Sartoris

Sin and Salvation #1

by William Faulkner

Portrays the decay of the Mississippi aristocracy following the social upheaval of the American Civil War. The 1929 edition is an abridged version of Faulkner's original work. The full text was published in 1973 as Flags in the Dust.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Novels, Historical Fiction, American, Southern

576 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

William 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".

Reviews

[Lawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sartoris: William Faulkner's Creation of Yoknapatawpha County

William Faulkner at the University of Virginia, 1957

"No man is himself, he is the sum of his past.”
Faulkner in the University, University of Virginia Press, 1995

February 7, 2012

I graduated from the University of Alabama in 1973. I went there intending to become a professor of history. I changed my mind during a lecture my second semester in the History of Western Civilization when a college athlete began snoring behind me as one of my favorite professors was earnestly addressing the closing days of World War II.

When I completed college, I had a BA with a major in psychology and a double minor in English and Latin. Two beloved Classics Professors were urging me to enter the Graduate program at the University of Mississippi. I had been awarded the W.B. Saffolds Classics award for three years. I would have probably taken it the fourth year, but I finished my degree requirements a semester early. As I had decided not to be a history professor, I also decided I didn't want to be Mr. Chips.

I also decided I didn't want to be a psychologist. The vagaries of youth and the arrogance of it can be astounding in retrospect. I became a lawyer instead. Damned if I didn't try to be Atticus Finch and Gavin Stevens all rolled into one churning burning trial attorney. And I did that as a prosecuting attorney for almost twenty-eight years.

I drove home today from Oxford, Mississippi. I visited the Classics Department I didn't attend and felt a slight tug of regret. Actually, it was more than slight. As everyone experiences at one time or another, I wondered, "What if I had..."

Before I left, I went to the Faulkner Room in the John Williams Library on the Campus of the University of Mississippi. There, in a beautiful wooden case, was the Nobel Prize awarded to Faulkner in 1950.



Beneath that were shelves of pristine first edition, first printings of all his works. My eye was drawn particularly to a beautiful red volume with bold horizontal black stripes. In a blank field of red in bold letters was "Sartoris." In a smaller field, in smaller letters was the name "William Faulkner."


Sartoris, First Ed., Harcourt Brace, New York, New York

There is nothing to indicate what appears within the pages between the covers. There is nothing to judge by it. Nor, I imagine, could any prospective buyer of that book in 1929 anticipated that what was contained inside it was the creation of a new world.

Horace Liveright, had first dibs on Faulkner's novel. Faulkner's title was Flags in the Dust. Liveright's firm had published Faulkner's first two novels, Soldiers' Pay and Mosquitoes. However, Flags in the Dust logged in at nearly six hundred pages. Liveright read it, didn't like it, rejected it, and advised Faulkner not to seek publication anywhere. Liveright's criticism was it was too big, too diffuse, it lacked an overall plot. Forget it. Trash it. Faulkner was crushed.


Horace Liveright of Boni & Liveright; looked good in a suit, but don't ask him to spot a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Faulkner's attempt to introduce the world of Yoknapatawpha County became a struggle of frustrating rejection. After Liveright's stunning refusal, Faulkner turned to his agent, Ben Wasson in New York. The news wasn't good. Eleven publishers. Eleven rejections.


Ben Wasson, William Faulkner's friend, agent, and one of many biographers

However, Wasson was persistent. He showed the manuscript to Harrison Smith an editor at Harcourt Brace. Smith liked it, showed it to Alfred Harcourt who agreed to publish it provided it was edited into a manageable size and that Faulkner wasn't the editor. Wasson agreed to do the editing for Fifty Dollars. Faulkner came to New York. The contract was signed. Faulkner kept his nose out of Wasson's editing. He passed the time working on a new novel, again set in Yoknapatawpha County. It would be The Sound and the Fury. Flags in the Dust became named Sartoris. Who or how they came to pass has been lost to literary history.

Faulkner dedicated Sartoris to Sherwood Anderson. "To Sherwood Anderson through whose kindness I was first published with the belief that this book will give him no reason to regret it"

Each year I am drawn to William Faulkner country. I have been there so many times. With each visit, I discover a little more about the man and the people of the land that held such influence over him. Walk into Rowan Oak and I still feel his presence. How can you not? There is his study, his library. The books on the shelves he built himself when he bought what was known as the old Bailey Place in Bailey's Woods, down the Taylor Road. The double rows of towering cedar trees almost obscure the house from the entrance to the old house.

When reading Faulkner, it is hard to tell where the history, the legend ends, and the fiction begins. That is especially the case when considering Sartoris, Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1929. Nothing could be truer than the words of William Faulkner at the University of Virginia when he was the writer in residence there.

What a debt of gratitude the world owes to Sherwood Anderson who met the young William Faulkner in New Orleans. Basically he told him his first two novels were failures because he had attempted to write of a world of which he was not a part. It was Faulkner who created Yoknapatawpha County, but it was Anderson who planted the seed that yielded the crop of Faulkner's Canon.

You cannot find Faulkner's County just walking the Square in Oxford. His grandfather's bank building is still there, now a clothing store called Duvall's. The old man conducted business from a chair, leaned back against the wall by the bank's open door during the hot Mississippi summer afternoons. Mack Reed's drugstore, where Faulkner checked out his mystery novels is gone. Even the sign over the store front that now houses a trendy boutique leaves no evidence that Reed or Faulkner were ever there.

Down Jefferson street there is the cemetery where Faulkner and some of his family are buried. Their deaths outgrew the original family plot. Faulkner, wife Estelle, a stepson, and daughter Alabama are some distance away. Nor is there any evidence that his infant daughter lies near him, her marker stolen years ago.

But in the original family plot, there is Dean, killed in a plane crash outside Pontotoc in 1935. There is brother John, also a writer. There is mother Maude, father Murry, his grandfather and grandmother J.W.T. and Sallie Faulkner. His grandparents' obelisk looms over that plot. And it is in that image that the ghosts of Faulkner's past begin to take shape in the pages that tell the story of Yoknapatawpha County.

Yet, that is not enough. You must go further. You must walk the streets of Ripley, Mississippi, the home of his great grandfather. Here, too, is a statue of a man. Twenty two feet tall, the Old Colonel William Clark Falkner stands in formal attire.


The Grave of The Old Colonel William Clark Falkner, Ripley, Mississippi

Falkner, who killed a man with a Bowie knife when he was twenty-three. Falkner, who shot and killed a man when he was twenty-five. Falkner, gunned down in another courthouse square by a political opponent he had bested in an election. Falkner, who had been a cavalry officer for the Confederacy. Falkner, who built a railroad across northern Mississippi.

The origins of Faulkner's County are there. The patriarchs of the Sartoris family begin there.

Even Faulkner knew he had begun the creation of an entire world when he submitted the manuscript of Sartoris for publication. He knew it was special, something new, something not ever seen before. Faulkner wrote to his publisher, Horace Liveright, "At last and certainly, I have written THE book, of which those other things were but foals. I believe it is the damdest best book you'll look at this year, and any other publisher". Joseph Blotner,Faulkner: A Biography, two volumes, Random House, New York, 1974.

Young Bayard Sartoris returns to Jefferson after World War One. He and his twin brother John had been fighter pilots. John didn't make it home. Young Bayard lives in the shadow of the Old Colonel Bayard Sartoris who had fought in the Civil War. Old Bayard, his grandfather, runs the bank in Jefferson.

Whether it is the death of brother John, or the folk heroism of the Old Colonel that serves as a ghost of the past whose challenge he could not meet, whether it is the death of his young wife and child, Young Bayard is a member of what will become known as the "Lost Generation." Young Bayard lives wildly and recklessly, courting death with increasingly dangerous behavior. Without question Young Bayard is not only the sum of his past, but the past of his forefathers.

Young Bayard's return to Jefferson cannot last. Not even his marriage to Narcissa Benbow and the upcoming birth of another child will hold him at home. Perhaps the only way he can escape the past is with his own death which he increasingly seeks in his destructive behavior.

Yet, Sartoris is not just the story of one family. Faulkner weaves in character after character with whom we will become more familiar as Faulkner returns to them from short stories to novel after novel.

Beginning with this novel, Faulkner uproots the cornerstone of the aristocracy following the American Civil War. Faulkner maps out a changing South, caught in the past, but always trying to escape it. This is the turning point of Faulkner from fledgling writer to Faulkner, the Modernist, on his path to Sweden and a Nobel Prize, two Pulitzers, two National Book Awards, and a Legion of Honor for good measure. Cleanth Brooks rightly compared Sartoris to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country, New Haven, The Yale University Press, 1963.

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of William Faulkner's death. The Annual Faulkner Conference will begin on the precise date, July 6, 2012. I plan to return to Faulkner Country for this conference. Not only will I attend, I'll be a student this year, enrolled in a class devoted to teaching Faulkner to High School Students.

Will I become a teacher? I'm not sure. There's a lot to think about. But I hear Gavin Stevens whispering in my ear, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Edit: This review is shared for the benefit of goodreads group "On the Southern Literary Trail," and to draw any other readers to Faulkner's first Yoknapatawpha County novel.

Mike Sullivan
Founder and Moderator
"On the Southern Literary Trail"

April 6-May 23, 2014

My goodreads friend Sue Drees and I became involved in a discussion about William Faulkner and whether to read Sartoris or Flags in the Dust. Random House finally published Flags in the Dust in 1973. Finally, Faulkner had gotten his wish, though dead since 1962. We decided on a buddy read of the manner in which Bill Faulkner intended we be introduced to Yoknapatawpha County. Neither of us was disappointed.

Flags in the Dust is an incredibly rich reading experience. There is much more for the reader to consider and discover. I've read twiceSartoris, and Flags in the Dust once. Should I return to the beginning of Mr. Faulkner's County, it will be as he originally intended

I've often been asked where does one begin reading William Faulkner? My original answer was Sartoris. Now, it is Flags in the Dust. Today, Faulkner's original creation is considered the standard version. That's the version you'll find in the Library of America.

The Rest of the Story

December 28, 2014

I did not become a teacher in the formal sense. It is an ironic commentary on the values our society places upon things. Having lived a life of public service, I earned a State Employee's retirement. To become a teacher in my home state, I would have to give up my State retirement as a career prosecuting attorney. I could not live on a teacher's salary, as much as I would like to teach. I believe I would be a good one. However, the good people of my State do not believe in fighting for the worth of a teacher's services, though they believe in their children's receiving a good education. Life's funny that way, isn't it? A simple matter of self interest on my part as well as grown ups with children. Folks my age who've done their time as parents. All the legislators who promise no new taxes. A state with the lowest property taxes in the country.

Oh, I suppose I could practice private law, but that's not where my heart is. So I am done with apple picking time. I maintain a "Special Law License," which allows me to return to practice should I decide to do so.

However, I am content. And in my own way, if I should happen to place a book in the hands of some reader through the words I write, why...I have taught a little something. And that's quite enough for me.

It's about time for a trip to Faulkner Country. It's good for the soul.

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

the indomitable spirit of his youngster hounds, as fervently believed by their master Jackson, contrasted with seeming clarity to their diffident moiling in that large box serving as both their sleeping abode and place of play …


Thank goodness Faulkner did not write this. But, had this reader encountered the very same string of words in Sartoris, he would not have blinked, nor rubbed his chin, not shook his head, nor headed for another beer. No, he would have just kept reading, possibly underlining the phrase with a “?” nearby. And continued with the drink he already had poured, as proof against shock or dismay at that task of consuming the novel in hand.

The reader was disappointed in this novel, though most of that indefatigable disappointment was due to the foolish misapprehension the reader had dragged with him through that time preceding the actual reading in which, unbeknownst to him the reader, had irrevocably doomed him to consider that this book, Sartoris, had been written in the days and months following the publication of The Sound and the Fury – this ignorance on the reader’s part, unable to be blamed on any party other than the pathetic reader himself, had not unnaturally led that to-be-disappointed reader to judge, soon after the experience of the reading had so confidently begun, that the novel seemed to represent a regression, rather than the hoped-for progression of the author’s sublime narrative powers.


In fact, Sartoris was published in January of 1929, and was an abridged version of a top-heavy novel Faulkner had penned in 1927 called Flags in the Dust. This novel had been rejected by the publisher of his first two novels (Horace Liveright) as too diffuse. In late 1928 Faulkner, giving up on editing the novel himself, asked his agent to find a publisher, any publisher, while he, Faulkner, began writing The Sound and the Fury. This his agent was able to do by personally paring down the novel by about 25% and selling it to Harcourt Brace. Thus the book we know as Sartoris came to be delivered to the public. (According to Wiki, “no one knows who changed its name”.) The Sound and the Fury, the real first novel of the mature Faulkner (as I think of it, at any rate), came out in October of 1929.

Thus, coming to know the correct and not revocable path of events surrounding the books, the reader was disabused of some not-minor amount of disappointment. And, very late in the novel, the reader comes upon the following, which he recognizes as a sign to the writing style Faulkner would display in the great works which followed.

And Narcissa would sit, serene again behind her forewarned bastions, listening, admiring more than ever that indomitable spirit that, born with a woman’s body into a heritage of rash and heedless men and seemingly for the sole purpose of cherishing those men to their early and violent ends, and this over a period of history which had seen brothers and husband slain in the same useless mischancing of human affairs; had seen, as in a nightmare not to be healed by either waking or sleep, the foundations of her life swept away and had her roots torn bodily from that soil where her forefathers slept trusting in the integrity of mankind – a period at which the men themselves, for all their headlong and scornful rashness, would have quailed had their parts been passive parts and their doom been waiting.

Sartoris impresses as a novel with a design almost along the lines of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles – in that the former seems to be, as the latter is, a novel thrown together by arranging a number of episodic short stories into a loosely knitted longer narrative. We could even suggest that a theme of both “novels” is man’s arrogance (using the gendered term narrowly – “the male’s arrogance” – certainly in the Faulkner half of the comparison).

But for Faulkner, to this arrogance must be added the male’s suffering - suffering often a result of the arrogance. As for the majority of Southern mankind (Negroes, women both white and black) – these are often the indomitable ones, toiling, suffering on their own part via that already mentioned arrogance, yet still soothing and attempting to assuage that suffering not their own but that of the others. Through these not uninteresting vignettes, it is these aspects of Southern life, both before and after the great War of the States, that begin to be discernible in Sartoris.



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[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 4 out of 5]

Σίγουρα όχι από τα κορυφαία έργα του -ανήκει στην πρώτη περίοδο, εκείνη της διαμόρφωσης- μα και πάλι εμπεριέχει στιγμές που σε κάνουν να ριγείς από αναγνωστικό ενθουσιασμό!

Διαβάζοντας Φώκνερ κατανοείς από πού ξεκίνησε ο μαγικός ρεαλισμός, καίτοι ο ίδιος ουδεμία σχέση δεν έχει με το είδος. Δεν είναι τυχαίο ότι συγγραφείς όπως ο Ρούλφο και ο Φουέντες, ανάμεσα σε άλλους, έχουν επηρεαστεί από το έργο του (ναι, αν δεν υπήρχε το "Αβεσσαλώμ" οι εν λόγω αλλά και άλλοι δεκάδες θα αναζητούσαν ακόμα λέξεις στις στάχτες…).

Φυσικά, όπως συμβαίνει με όλα τα σημαντικά στη ζωή (και με την ίδια τη ζωή), μια φορά, μια ανάγνωση, δεν αρκεί.

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aplauso de pie y ovación del coliseo. Mi segunda aproximación a la obra de Faulkner me entusiasma todavía más que la primera. Si Luz de agosto me había dejado electrizado, Sartoris consiguió regalarme cuatro días intensos en la fuerza de su brutalidad y su belleza.

La trama, zurcida en una novela familiar abarcando la zaga de tres generaciones, no deslumbra en eventos increíbles, en grandiosos actos. Es sencilla, cotidiana, pero descansa tranquila en personajes tan bien elaborados, tan maravillosamente conseguidos, que cada línea reposa en una vitalidad plena. Leer Sartoris es habitar por turnos un puñado de almas con sus conflictos y sus brillos, y habitarlas con cada fibra del propio yo.

Una experiencia así, donde la catarsis se permite con cada personaje retratado, sólo es posible gracias a la belleza. Faulkner consigue una música capaz de hacer bailar a los osos (a sabiendas, como diría Flaubert, que eso es lo máximo a lo que podemos aspirar con la escritura). Cada página suya es una lección de estilo. Cada prosopopeya está elaborada con la maestría del observador y el ingenio del inventor. Es soberbio encontrar grillos y ranas que cantan como un idiota tocando la flauta un medio día de verano; o murciélagos cuyas alas están hechas de penumbra y de silencio.

Es que ni siquiera parafraseándolo a la carrera logro arruinarlo...

En el fondo, esta es una historia sobre la fatalidad, sobre la idea del destino prescrito por nuestros ancestros en el núcleo de nuestra vida. La zaga de los Sartoris está fincada en el orgullo y la muerte, y asistimos a las consecuentes escenas de ese sino milenario. Veremos jóvenes en búsqueda de un final espectacular, y viejos resentidos con la posibilidad de morir en cama. Veremos, sobre todo eso, un canto a la vida y al cariño cuando no pueden ser expresados, cuando se creció para mirarlos con el desdén de los conquistadores por el terreno conquistado.

No es la novela, sin embargo, una narración oscura. Derrocha luz, Faulkner. Derrocha una capacidad para derramar sobre las cosas y las acciones, incluso las irreflexivas y viles, la potencia creadora de un sujeto en búsqueda de la eternidad, ya sea en las posibilidades naturales de conexión con la tierra, o en las confrontaciones con su propia finitud. Esa potencia de los personajes es, creo, el mayor signo de la obra.

La vida incontenible enfrentada a la muerte inamovible. En el choque, las chispas crean soles.

[Dale Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every time I finish a Faulkner novel, I find translating the experience into words difficult. There's something about this man's writing that leaves me wondering just how he did it.

It's been a while since I've read Faulkner and as I moved through the pages of Sartoris, I realized I had almost forgotten just how beautifully the man writes. He creates such a vivid, beautifully constructed world within the reader with his prose it's hard not to get lost within the book. Many people today tire of long passages of description which saddens me beyond comprehension. It's something that I will forever love in writing and something that Faulkner perfected with such incredible precision.

Sherwood Anderson knew Faulkner would be a long-remembered and incredibly talented writer. He had to know. But, if he didn't, I'm sure Sartoris proved it to him.

Not only was Faulkner's prose so beautifully composed between the covers, but, in this book, I found some of the most incredible characters I've ever met. Namely young Bayard Sartoris and old man McCallum.

Some may find it odd that old man McCallum rates as one of my favorite characters since his presence is minimal in the book. However, the mention of him is the only thing minimal about him. His presence is so incredibly domineering and legendary even in his small role. It's almost as McCallum represents the foundation of the great American men that came before him and he is one of the last to remain. Or, maybe I'm just rambling.

There is only one thing I could find that may be a negative within these pages, though it wasn't to me. Faulkner's portrayal of the black servants throughout the novel could be very off-putting to any reader who doesn't consider the time and point of view from which this book is written. The phonetic "shuck-n-jive" language that Faulkner limits them to could be seen as challenging at the least and down right racist at worst. He also portrays many of them as stupid and unclean, though this is only superficial to the astute reader. Most times, as in the case of Simon especially, the black servants seem to be one step ahead of their white employers and manage to outsmart them or speak simplistic yet learned wisdom to them.

Just remember the point of view this book is being written in (remember we're seeing it mostly through the eyes of the white aristocracy of the South) and the time. When everything is considered, Faulkner's portrayal of the servants works extremely well within the confines of the novel.

I don't know if this will be my favorite Faulkner novel yet as I've only read Pylon and As I Lay Dying, but it surely ranks high on my list of favorite novels in general.

Faulkner has a way of writing that will envelope you and suck you in if you truly appreciate beautiful prose. Let yourself be swallowed by one of his novels as soon as possible.

[Txe Polon · Rating 5 out of 5]

En esta simbólica reconstrucción del fin de una era a través del fin de una saga familiar, Faulkner dosifica lo que nos cuenta de cada personaje de modo tan eficiente que, sin darnos cuenta, estamos cooperando en la construcción de los mismos, de manera que el proceso de lectura deja de ser un acto de contemplación y se convierte en una consciente reconstrucción a través de los fragmentos que el autor nos proporciona. Pese a ser una de las novelas "fáciles", su profundidad psicológica y simbólica está a la altura de las mejores obras, así como momentos geniales en los que los personajes quedan retratados de forma tan viva que perduran en la mente.

[Dovydas Pancerovas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pagal Faulknerio sumanymą, šis kūrinys turėjo būti didesnės apimties ir vadintis „Vėliavos dulkėse”, bet leidėjai atsisakė jį publikuoti. Faulkneris turėjo priimti jų pasiūlymą sutrumpinti tekstą. Tai jam buvo smūgis, nes pats vadino šį kūrinį savo geriausiu darbu, ilgai lauktu kūrybiniu persilaužymu.

Iš tikrųjų „Sartorius” malonu skaityti. Gali tiesiog mėgautis tekstu, kur ne kur išnyrančiais taikliais pagražinimais, nostalgišku miestelio ir gamtos peizažu. Bet šiaip kūrinys nuobodokas. Atrodo, kad šiuo atveju Faulkneriui siužetas buvo svarbus, bet pati istorija kažkokia neišbaigta, sutrūkinėjusi, su trikdančiomis duobėmis.

Personažai įtikinatys, atspinditys paties Faulknerio išgyventą šeimos modelį, bet kartu — neįdomūs, kažkuo užknisantys.

Pačioje pabaigoje aprašytas epizodas, kai nuo atsakomybės bėgantis jaunasis Bajardas Sartoris pasislepia kaimiečių troboje ir medžioja seną lapiną, — labai sujaudino, apsvaigino tiesiogine šio žodžio prasme. Taip pat sužavėjo ir po to sekęs epizodas apie šv. Kalėdų rytą juodaodžio lūšnoje.

Tai jau trečia mano skaityta Faulknerio knyga iš eilės ir mane nuoširdžiai stebina rašytojo gebėjimas kurti labai skirtingus tekstus, bet išlaikyti bendrą dvasią (stilių, braižą, potepį). Tarkime, „Sartoriai” skiriasi nuo „Kai aš gulėjau mirties patale”, nors knygos parašytos beveik tais pačiais metais (abi išleistos 1929-aisiais). 

„Sartoriai” yra viena iš keturių Faulknerio knygų, išleistų per 1929-1931 metus. Kitos trys dabar vadinamos šedevrais, tikruoju Faulknerio palikimu: „Triukšmas ir įniršis”, „Šventovė” ir „Kai aš gulėjau mirties patale”. 

Turbūt reikia pripažinti, „Sartoriai” ne to lygio, bet man patiko.

[Larry Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sartoris was Faulkner's 3rd book (edited version of Flags in the Dust, full text published in 1973) was published in 1929, and it introduced his readers to Yoknapatawpha County… the place of following works.

Yoknapatawpha County— fecundity of landscape, critters and folks. “crape myrtle and syringa and lilac and jasmine bushes without order, and massed honeysuckle on fences and tree trunks; and after the first house had burned, these had taken the place and made of its shaggy informality a mazed and scented jungle loved of mockingbirds and thrushes, boys and girls lingered on spring and summer nights among drifting fireflies and choiring whippoorwills… its present owner had set out more shrubbery—jasmine and mock orange and verbena” —“Water chuckled and murmured beneath the bridge, invisible in the twilight, its murmur burdened with the voice of cricket and frog. Above the willows that marked the course of the stream gnats still spun and whirled, for bull bats appeared from nowhere in long swoops, in mid swoop vanished, then appeared again swooping against the serene sky, silent as drops of water on a windowpane; swift and noiseless and intent as though their wings were feathered with twilight and with silence. —Moon and insects were one, audible and visible, dimensionless and without source.” The mule—“Some Homer of the cotton fields should sing the saga of the mule and of his place in the South. He it was. —steadfast to the land when all else faltered before the hopeless juggernaut of circumstance, impervious to conditions that broke men’s hearts because of his venomous and patient preoccupation with the immediate present, won the prone South from beneath the iron heel of Reconstruction and taught it pride again through humility, and courage through adversity overcome; who accomplished the well-nigh impossible despite hopeless odds, by sheer and vindictive patience.” Thanksgiving—“they moved steadily between kitchen and dining room with a roast turkey and a smoked ham and a dish of quail and another of squirrels, and a baked ’possum in a bed of sweet potatoes and squash and pickled beets, and sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes, and rice and hominy, and hot biscuit and beaten biscuit and delicate long sticks of cornbread, and strawberry and pear preserves, and quince and apple jelly, and stewed cranberries and pickled peaches.”

Old man MacCallum and clan…a much overdue visit. “In the faint glow, and in a sapling just behind the springhouse they found the ’possum curled motionless and with its eyes tightly shut, in a fork not six feet from the ground. Buddy lifted it down by the tall, unresisting. He opened the door and dumped his latest captive in among its fellows. Rafe said, “How many you got now, Buddy?” “Ain’t got but fo’teen,” Buddy answered. “Fo’teen?” Henry repeated. “We won’t never eat fo’teen ’possums.” —Buddy talking in his slow, inarticulate idiom of the war. It was a vague, dreamy sort of tale, without beginning or end and filled with stumbling references to places wretchedly mispronounced—you got an impression of people, creatures without initiative or background or future, caught timelessly in a maze of solitary conflicting preoccupations, like bumping tops, against an imminent but incomprehensible nightmare. “How’d you like the army, Buddy?” Bayard asked. “Not much,” Buddy answered. “Ain’t enough to do. Good life for a lazy man.” He mused a moment. “They gimme a charm,” he added in a burst of shy, diffident confidence and sober pleasure. “A charm?” Bayard repeated. “Uhuh. One of them brass gimcracks on to a colored ribbon. I aimed to show it to you, but I fergot. I’ll watch a chance tomorrow when pappy’s outen the house.” “Why? Don’t he know you got it?” “He knows,” Buddy answered. “Only he don’t like it because he claims it’s a Yankee charm...” — “Them’s Ellen’s pups,” “Ellen?” Bayard repeated. “Oh, that fox. Y’all raise her?” “Yes. She growed up with last year’s batch of puppies. Buddy caught her. And now Jackson aims to revolutionize the huntin’ business with her. Aims to raise a breed of animals with a hound’s wind and bottom and a fox’s smartness and speed.” “I never saw many fox pups,” he said at last, “but I never saw anything that looked like them.” “Hit’s an experiment,” Jackson explained. “The boys makes fun of ’em, but they hain’t no more’n weaned, yit. You wait and see.” “You can’t tell nothin’ ’bout a dawg ’twell hit’s at least two months old, can you?” The puppies moiled inextricably in their comer, and the old man sat with his hands on his knees, watching them with bluff and ribald enjoyment, while Jackson sat nearby in a sort of hovering concern, like a hen. “I misdoubt it,” — “Buddy’s liable to be ten mile away by now. You ketch ’im next time befo’ he starts out.” After that Bayard did so, and he and Buddy tried for birds in the skeletoned fields in the rain in which the guns made a flat, mournful sound that lingered in the streaming air like a spreading stain, or tried the stagnant backwaters along the river channel for duck and geese; or, accompanied now and then by Rate, hunted ’coon and wildcat in the bottom.” The brothers-“The others were at medium height or under, ranging from Jackson’s faded, vaguely ineffectual lankness, through Henry’s placid rotundity and Rafe’s—Raphael Semmes he was—and Stuart’s poised and stocky muscularity, to Lee’s thin and fiery restlessness; but Buddy with his sapling-like leanness stood eye to eye with that father who wore his seventy-seven years as though they were a thin coat, “Long, spindlin’ scoundrel,” the old man would say, with bluff derogation.”
Buddy’s charm. “In Europe, still following the deep but uncomplex compulsions of his nature, he had contrived, unwittingly perhaps, to perpetrate something which was later ascertained by Authority to have severely annoyed the enemy, for which Buddy had received his charm, as he called it. -the gaud not only tailing to placate his lather’s anger over the tact that a son of his had joined the Federal army, but on the contrary adding fuel to it, the bauble languished among Buddy’s sparse effects, and his military career was never mentioned in the family circle” Christmas. “Turkey,” the old man was saying, with fine and rumbling disgust. “With a pen full of ’possums, and a river bottom full of squir’l and ducks, and a smokehouse full of hawg meat, you damn boys have got to go clean to town and buy a turkey fer Christmas dinner.” “Christmas ain’t Christmas lessen a feller has a little some thin’ different from ever’ day,” -the old man retorted. “I’ve seen a sight mo’ Christmases than you have, boy, and ef hit’s got to be sto’bought, hit ain’t Christmas.” “Buyin’ turkeys,” Mr. MacCallum repeated with savage disgust. “Buyin’ ’em.”

Mississippi, down Yoknapatawpha County, southern gothic, tradition and loyalties to pastimes… filled with country, critters and folk…. Faulkner has stories to share.

[MisskTarsis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"No todas las personas que hablan del cielo, han de ir allí."

No pude evitar compararlo un poco con Cien años de Soledad, quizás por el hecho de que también lo estoy leyendo. Pero ambos hablan de una familia que de generación en generación no viven más que desgracias. En este caso son los Sartoris.

Ningún Sartoris muere de viejo.

En ésta generación, el viejo Coronel Bayard Sartoris, ya ha visto morir a su hijo, y también a uno de sus nietos. Por eso cuando el nieto pródigo vuelve a casa, trata por todos los medios de mantenerlo con vida. Pero, esa es una empresa imposible cuando el joven Bayard anhela la muerte y la busca en cada esquina.

La verdad es que no es un libro apto para sensibles. Si van a leerlo, tienes que tomarlo como un retrato bastante exacto de la época. Un momento dónde hay guerras, rencillas, racismo, esclavitud. Personas siendo obligadas a alistarse a librar guerras en las que no creen, o con las que no están de acuerdo. Dicen que, los tiempos difíciles crean personas fuertes, y sí, es así, pero la verdad, es que también crean personas rotas. Personas que no pueden cerrar los ojos y dormir en paz, personas con fantasmas y tormentos.

La pluma de Faulkner es exquisita (la verdad nunca lo dudé, por algo tiene un Nobel) tiene ese encanto de esconder muchas cosas a simple vista, de no decir las cosas directamente, sino insinuarlas. Admito que mi alma chismosa estaba desesperada por esto (por lo menos en el caso de Narcissa y Horace) Y ese final... ¿realmente creen que por cambiar un nombre pueden cambiar un destino? Cerré el libro con una sonrisa en los labios.
.
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"-Quizás sea esto lo que justifica las guerras -dijo-. El valor de la paz."

[Mohamed Karaly · Rating 5 out of 5]

عن اضمحلال الجنوب الأمريكى، بمشاهد قصيرة إيقاعها بطيئ مرسومة بتأنّ ٍ كأنها مشاهد ميتة وثابتة . جمل طويلة ومركبة.. أجمل ما يمكن أن يصل إليه التعقيد. فى الجزء الأخير والأعظم فى الرواية، الإحساس بالانحلال والنهاية الشاثع فى الجو كنسيم من البداية سيزيد تركيزه و سيظلّ الكاتب عبر حوالى خمسين صفحة يوترك بانتظار الموت، فتظل تتنفس ببطءعلى الحافة إلى أطول فترة ممكنة فى حشد مكثف من علامات الموت وانبعاث صور الماضى
............
من أكثر الأساليب التى أثرت فى ماركيز .. تأثيرا يكاد أحيانا يكون حرفيا
ترجمة عظيمة لميخائيل رومان

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what it is about Faulkner that makes him a bit of a chore to read. But I suspect the faults of this novel come from the fact that it was one of his earlier ones and not constructed as well as it might have been. However, this book is the point where the author turns from doing mere satire to more serious matters. He sets the stage here for later writings on the various inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha County. One last point is that this is the earliest (and heavily edited) version of a text later published as Flags in the Dust.

Faulkner's story-telling and description are very vivid. Some of the scenes hang a little loosely on the skeleton of the novel, but they nonetheless stand out in the memory. And some of the characters, such as Old Bayard, Simon and Miss Jenny, are very forcefully drawn. All in all, I liked this better than Absalom, Absalom!.

[Emejota (Juli) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Siguiendo la recomendación del mismísimo Faulkner, empecé a leerlo por acá. Me entretuvo y a su vez me aburrió unos cuantos días.

No encontré la complejidad de la que se habla cuando se habla de Faulkner. No hay fluir de la conciencia ni un trabajo profundo sobre el lenguaje ni nada de eso. Por esto es que quizá me faltó algo. Tuvo cosas que me interesaron pero bueno, voy a probar con otro.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faulkner’s original manuscript, Flags in the Dust, completed in 1927, was rejected by his publisher because of its flawed plot and narrative structure. Eventually, another publisher accepted the manuscript with the proviso that it be radically reworked. With Faulkner's reluctant consent, the manuscript was heavily edited, removing about 40,000 words in the process. That version was published as Sartoris in 1929. Gone are the verbose digressions that derailed the original narrative, which has been streamlined to emphasize the major plot points without detracting from Faulkner’s genius for lyrical descriptions and his singular silver-tongued style. Faulkner's original manuscript of Flags in the Dust was not published until 1973; Sartoris was subsequently taken out of print.

Favorite Passages:
p. 74
“Then he was gone, with his brother, shut away by the war as two noisy dogs are penned in a kennel far away. Miss Jenny gave her news of them, of the full, dutiful letters they sent home at sparse intervals; the. He was dead—but away beyond the seas, and there was no body to be returned clumsily to earth, and so to her he seemed still to be laughing at the word as he had laughed at all the other mouth-sounds that stood for repose, who had not waited for Time and its furniture to teach him that the end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.”

[Ivan Ruiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Casi me siento culpable al darle solo tres estrellas a Sartoris, pero durante prácticamente toda su lectura he experimentado una especie de alejamiento, la sensación de que la historia no me importaba demasiado, que ese retrato de una familia en decadencia no me llegaba, excepto en el pasaje en el que Bayard visita a los McCallum. Los personajes son algo planos y aburridos (solo el joven Bayard me parece un personaje tridimensional y con un bagaje muy interesante) y hay muchas escenas que pecan de reiterativas, que subrallan demasiado lo que uno ya ha entendido (pese a que, paradójicamente, Faulkner, al menos en esta novela, demuestra ser ese tipo de escritor al que no le gusta sobreinformar al lector, muy parecido a Cormac McCarthy). Pese a todos esos puntos negativos, es una novela que se lee con interés, que no decae en ningún momento, que te retrotrae a una época muy interesante, muy bien narrada y de la que se pueden destilar algunos temas interesantes (la incapacidad de sobrellevar la pérdida, por ejemplo).

[Daryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of humor, despair, confusing interpersonal interactions, the casually accepted racism of the early-20th-century South, and really vigorous, gorgeous (if sometimes kind of adjectival and adverby) prose. The Sartoris men are insufferable (and cyclically so), Miss Jenny a hoot, Narcissa and Horace mostly puzzling, and Simon and family caricaturish and problematically delightful. Favorite bits include Old Bayard's trip to the Memphis doctor for his wen, Thanksgiving with Loosh, and the gut-punch of young Bayard's visit to the MacCallums. The Snopes side plot is kind of weird and seems like maybe it should have been cut along with the other stuff that was cut as this book transformed from the unpublishable Flags in the Dust into Sartoris. On the whole a really enjoyable read thanks to some of the memorable characters and the way the words are strung together.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sartoris, William Faulkner’s third published novel, explores “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself.” I found Sartoris more engaging than Soldier’s Pay and Mosquitoes, Faulkner’s first two novels. Its style is an augury of the lush language and serpentine sentences I associate with his “great” books like The Sound and the Fury, published the same year as Sartoris. Its language is often beautiful, insightful, and mysterious.

The novel introduces the Sartorises and the Snopes, the two families Faulkner immortalized in such works as Sanctuary and The Snopes Trilogy: The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion. Sure, the novel has several problems. Characters wander in and out of the story. Some are developed for a significant portion of the novel, and then we never see them again. The plot is a Winchester Mystery House of malformed narratives. While reading Sartoris, it’s often challenging to figure out who and what are important.

All of Faulkner’s novels, and most of his story collections, remain in print. Sartoris is one of the few outliers. I had to order it through a used-book vendor. I did some literary nerd-diving and discovered that Sartoris is still in print under its original title Flags in the Dust. When Faulkner presented Flags in the Dust to his publisher, the publisher cut approximately 40,000 words and sent it into the world with a different title. The original manuscript was published in 1973.

I haven’t read the unedited version, but I can’t help wondering if it’s reminiscent of a blurry Jackson Pollack painting that’s been splashed across the page. I’m half in love with Sartoris—perhaps because of its meandering inadequacies. There’s a theme of what I’ll term “fraternal hauntings” that I find particularly compelling. Faulkner takes two sets of siblings, one brother and sister and two brothers, to examine the inescapable, emotionally devastating effects brothers can have on their siblings.

Meet Horace Benbow, who returns to Jefferson, Mississippi, after World War I and is reunited with his sister Narcissa. Horace’s absence during the war weighed heavily on Narcissa, and their relationship is continually described in vaguely incestuous terms. After Horace has settled in, Narcissa expresses “the sensuous pleasure of having Horace home again.”

Horace soon starts a romantic relationship with Belle Mitchell, the wife of his best friend Harry. As Horace spends less time with Narcissa, his absence in her life can be seen as a haunting—a lonely void she needs to fill. This is when she develops a relationship with young Bayard Sartoris. Bayard is a poor substitute for Horace, and Narcissa acquiesces to Bayard in a passionless, indifferent manner. The bond she shares with her brother is much more charged than what she feels for Bayard.

Like Horace, Bayard has also recently returned home from the war, and he’s haunted by the presence of John, his twin brother who died during the war. Bayard was with John when he was killed, and John’s death comes to define, and ultimately destroy, Bayard.

John’s isn’t the only significant death in Bayard’s life. He’s something of a death magnate. Untimely demises coat him like a patina. Imagine the spirit of Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote infused into James Dean’s body. That’s Bayard. When he returns home after World War I, Bayard comes back to a house where death is as permanent a fixture as the patriarchal spirits of Bayard’s ancestors. Bayard’s wife died giving birth to their son in the same room where Bayard now sleeps. The presence of grief is palpable, but what’s interesting is that Bayard’s fraternal relationship has stronger implications for him than the death of his wife and child. As Faulkner writes, “Nor was he (Bayard) thinking of her (his deceased wife) now…He was thinking of his dead brother; the spirit of their violent complementing days lay like dust everywhere in the room…obliterating that other presence….” Caroline White, Bayard’s deceased first wife, is also a ghost, but for Bayard she represents an innocuous haunting, always coming in second to his brother.

Bayard is a narcissistic, impulsive, often morose and charismatic character with an incorrigible death wish. He drives his car around Jefferson with reckless abandon, an act that eventually kills his grandfather. Midway through the novel, an intoxicated Bayard rides an unbroken stallion and injures himself. He abandons his family and Narcissa, his second wife, and he eventually dies test flying a rickety airplane. All of these actions are driven by Bayard’s mourning and his futile attempts to assuage his grief.

During my favorite passage, Bayard lies in bed, thinking about John’s death, and contemplating his own mortality. He reflects about “…the long, long span of a man’s natural life. Three score and ten years to drag a stubborn body around the world and cozen its insistent demands. Three score and ten, the Bible said. Seventy years. And he was only twenty-six. Not much more than a third through it.” This last sentence turns out to be untrue. Bayard is almost 100% done with his life. John’s death is an illness that poisons the rest of Bayard’s brief existence. He’s unable to move beyond his brother’s death. Ultimately, John’s haunting emerges victorious.

[Vanessa Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

“-¿Porqué luchaban ustedes?
- Que me maten si lo sé”

El propio Faulkner recomendaba empezar a leer su obra por Sartoris y desde luego no seré yo quien le lleve la contraria al maestro. Creo que es un muy buen adelanto a lo que serían las grandes obras del autor.

La novela me ha gustado…y mucho. Tiene personajes muy interesantes, algunas escenas memorables, una ambientación impecable y una narración muy sensorial con constantes referencias a la luz, los sonidos, los aromas,… Es indudable que Faulkner escribía como los dioses pero no es Luz de Agosto(la otra única novela que he leído del autor).

¿Qué nos vamos a encontrar en Sartoris?
Sartoris es la historia de una familia, cuyo apellido da título al libro, en un momento crucial de la historia de los EEUU. Ellos nos servirán como ejemplo de una aristocracia que comienza a desaparecer y lo difícil que les supone adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos.

Pero no sólo esto. Veremos un pueblo en el que se va incorporando la modernidad sin perder del todo las viejas costumbres; el trato que se le daba a los negros, que a pesar de haber conseguido la libertad, seguían sirviendo a los blancos; el rol que desempeñó la mujer durante la guerra; la aparición de una tercera clase social, los blancos pobres; y sobre todo, las terribles consecuencias de la guerra en las personas.

Ya lo dice el mismo Faulkner en un momento del libro…”no hablamos de la guerra entre contendientes...hablamos de la guerra individual de miles y miles de jóvenes que murieron muy lejos de su casa o que volvieron muertos en vida”

“Quizá sea esto lo que justifica las guerras. El valor de la paz”

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does a disastrous present belie a mythical past, or does modernity end glamour? Is Faulkner a thorough skeptic, or does he still romanticize the old South?

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first Faulkner novel I've read--I got turned off after reading "The Bear" in high school but my husband convinced me to give him another try. I'm so glad I did! The first thing I noticed about the book is that Faulkner's writing is so evocative and descriptive but also insightful and moving all at once. He creates atmosphere like no other writer I've ever read, and of course, he's very attentive to the specifics of place and time that root the reader in the world he's creating. The plot of the book is a bit messy, but I don't think it's a book to read for a tightly-wound narrative. Parts of it provoke belly-aching laughter, other parts are equally striking in their awful tragedy. Plus, for a page and a half the book rather unexpectedly sings the praises of that poor, downtrodden, unsung hero, the Southern mule. I'll be reading more Faulkner in the future, no doubt about it. I can't believe I let my prejudices about his modernism prevent me from enjoying some of the finest American writing ever produced.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Violent modernity, in the form of automobiles, planes and The Great War (and even a touch of "the meaningless pandemonium" of the jazz age) intrudes on the settled agrarian world of the Old South, where Jim Crow ensured that everyone knew his place. Not that the men of the Sartoris family, all endlessly named and re-named John and Bayard, need any particular innovations to live recklessly and die young, supported throughout by the "passive courage" of their womenfolk.

This is Faulkner's third, the one where he is said to have hit his mature style and this publication is apparently a drastically edited version of a manuscript that was published at full-length and posthumously as Flags In The Dust. My copy, a 50 cent Signet paperback from 1958, with a cover design trying hard to make it look like a potboiler, has an introduction by mid-century novelist and book reviewer Robert Cantwell (not to be confused with the American Studies professor and bluegrass scholar of the same name).

[Marcelo Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

i got confused at first... Faulkner suddenly throws out so many different Sartoris that it got kind of hard for me to keep up with everyone, but as novels unfolds, little by little things start to make more sense, until I realized it wasn't at all about the individuals in this particular family, but on the weight of its name. To be proud and ashamed of a name, to carry the weight of it.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first novel of his I read, and the first he set in Yawknapatapha County, and maybe the third he wrote, Flags in the Dust, the original title, which upon rejection by a publisher was rewritten by his agent and published in 1928. Pretty good for an early work, no stylistic excurses, straightforward reconstruction story as I recall a half century later.

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se trata de una versión "abreviada" de Flags in the Dust en la que en 1929 se suprimieron, entre otras, secciones importante de la subtrama de Horace Benbow. El argumento del editor era que la novela contenía otras seis novelas dentro. Quizás ese editor no había leído Anna Karenina de Tolstoy.

[Marc Aura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Potser no és el meu preferit de Faulkner, llegir-lo en castellà també se m'ha fet una mica estrany.
Igual que Plataforma de MH comença amb una cosa i acaba amb altra, que no és necessàriament dolent, però sí que em va desconcertar al principi. Crec que esperava altra cosa del llibre, també pel que he llegit de l'autor, he trobat una obra crepuscular on cercava la continuació èpica de Light in August potser. Com la majoria del que ha escrit en uns anys voldria llegir-lo de nou. D'aquest llibre he pogut veure l'empremta que després hom troba en Pynchon.
El tema central, malgrat tot, és la memòria i com afrontar aquesta, especialment quan esdevé un dimoni per a nosaltres. El destí d'algunes persones (o d'algunes famílies, pense en la meua peut-être) que sembla inamovible en Faulkner torna de nou, però aquesta vegada no causa pena o esperança com potser sí en The Sound and the Fury o The Wild Palms.
A Jameson li agrada molt el passatge en què Bayard remena el bagul on hi ha les coses del Coronel (penseu quin altre coronel famós hi ha en la literatura del continent americà). Ara entenc el perquè.


Una merda de ressenya, només gargots.

[Ana Isabel Lage Ferreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another stop on my journey to read American authors.
I got a copy from the library and on the cover it said"(...) If you have never read Faulkner you should start with SARTORIS". So I did what I was told.!

This is a classic book and I read a classic translation. Full of adjectives and descriptions - the nature, the people, The clothes, the houses (inside and out).
You have access to the characters' mindset not because you know what they're thinking but because you watch them behaving. In grief, in expectation, in disappointment, in rebellion, in anger, in conformity.
The storyline is erratic. Apparently random episodes.
Reading this book feels like those dreams when every scene is clear and intense and suddenly you're somewhere else with someone else and you can't understand how you managed to get there. But somehow, in your mid, everything makes perfect sense.

In the preface, a short explanation let us understand that this book was meant to be triple long. I wonder if then, the story would be more fluid and less erratic. Maybe. But for sure not less artistic and deep.

It's a classic. A well written one. And good writing is always worth our time.

"E ali estava a cidade, com as suas árvores, as suas ruas sombrias, onde as vidas aperreadas consumavam as suas pacíficas tragédias"

[Yesenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is one of the most beautiful books i've read. like margaret drabble, but totally unlike margaret drabble, faulkner also makes magic with words. with images, with characters, with sentences, with descriptions, with a whole universe that he writes into being.

wow. Bayard and Bayard and John and Miss Jenny. And Simon and Narcissa and Isom and Caspey. and a whole town of people and a whole universe of people and history going back a hundred years and talk of cars and engines and bridges and streets and trains and war and horses and cemeteries and sculptures and tragic deaths and near-death and humor and. magic and life.

magic. as you read, you ask in wonderment and amazement, "how does he do it!? how does he do that!?" and you must accept that there are just, that some people are just, gods. with words. they're not mere mortals. and Faulkner towers over the rest of us mortals. he just does.

[Cristian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leí un par de novelas de Faulkner hace algún tiempo, pero ahora que me estoy acercando de nuevo a su obra, quise hacerlo siguiendo su recomendación, empezando por "Sartoris". La historia de esta familia que se encuentra en un punto de inflexión histórico de su país, está contada de gran manera. Herederos de una aristocracia que empieza a desaparecer junto con los valores que la edificaron, no consiguen cómo formar parte de este nuevo mundo y marcados por la tragedia los vemos sufrir de distintas formas. Los nombres repetidos, la saga familiar, la marca de la tragedia, presencias espectrales y esa ciudad ficticia, nos hacen pensar en García Márquez. Los diálogos extensos, los diferentes puntos de vista, ese tiempo no lineal y la estructura, nos hacen pensar en Vargas Llosa. Leer a Faulkner ayuda a comprender por qué tantos otros escritores lo admiraban enormemente.

[Lila Gloria Fernández de Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Faulkner es un escritor que me pareció difícil,pero maravilloso. Hay que leerlo con mucha atención y poco a poco se conoce más a los personajes y la trama de la lectura, ya que da saltos en el tiempo para conocer a la familia Sartoris desde el bisabuelo hasta el presente. Seguiré leyendo más novelas de William Faulkner ya que me parece que una vez que comienzo a conocer el universo Faulkeriano , lo encuentro fascinante.

[Constantin Vasilescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un roman al celor patru anotimpuri sau epitaful unui an. Dar nu orice anotimpuri, ci anotimpurile Sudului cel atât de încremenit în tăceri şi rutină. Anotimpuri în alb şi negru, cu nebuni şi oameni cumsecade. Cu glicină şi whisky de contrabandă. Cu conace coloniale şi bordeie umile. Cu alei străjuite de flori şi drumuri prăfuite. Cu automobile şi catâri. Cu veselă de porţelan, pahare de cristal şi căni de tinichea, cu smalţul sărit.
O fărâmă din testamentul unui neam blestemat să moară şi să trăiască la nesfârşit: Sartoris. Şi cât de puţine se pot schimba într-un an, la suprafaţă, şi câte cutremure înlăuntru...
Sartoris e, totodată, şi începutul lui Yoknapatawpha cel bizar, un tărâm literar cu care doar Pământul de Mijloc poate rivaliza ca forţă de atracţie şi în care Faulkner avea să rătăcească în veşnicie. Şi toate zugrăvite atât de original şi agonizant de unul dintre cei mai mari. Poate chiar cel mai mare...

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[معاذ · Rating 4 out of 5]

يقول ماريو يوسا بأن فوكنر وجد صوته في هذه الرواية. هذه أول رواية تقع أحداثها في الجنوب الأمريكي، وبالتحديد في مقاطعة يوكنا باتاوفا التي ابتدعها فوكنر واتخذ منها مسرحًا لأغلب أعماله اللاحقة.
فوكنر روائي وحكّاء لا يفض له غبار، وبراعته السردية ليست مجالًا للنقاش، وافتتان روائيين مثل ماركيز ويوسا بأعماله شهادة كافية. يقول يوسا: ((فوكنر هو الروائي الأول الذي قرأت له ممسكًا بيدي الورقة والقلم، لأنني كنت مأخوذًا بتقنياته الفنية))، ورغم ذلك لا تجد اسم فوكنر يتردد كثيرًا بين القراء، وأعتقد أن ذلك يرجع إلى أن رواياته محصورة في بقعة جغرافية وزمنية معينة نادرًا ما يخرج منها، وتقدير أعماله يرتبط بمعرفة الخلفية التي تدور فيها الأحداث.

تدور الرواية حول آل سارتورس، ممثلي القيم القديمة للجنوب الأمريكي الزراعي قبل اصطدامه الأخير والفتّاك مع العالم الصناعي الحديث والقيم التي يحملها، والنهايات التي لاقتها شخصيات الرواية لفتة ظريفة تعبر عن هذا الصراع. اسم آل سارتورس كان رديفًا للفخر والعزة بالنفس والكبرياء والشرف، يعرفهم الصغير والكبير، والقاصي قبل الداني، وسلطتهم الاجتماعية لا تقل سطوة عن السلطة القانونية، ممتدون عبر الزمن وغارسون جذورهم في الأرض، ولكن للزمن رأي آخر، فمعه لا دوام ولا امتداد، وهذه الرواية تحكي زفير الموت، والرفسة الأخيرة الساروتورسية للأرض التي رفضت أن تحملهم مسافة أبعد من التي قطعوها.

لا توجد حبكة بالمعنى المتعارف عليه، فالرواية بمثابة عدسة تعكس وضعًا اجتماعيا وتصوره للقارئ، فوكنر هنا يلعب دور عالم اجتماع أكثر من كونه نفسانيًا. آل سارتورس يبدو أنهم يتوارثون الأسماء كما يتوارثون قيمهم العائلية. الجد الأكبر العقيد جون هو الذي بنى سكة قطار المقاطعة، وهذا القطار السارتورسي يترك أثره على كل شبر من أنحائها، وإن اختفى وراء تل أو نزل في وادٍ فإن دخانه الذي يرتفع في السماء سيضمن ألا ينسى أحد اسم سارتورس. الجد الثاني بايارد العجوز مدير المصرف، الذي يرفض أن يقرض مالًا لمن يملك سيّارة، بينما يشمخ هو بعربته التي تجرها الأحصنة كما يليق بسيد نبيل. ابن بايارد العجوز جون الذي مات مبكرًا ترك ورائه توأمين، بايارد وجون الذين شاركا في الحرب العالمية الأولى. العمّة جيني أخت بايارد العجوز تولت تربية التوأمين بايارد وجون بعد وفاة والدهم وأمهم، وهذه حيلة فوكنرية لتكوين عائلة سارتورسية خالصة، كما أنها تبرز الفارق الزمني بين الجد وأخته وبين الجيل الجديد المتمثل في التوأمين.

لاحظت في قراءتي السابقة لقصص فوكنر القصيرة هوسه بالماضي، فحتى إن كانت القصة لا تتجاوز الثلاثين صفحة فإنه يستعرض تاريخ العائلة، ويذكّر بالجد والأب قبل أن يتكلم عن الابن. وهنا بالرواية اتضح لي مفهوم الماضي والاستدعاء الدائم له، فالماضي ليس إلا الحاضر متنكرًا بصورة جديدة فقط، فالرجل كما يقول فوكنر هو مجموع ماضيه. وهكذا افتتح فوكنر روايته بشكل بديع عندما وصف الحضور الشبحي للجد الأكبر الميت:

" كالعادة، استحضر العجوز فولز جون سارتورس إلى الغرفة. وكالعادة، مشى الأميال الثلاثة من ملجأ الفقراء في الإقليم، حاملًا معه كعطر، وكرائحة ملابسه النظيفة الباهتة المغبرة، روح الرجل الميت إلى الغرفة حيث كان ابن الرجل الميت جالسًا، وحيث سيجلس كلاهما، المعوز وصاحب المصرف، لمدة نصف ساعة، في حضرة ذلك الذي مضى وراء الموت ثم عاد. على الرغم من أنه كان متحررًا من الزمن والجسد، إلا أن وجوده كان أشدّ جلاءً من أي من العجوزين اللذين جلسا يتصايحان واحدًا بعد الآخر. "