudly at them in bars, kept yelling at acquaintances about it. And yet…well, obviously, when one is reading one of the great writers of the age, as indeed I believe Faulkner to be, one is not just asking ‘is this a good book’, because of course it’s a good book, even the shit Faulkner tossed out just for money (The Reivers, I’m looking at you) are really good. What one is asking is, ‘is this one of the works which cements the authors place in the canon’, and the answer to this trilogy is, no, not quite, not to my mind. The main characters in the book – Lawyer Stevens, Eula and Linda, and of course Flem himself – never quite come together. Various smaller bits, about the rest of the Snopes clan and pitiful folk they abuse, are far stronger, but the motivations for the major characters felt, ultimately, either vague or kind of unconvincing.
Which is to say, I suppose, that if you haven’t read Faulkner, read Faulkner but maybe don’t start here, and if you’ve already read Absalom, Absalom, etc. then you could do a lot worse than counting on with the Snopes trilogy.
November 7, 2018
"Anybody that needs to fool fools is already one."
Just a splendid novel! With only one Faulky novel left to read, it's hard-running to see which I'd call the "best", and likely will never able to answer that to my satisfaction, but this one'll be up there. The second part of the "Snopes" trilogy, "Town" isn't that crappy Ben Affleck movie at all, but is rather the continuance of the story of Flem Snopes, back-country ass-hat turned "respectable" citizen of Jefferson and his efforts to maintain respectability while quietly destroying everyone around him.
Grey knight lawyer Gavin Stevens is on hand as narrator, as is his nephew Chick and salesman VK Ratliff. They chronicle the undulating fates of the Snopeses, focusing on Eula, the goddess-wife of Flem and their daughter Linda. It's really about them, interspersed with laugh-out-loud episodes that will make you wish you'd grown up in Jefferson (which is Faulkner's trajectory towards his most-fun novel, "The Reivers") and downright tragic shit ("Fable"-type stuff).
Crucially wonderful!
Just a splendid novel! With only one Faulky novel left to read, it's hard-running to see which I'd call the "best", and likely will never able to answer that to my satisfaction, but this one'll be up there. The second part of the "Snopes" trilogy, "Town" isn't that crappy Ben Affleck movie at all, but is rather the continuance of the story of Flem Snopes, back-country ass-hat turned "respectable" citizen of Jefferson and his efforts to maintain respectability while quietly destroying everyone around him.
Grey knight lawyer Gavin Stevens is on hand as narrator, as is his nephew Chick and salesman VK Ratliff. They chronicle the undulating fates of the Snopeses, focusing on Eula, the goddess-wife of Flem and their daughter Linda. It's really about them, interspersed with laugh-out-loud episodes that will make you wish you'd grown up in Jefferson (which is Faulkner's trajectory towards his most-fun novel, "The Reivers") and downright tragic shit ("Fable"-type stuff).
Crucially wonderful!
June 17, 2009
Some ghosts, or real people, are going to kill me...but Faulkner is BETTER than Shakespeare...no one gets more in one page (which is what makes him so difficult)...and no one writers purer human beings...no one puts it on paper with more unbridled energy...some of his sentences, about one every three pages, just make you want to give up and crawl back into the womb...
This one is the second in a trilogy, call it The Snopes Empire Strikes Back, about the dark and soulless and anarchic lengths to which Flem Snopes will go to consume a town of people that are wonderfully hypocritical in their God-fearing-ness...
We also get again one of the great characters I've ever read, a man as much himself as Hamlet, so fallibly infallible that we should all have one in our towns--VK Ratliff...
This one is the second in a trilogy, call it The Snopes Empire Strikes Back, about the dark and soulless and anarchic lengths to which Flem Snopes will go to consume a town of people that are wonderfully hypocritical in their God-fearing-ness...
We also get again one of the great characters I've ever read, a man as much himself as Hamlet, so fallibly infallible that we should all have one in our towns--VK Ratliff...
January 22, 2019
The new commercialism (Flem) chases respectability at the expense of natural affections & poetic dreams (Eula, Linda).
September 5, 2021
La segunda parte de la trilogía de la familia Snopes podría bien leerse como un libro propio. Escrito a manera de relato, The Town se divide en partes iguales, separando los momentos en personajes-narrativos. Es muy interesante como cada una de estos refleja su condición en la manera de ser escritas: La edad y pronunciación varían. Es como si cada uno de los capítulos se insinuara en una viñeta independiente. Novela de costumbres, amor, traición, y avaricia; va de lo narrativo a lo subjetivo, algunas veces perdiéndote en la maraña intelectual.
April 9, 2017
Have you ever thought about being a writer? What would you write about, who would you write for?
W. Faulkner wanted to be a poet, than short story teller and after not succeeding in neither of these (he himself thought so), he became a writer of novels, of big and complicated ones, of "Sound and the Fury", "Light in August", "Absalom, Absalom", etc. These are his best works in my opinion, were reader can feel all the emotions, his love and anger towards his characters, towards society who made him angry because of all the racism, all the sillines - because of which his people thought name of the family was more important than family itself.
"The Town" is one of the latest works of W.F. and is a mix of his styles. It reminded me of "The Reivers" - especially those parts told by Chick Mallison, and "Sartoris" - where we get known to the city of Jefferson, it's first car and bank and then we see further development of the Yoknapatawpha county in "The Town".
Finally we get acquainted to the Flem Snopes and his family better. We see Eula Snopes, spoiled child who didn't even want to walk because of laziness, becoming a "normal" woman and a mother. We are told the story by our old friend from "The Manson" - V.K. Ratliff - and finally get his story as well, pretty surprising one. We meet Linda Snopes - really different female in whole Faulkner world, good girl with a bright future prospects, unlike any other women and her Patron - Gavin Stevens, quite interesting character, lawyer with very high moral ethics.
"The Town" is a bridge between the start and the finish of Snopes trilogy and describes climax of Flem's success.
My favourite parts in the story are short stories of other Snopes' - Byron with his children and Wall Street Panic Snopes (Wally) with his wife.
Finally my impression about the book wasn't as great as I had about the first part of the trilogy, mainly because of the style and many parts being repeated for those readers who haven't read The Mansion. This makes the story standalone, but a bit too much of reminders. Let's see what "The House" brings - how will Faulkner deal with Flem and his death.
W. Faulkner wanted to be a poet, than short story teller and after not succeeding in neither of these (he himself thought so), he became a writer of novels, of big and complicated ones, of "Sound and the Fury", "Light in August", "Absalom, Absalom", etc. These are his best works in my opinion, were reader can feel all the emotions, his love and anger towards his characters, towards society who made him angry because of all the racism, all the sillines - because of which his people thought name of the family was more important than family itself.
"The Town" is one of the latest works of W.F. and is a mix of his styles. It reminded me of "The Reivers" - especially those parts told by Chick Mallison, and "Sartoris" - where we get known to the city of Jefferson, it's first car and bank and then we see further development of the Yoknapatawpha county in "The Town".
Finally we get acquainted to the Flem Snopes and his family better. We see Eula Snopes, spoiled child who didn't even want to walk because of laziness, becoming a "normal" woman and a mother. We are told the story by our old friend from "The Manson" - V.K. Ratliff - and finally get his story as well, pretty surprising one. We meet Linda Snopes - really different female in whole Faulkner world, good girl with a bright future prospects, unlike any other women and her Patron - Gavin Stevens, quite interesting character, lawyer with very high moral ethics.
"The Town" is a bridge between the start and the finish of Snopes trilogy and describes climax of Flem's success.
My favourite parts in the story are short stories of other Snopes' - Byron with his children and Wall Street Panic Snopes (Wally) with his wife.
Finally my impression about the book wasn't as great as I had about the first part of the trilogy, mainly because of the style and many parts being repeated for those readers who haven't read The Mansion. This makes the story standalone, but a bit too much of reminders. Let's see what "The House" brings - how will Faulkner deal with Flem and his death.
April 13, 2016
Absolutely stunning and one of my favorite of Faulkner's works. Though it is the middle of a trilogy, this book expands and complicates and darkens the story originated in The Hamlet as the best middle chapters of any trilogies do. It is also one of the more accessible reads of Faulkner's.
It contains only three narrators: Chick Mallison (a boy who contains the bulk of the narrative and whose internal monologue complicates itself over time in the book until it reaches maturity by the end), Gavin Stevens (one of Faulkner's most profoundly moving and deep creations, a mind as sharp and touching as Quentin Compson in The Sound and The Fury) and V. K. Ratliff (the quintessential Southern man it appears to Faulkner, not book wise but street wise in a way that Gavin never will be).
Gavin is the heart of the book and I won't spoil why here. Ultimately, he is the essence of Southern courtly gentility, a perfect foil for the avarice, selfishness, guile, and corruption of Flem Snopes, Faulkner's best antagonistic creation. The meat of the book is clearly Faulkner's examination of the corruption of Southern ideals by the modernization of the business model, oligarchy, favoritism, corruption, and exclusion. Gavin, Ratliff, and even Chick by the end oppose it gallantly. Exceptionally strong novel by an exceptionally strong writer, and that is saying something.
It contains only three narrators: Chick Mallison (a boy who contains the bulk of the narrative and whose internal monologue complicates itself over time in the book until it reaches maturity by the end), Gavin Stevens (one of Faulkner's most profoundly moving and deep creations, a mind as sharp and touching as Quentin Compson in The Sound and The Fury) and V. K. Ratliff (the quintessential Southern man it appears to Faulkner, not book wise but street wise in a way that Gavin never will be).
Gavin is the heart of the book and I won't spoil why here. Ultimately, he is the essence of Southern courtly gentility, a perfect foil for the avarice, selfishness, guile, and corruption of Flem Snopes, Faulkner's best antagonistic creation. The meat of the book is clearly Faulkner's examination of the corruption of Southern ideals by the modernization of the business model, oligarchy, favoritism, corruption, and exclusion. Gavin, Ratliff, and even Chick by the end oppose it gallantly. Exceptionally strong novel by an exceptionally strong writer, and that is saying something.
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