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"'The Bear' is a composite narrative of the initiation and inheritance of Isaac McCaslin (born in 1867), the last direct male descendant of Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin, who purchased land from the Chickasaw Indians." --A William Faulkner Encyclopedia. A version of it was published as a short story in The Saturday Evening Post on May 9, 1942. It was subsequently incorporated into the author's novel Go Down, Moses (1942); but has since sometimes been published as a free-standing novella.
195 pages, Paperback
First published May 9, 1942
About the author
William Faulkner
1,556 books11.3k 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 - 29 of 171 reviews
June 9, 2023
"Медведь" входит в Йокнапатофскую сагу, и, как большинство произведений Фолкнера, является многоплановым, со сложной временной структурой.
Если первые три части посвящены непосредственно охоте, а, вернее, убийству матерого медведя, у которого и имя было, достойное человека - Старый Бен, то последняя часть - постижение уже повзрослевшим Айзеком мира, в его единстве жизни и смерти.
Медведь так силен, умён и хитёр, что люди ездили на охоту, даже не рассчитывая его убить. Ездили, как на свидание. Медведь - это природа, ее мощь, красота и необузданность. Сэм Фазерс, сын черной рабыни и вождя племени чикесо, является той силой, которая может управлять природой справедливо, зная ее, уважая ее законы, сохранив связь с ней, и относящейся к ней, как источнику великой силы, непостижимой и неодолимой. Подробно описывается пути становления Айка, который с десятилетнего возраста приобщается к охотничьим тайнам, знаниям и умениям и древний обряд инициации, путем помазания лица свежей кровью убитого оленя. Айзек явно был избран Сэмом на преемство.
Вот люди заговорили, что медведь у кого какую скотину задрал, как причина необходимости его убийства, но Сэм знает, без собаки - не абы какой, а достойной этого медведя - не справиться. Тут волею случая, находят Льва - дикую собаку, с отличающей синью шерстью, под стать медведю, способную загрызть коня. Медведь и собака погибли на охоте. Умер и Сэм. Все трое были "без изъяна и порока".
Смерть Сэма после охоты, когда он вроде не получил никаких ранений, а умер просто, упав ничком на землю, и доктор не нашел у него ничего, умер оттого, что прошел свой жизненный путь, и только Айзек понял, что Сэму больше не жить - символизирует завершенность жизненного цикла, выполненность миссии и бессмертие природы.
"...ни Сэм, ни Лев не мертвы, не скованно почиют они под землей, а свободно движутся в ней, с ней, входя неисчислимо дробной, но непогибшей частицей в лист и ветку, присутствуя в воздухе и солнце, в дожде и росе, в желуде, дубе и снова желуде, в рассвете, закате и снова рассвете, бессмертные и целостные в своей неисчислимой дробности — и Старый Бен, Старый Бен тоже!".
Несмотря на глубокий смысл произведения, несколько ослабленный победой человека над природой, и несмотря на то, что много великих писателей писали об охоте, от Тургенева до Хемингуэя, от Джека Лондона до только что прочитанной мной прекрасной книге Луиса Сепульведы, охота - не есть та тема, которую с современных позиций можно одобрить. В этом конкретном случае, йокнапатофцы обосновывают необходимость убийства медведя ущербом скоту. Считается, что это оправдывает действия. Вот в моей стране, сейчас по жалобам фермеров в западных областях, что посевы поедаются и вытаптываются, хотят разрешить охоту на сайгаков, которые ещё недавно массово умирали от инфекции. Я считаю, что охота может быть обоснованной только для одного случая - когда она является жизненной необходимостью, например, если люди обитают в такой среде, где они могут прокормиться только охотой. Таких мест на земле немного - это Крайний Север, это леса Амазонии, ну может ещё несколько мест.
Во всех остальных случаях, причины надуманны, и, скорее, относятся к категории наступления человека на среду обитания животных.
Если первые три части посвящены непосредственно охоте, а, вернее, убийству матерого медведя, у которого и имя было, достойное человека - Старый Бен, то последняя часть - постижение уже повзрослевшим Айзеком мира, в его единстве жизни и смерти.
Медведь так силен, умён и хитёр, что люди ездили на охоту, даже не рассчитывая его убить. Ездили, как на свидание. Медведь - это природа, ее мощь, красота и необузданность. Сэм Фазерс, сын черной рабыни и вождя племени чикесо, является той силой, которая может управлять природой справедливо, зная ее, уважая ее законы, сохранив связь с ней, и относящейся к ней, как источнику великой силы, непостижимой и неодолимой. Подробно описывается пути становления Айка, который с десятилетнего возраста приобщается к охотничьим тайнам, знаниям и умениям и древний обряд инициации, путем помазания лица свежей кровью убитого оленя. Айзек явно был избран Сэмом на преемство.
Вот люди заговорили, что медведь у кого какую скотину задрал, как причина необходимости его убийства, но Сэм знает, без собаки - не абы какой, а достойной этого медведя - не справиться. Тут волею случая, находят Льва - дикую собаку, с отличающей синью шерстью, под стать медведю, способную загрызть коня. Медведь и собака погибли на охоте. Умер и Сэм. Все трое были "без изъяна и порока".
Смерть Сэма после охоты, когда он вроде не получил никаких ранений, а умер просто, упав ничком на землю, и доктор не нашел у него ничего, умер оттого, что прошел свой жизненный путь, и только Айзек понял, что Сэму больше не жить - символизирует завершенность жизненного цикла, выполненность миссии и бессмертие природы.
"...ни Сэм, ни Лев не мертвы, не скованно почиют они под землей, а свободно движутся в ней, с ней, входя неисчислимо дробной, но непогибшей частицей в лист и ветку, присутствуя в воздухе и солнце, в дожде и росе, в желуде, дубе и снова желуде, в рассвете, закате и снова рассвете, бессмертные и целостные в своей неисчислимой дробности — и Старый Бен, Старый Бен тоже!".
Несмотря на глубокий смысл произведения, несколько ослабленный победой человека над природой, и несмотря на то, что много великих писателей писали об охоте, от Тургенева до Хемингуэя, от Джека Лондона до только что прочитанной мной прекрасной книге Луиса Сепульведы, охота - не есть та тема, которую с современных позиций можно одобрить. В этом конкретном случае, йокнапатофцы обосновывают необходимость убийства медведя ущербом скоту. Считается, что это оправдывает действия. Вот в моей стране, сейчас по жалобам фермеров в западных областях, что посевы поедаются и вытаптываются, хотят разрешить охоту на сайгаков, которые ещё недавно массово умирали от инфекции. Я считаю, что охота может быть обоснованной только для одного случая - когда она является жизненной необходимостью, например, если люди обитают в такой среде, где они могут прокормиться только охотой. Таких мест на земле немного - это Крайний Север, это леса Амазонии, ну может ещё несколько мест.
Во всех остальных случаях, причины надуманны, и, скорее, относятся к категории наступления человека на среду обитания животных.
August 21, 2023
[Note: Apparently there are several versions of this story. I read a free online very short one (https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+be...), not listed on Goodreads. Distilled, perhaps.]
It looked and towered in his dreams before he even saw the unaxed woods where it left its crooked print, shaggy, huge, red-eyed, not malevolent but just big--too big for the dogs which tried to bay it, for the horses which tried to ride it down, for the men and the bullets they fired into it, too big for the very country which was its constricting scope.
Now THAT was a story. A boy’s introduction to hunting, to wildness, to the meaning of bravery.
I’m someone who abhors the idea of hunting, but the treatment of it here was so rich, so full of tradition and respect for nature, that it was beautiful, even to me.
I read the third paragraph three times, stunned by how gorgeous it was. I’ve been impressed by the Faulkner novels I’ve read so far, but this story raises him to a new level for me. When I finished, I just wanted to read and re-read it; to contemplate the genius of it, foolishly hoping to discover how on earth he did it.
It looked and towered in his dreams before he even saw the unaxed woods where it left its crooked print, shaggy, huge, red-eyed, not malevolent but just big--too big for the dogs which tried to bay it, for the horses which tried to ride it down, for the men and the bullets they fired into it, too big for the very country which was its constricting scope.
Now THAT was a story. A boy’s introduction to hunting, to wildness, to the meaning of bravery.
I’m someone who abhors the idea of hunting, but the treatment of it here was so rich, so full of tradition and respect for nature, that it was beautiful, even to me.
I read the third paragraph three times, stunned by how gorgeous it was. I’ve been impressed by the Faulkner novels I’ve read so far, but this story raises him to a new level for me. When I finished, I just wanted to read and re-read it; to contemplate the genius of it, foolishly hoping to discover how on earth he did it.
October 25, 2025
Παραδοχή νούμερο 1: το έργο του Φώκνερ απαιτεί να το διαβάσεις πάνω από μία φορά, μιας και ο συγγραφέας αυτός είναι πραγματικά ιδιόρρυθμος.
Παραδοχή νούμερο 2: μόλις τελείωσα ένα αριστούργημα το οποίο σκοπεύω να ξαναδιαβάσω άμεσα, μιας και είμαι εντελώς γοητευμένος από τη γραφή του.
Ένα όψιμο έργο, μια νουβέλα η οποία με συγκίνησε πολύ, τόσο για το ύφος όσο και για το θέμα της. Ο γερο Μπεν είναι η Αρκούδα, το αντίστοιχο της φάλαινας του Μέλβιλ σ΄έναν μεγάλο, πράσινο ωκεανό που ροκανίζεται από μικρά πριόνια. Το πνεύμα της είναι σύντροφος στην πορεία ενηλικίωσης του νεαρού κυνηγού Ισαάκ Μακάσλιν, κεντρικού χαρακτήρα της νουβέλας. Ένα τοτεμικό ζώο που θα ‘πρεπε να μείνει απείρακτο, όπως και η γη, η ψυχή του Νότου. Το δάσος ως πνευματική οντότητα σε αντιπαραβολή με την έννοια της οικονομικής μονάδας και της ιδιοκτησίας, τόπος όπου ακυρώνεται η ατομικότητα και μαζί ο θάνατος της.
Νομίζω ότι είναι το αγαπημένο μου έργο του Φόκνερ. Διαβάζοντας το, αρχίζω να πιστεύω ότι όλα τα μεγάλα έργα έχουν και μία θεολογική διάσταση· εγώ τουλάχιστον νοιώθω λίγο διαφορετικός μετά την ανάγνωσή του, περισσότερο ήρεμος και πλήρης, θα μπορούσα να πω.
Παραδοχή νούμερο 2: μόλις τελείωσα ένα αριστούργημα το οποίο σκοπεύω να ξαναδιαβάσω άμεσα, μιας και είμαι εντελώς γοητευμένος από τη γραφή του.
Ένα όψιμο έργο, μια νουβέλα η οποία με συγκίνησε πολύ, τόσο για το ύφος όσο και για το θέμα της. Ο γερο Μπεν είναι η Αρκούδα, το αντίστοιχο της φάλαινας του Μέλβιλ σ΄έναν μεγάλο, πράσινο ωκεανό που ροκανίζεται από μικρά πριόνια. Το πνεύμα της είναι σύντροφος στην πορεία ενηλικίωσης του νεαρού κυνηγού Ισαάκ Μακάσλιν, κεντρικού χαρακτήρα της νουβέλας. Ένα τοτεμικό ζώο που θα ‘πρεπε να μείνει απείρακτο, όπως και η γη, η ψυχή του Νότου. Το δάσος ως πνευματική οντότητα σε αντιπαραβολή με την έννοια της οικονομικής μονάδας και της ιδιοκτησίας, τόπος όπου ακυρώνεται η ατομικότητα και μαζί ο θάνατος της.
Νομίζω ότι είναι το αγαπημένο μου έργο του Φόκνερ. Διαβάζοντας το, αρχίζω να πιστεύω ότι όλα τα μεγάλα έργα έχουν και μία θεολογική διάσταση· εγώ τουλάχιστον νοιώθω λίγο διαφορετικός μετά την ανάγνωσή του, περισσότερο ήρεμος και πλήρης, θα μπορούσα να πω.
December 11, 2021
A strange and difficult story from a true master of literature.
August 6, 2024
Δεν συγκινείσαι, σε ρωτάνε, όταν διαβάζεις λογοτεχνία; Δεν δακρύζεις; Συνήθως όχι, απαντώ. Σκέφτομαι, παρατηρώ. Και μετά ανοίγω τις πρώτες σελίδες μιας μικρής ιστορίας του Φώκνερ, με τίτλο Η αρκούδα. Δεν προλαβαίνω να σκεφτώ τίποτα, γιατί δεν έχω καν ανάσα. Είναι όλα εκεί, μπροστά μου, τόσο αγνά και απολαυστικά. Δημιουργία δίχως κόπο, μαγεία δίχως όρια, τέτοια που σβήνει όσα διάβασα πρωτύτερα ως ανάξια λόγου, αφού εδώ κρύβεται η τέχνη και η ζωή και όλα όσα θα ήθελα να είμαι και να είναι nunc et semper...
December 6, 2021
I think I read this long ago (and quickly – for graduate exams) as part of Go Down, Moses, but it feels almost entirely new to me. And new Faulkner can be bewildering, in both good and bad ways.
There’s definitely more good than the other. For starters, this gives us a compelling character, one of the most sympathetic in all of Faulkner. Carothers McCaslin is (or was, since we meet him only in memory) one of the generation of General Compson and Thomas Sutpen, the semi-legendary men who carved plantations out of the forest and thought nothing of enslaving humans.
Isaac “Ike” McCaslin is his grandson, and he feels the stain of that legacy. Unlike the plebian Colonel Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes, he doesn’t simply run from the world – nor does he succumb to the pressure of its history like Quentin Compson. Instead, he determines to set things as right as he can make them.
In the first half of this, we see him tutored in the ways of the wilderness by Sam Fathers, a mixed Native and African-American ex-slave. From Sam, he learns to value the vanishing wilderness, a wilderness symbolized by the mythic great bear, Ben.
In the second half, Ike documents his grandfather’s rape – he doesn’t use the word, but he understands it as such – of a slave who was, on top of everything else, his biological daughter. That’s a lot to live with even for a Faulkner character, so Carothers pledges a $1000 bequest to Tennie and her descendants. Ike determines to find and repay each of them. In a similar vein, he refuses his inheritance of what’s left of the McCaslin farm. He still loves the wilderness – he sees it as raped in different fashion by the men of that primal generation – but he cannot bring himself to believe that anyone can truly own it.
In the end, Ike is almost a quasi-religious figure. He’s Uncle Ike to half the county, and he is a living link to the forests that have been turned into timber farms. He wants to atone for the evils of his ancestors, but he’s not sure he can.
As such, Ike is a powerful character to be examining in this moment when the concept of white privilege is so much in the air. He’s someone who sacrifices his inheritance and, as a consequence, his opportunity to have a family, in the name of compensating the victims of his ancestors’ greed. He tries to deny his privilege, and it’s not clear to what effect.
For all that ambition, this is a clear cut below the great Faulkner work. I am intrigued by the way he uses Carother’s – and his sons’ – ledgers to re-examine the history that many have forgotten. As someone hoping to construct a story around the information I have learned from a pile of obscure records, I’m wrestling with the same narrative challenge.
The results, here, are mixed. I like reading the excerpts we get from the ledgers, but Faulkner is asking a great deal of us as readers to sort through different names and spellings and then to make sense of how they’re all connected. The Sound and the Fury is a lot of work, too, but that is work that takes us into the minds of our protagonists. This is work that tasks us with sorting between texts. As a consequence, I don’t feel I know Ike as fully as I’d like, though there is a strong argument in which we get to hear his voice and that compensates somewhat.
There’s also the mechanical problem that the two great halves of this feel different. The first four chapters and the sixth have one tone, and I understand they were written years earlier. The lengthy fifth chapter seems in a rush to squeeze in generational history. (That’s a feature of the beginning of Requiem for a Nun, a hurried recap of a slice of Yoknapatawpha history that he hasn’t had the chance to write elsewhere.) I get the impression that, a little Sutpen-like, Faulkner was beginning to worry that he might not live long enough to complete his design.
Still, there’s an undeniable power to this, and I think it works better than Spotted Horses, a novella from the same artificially assembled collection. It takes a lot of work as a reader to bring Ike into focus – work on par with bringing Benjy and Quentin into focus in The Sound and the Fury – and I think the effort is ultimately worth it.
Second-tier Faulkner can also be magnificent work, and this certainly is. I’ll get back to the full Go Down, Moses before long, and I look forward to seeing how it fits into that whole.
There’s definitely more good than the other. For starters, this gives us a compelling character, one of the most sympathetic in all of Faulkner. Carothers McCaslin is (or was, since we meet him only in memory) one of the generation of General Compson and Thomas Sutpen, the semi-legendary men who carved plantations out of the forest and thought nothing of enslaving humans.
Isaac “Ike” McCaslin is his grandson, and he feels the stain of that legacy. Unlike the plebian Colonel Sartoris “Sarty” Snopes, he doesn’t simply run from the world – nor does he succumb to the pressure of its history like Quentin Compson. Instead, he determines to set things as right as he can make them.
In the first half of this, we see him tutored in the ways of the wilderness by Sam Fathers, a mixed Native and African-American ex-slave. From Sam, he learns to value the vanishing wilderness, a wilderness symbolized by the mythic great bear, Ben.
In the second half, Ike documents his grandfather’s rape – he doesn’t use the word, but he understands it as such – of a slave who was, on top of everything else, his biological daughter. That’s a lot to live with even for a Faulkner character, so Carothers pledges a $1000 bequest to Tennie and her descendants. Ike determines to find and repay each of them. In a similar vein, he refuses his inheritance of what’s left of the McCaslin farm. He still loves the wilderness – he sees it as raped in different fashion by the men of that primal generation – but he cannot bring himself to believe that anyone can truly own it.
In the end, Ike is almost a quasi-religious figure. He’s Uncle Ike to half the county, and he is a living link to the forests that have been turned into timber farms. He wants to atone for the evils of his ancestors, but he’s not sure he can.
As such, Ike is a powerful character to be examining in this moment when the concept of white privilege is so much in the air. He’s someone who sacrifices his inheritance and, as a consequence, his opportunity to have a family, in the name of compensating the victims of his ancestors’ greed. He tries to deny his privilege, and it’s not clear to what effect.
For all that ambition, this is a clear cut below the great Faulkner work. I am intrigued by the way he uses Carother’s – and his sons’ – ledgers to re-examine the history that many have forgotten. As someone hoping to construct a story around the information I have learned from a pile of obscure records, I’m wrestling with the same narrative challenge.
The results, here, are mixed. I like reading the excerpts we get from the ledgers, but Faulkner is asking a great deal of us as readers to sort through different names and spellings and then to make sense of how they’re all connected. The Sound and the Fury is a lot of work, too, but that is work that takes us into the minds of our protagonists. This is work that tasks us with sorting between texts. As a consequence, I don’t feel I know Ike as fully as I’d like, though there is a strong argument in which we get to hear his voice and that compensates somewhat.
There’s also the mechanical problem that the two great halves of this feel different. The first four chapters and the sixth have one tone, and I understand they were written years earlier. The lengthy fifth chapter seems in a rush to squeeze in generational history. (That’s a feature of the beginning of Requiem for a Nun, a hurried recap of a slice of Yoknapatawpha history that he hasn’t had the chance to write elsewhere.) I get the impression that, a little Sutpen-like, Faulkner was beginning to worry that he might not live long enough to complete his design.
Still, there’s an undeniable power to this, and I think it works better than Spotted Horses, a novella from the same artificially assembled collection. It takes a lot of work as a reader to bring Ike into focus – work on par with bringing Benjy and Quentin into focus in The Sound and the Fury – and I think the effort is ultimately worth it.
Second-tier Faulkner can also be magnificent work, and this certainly is. I’ll get back to the full Go Down, Moses before long, and I look forward to seeing how it fits into that whole.
March 6, 2017
This 100-page story is comprised of two narratives – one is of the 4-year hunt for Old Ben, a legendary bear walking around with bullets under its skin, old and wise and smarter than the hunters and all their dogs, until Ike, the protagonist, and the mutt Lion come along. The other one, inserted like a 30-page footnote in the middle of the hunting story, is about Ike’s heritage: his parentage and their various sins and shameful deeds and his overall legacy of the South and its burdensome history; and of the land, the earth which he tries to become worthy of by repudiating his unearned ownership of it – one forced on him and marked with dishonour.
I’m sorry to say I didn’t do the story justice. I was absent-minded, I wasn’t in it, I kept counting the pages until I would be done with it. It was only at the very end that I stopped fidgeting long enough to get into the written word a little bit and noticed how gorgeous the prose was. I imagine all the rest of it – layers, meanings, intertextual and cultural references, symbolism, etc. – flew right over my head.
What I did get by my grudging engagement with the text was that it’s not just about hunting, and not just about the obvious symbolism of the bear hunt as a passage into manhood, but also about the fading laws of the land conquered and ravaged by the white man, the weight of past sins, the struggle to remain honourable when you’re the heir and inheritor of unspeakable vileness, the long path to renouncing what you’ve been taught and raised to be in order to sink back into the condition nature and God intended for you. It’s an emphatically spiritual story.
Perhaps some day, when I’m old and solitary and instead of spending all my time online I’d spend it with nature, I’ll read it again and really read it that time.
I’m sorry to say I didn’t do the story justice. I was absent-minded, I wasn’t in it, I kept counting the pages until I would be done with it. It was only at the very end that I stopped fidgeting long enough to get into the written word a little bit and noticed how gorgeous the prose was. I imagine all the rest of it – layers, meanings, intertextual and cultural references, symbolism, etc. – flew right over my head.
What I did get by my grudging engagement with the text was that it’s not just about hunting, and not just about the obvious symbolism of the bear hunt as a passage into manhood, but also about the fading laws of the land conquered and ravaged by the white man, the weight of past sins, the struggle to remain honourable when you’re the heir and inheritor of unspeakable vileness, the long path to renouncing what you’ve been taught and raised to be in order to sink back into the condition nature and God intended for you. It’s an emphatically spiritual story.
Perhaps some day, when I’m old and solitary and instead of spending all my time online I’d spend it with nature, I’ll read it again and really read it that time.
August 17, 2023
In hunting and fishing culture, The Big One is honored as much as sought. If the Big One gets killed, fishing and hunting parties will be less excited. Sighting the Big One as group is good. Sighting the Big One with gun or hook at the ready, but still somehow not catching it is puzzling to the novice, such as our teenaged boy here.
All humans and their cultures are imperfect yet there is also something grand in them all. Here is the acknowledged connection being the hunter and hunted & the hunted and hunter. There is more, such as the poem and lesson the father gives the boy, but to describe in words misses the heart energy, the respect and reverence.
All humans and their cultures are imperfect yet there is also something grand in them all. Here is the acknowledged connection being the hunter and hunted & the hunted and hunter. There is more, such as the poem and lesson the father gives the boy, but to describe in words misses the heart energy, the respect and reverence.
January 17, 2022
Don't be fooled by the title or even the plot. William Faulkner's short little masterpiece has as much to do with bear-hunting as the Alaskan bear hunt in Mailer's WHY ARE WE IN VIET NAM? This novella is a protest against the industrialization, modernization, and addiction to avarice that are destroying the South. The railroad, not the bear, is the true beast of fury the protagonist first fights then embraces, with a vengeance. Not by chance, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses the railroad as a metaphor for the coming horrors of the modern world in ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. "The Bear" belongs on the same shelf as THE SOUND AND THE FURY and ABSOLOM, ABSOLOM!
October 26, 2019
خرس/ ویلیام فاکنر/20
این داستان کوتاه روخوندم تا بتونم با سبک نوشتنش اشنا بشم و کتاب های دیگه ای ازش رو شروع کنم.
نمیشه گفت خوب بود یا بد بیشتر یه حالت نسبی داشت.
به نظرم بیشتر داشت درباره تسلط صحبت میکرد اینکه بخوای یک حقیقت رو مال خودت کنی و نشه چون ریشه های اون حقیقت از تو عمیق تره هر چقدر هم تو بهترین باشی یکسری حقایق اگر خودشون بخوان هیچ وقت مغلوب تو نمیشن همون طور که خودش گفته بود:" و او هرگز نمی تواند پژمرده شو گرچه تو سعادت خود را نیافتی تو تا ابد عاشق خواهی بود و او تا ابد زیبا خواهد ماند."
میشه خرس رو نمادی از خیلی چیز ها دونست مثل سرخپوست ها،فرهنگ، اصالت، طبیعت، تجربه سن و...
در نهایت حتی اگر به حرف بشه خیلی از این حقایق رو از بین برد ولی در عمل همیشه ما، یعنی بشریت پیروز نیستیم.
این داستان کوتاه روخوندم تا بتونم با سبک نوشتنش اشنا بشم و کتاب های دیگه ای ازش رو شروع کنم.
نمیشه گفت خوب بود یا بد بیشتر یه حالت نسبی داشت.
به نظرم بیشتر داشت درباره تسلط صحبت میکرد اینکه بخوای یک حقیقت رو مال خودت کنی و نشه چون ریشه های اون حقیقت از تو عمیق تره هر چقدر هم تو بهترین باشی یکسری حقایق اگر خودشون بخوان هیچ وقت مغلوب تو نمیشن همون طور که خودش گفته بود:" و او هرگز نمی تواند پژمرده شو گرچه تو سعادت خود را نیافتی تو تا ابد عاشق خواهی بود و او تا ابد زیبا خواهد ماند."
میشه خرس رو نمادی از خیلی چیز ها دونست مثل سرخپوست ها،فرهنگ، اصالت، طبیعت، تجربه سن و...
در نهایت حتی اگر به حرف بشه خیلی از این حقایق رو از بین برد ولی در عمل همیشه ما، یعنی بشریت پیروز نیستیم.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 12, 2014
Conocí a Faulkner en la facultad cuando curse literatura norteamericana: leí "Intruso en el polvo" y algunos cuentos. En ese momento me gustó muchísimo pero no tuve oportunidad de leer nada más de él. Investigando un poco -no tanto, en esta época no es demasiado difícil- leí que Faulkner era, junto a Joyce, uno de los maestros del monologo interno y de los que llevaban al máximo la cuestión del "fluir de la consciencia". Con lo poco que había leído de Faulkner, no podía afirmar esto; pero, ahora, luego de leer este relato, no me cabe ninguna duda que está al mismo nivel de demencia narrativa que Joyce.
Este pequeño relato es sublime y está repleto de temas muy "faulknerianos": la posesión de las tierras, las cuestiones raciales -esclavitud-, el incesto y los lazos familiares "corruptos"; todos son temáticas muy propias del genio sureño. Todo se desarrolla en los bosques del ficticio condado de Yoknapatawpha y la historia comienza hilvanándose a través del temerario, inmortal y sabio Old Ben, el oso que nunca podía ser cazado; el oso inmortal. Pero esto queda casi relegado cuando llegamos al cuarto capítulo, donde Faulkner muestra todo su delirio narrativo y nos empapa de sus reflexiones acerca de la posesión de la tierra, Dios, los ancestros, la esclavitud y otras tantas cosas más que se me perdieron en el desquiciado fluir de la consciencia. Necesitaría al menos una relectura del cuarto capítulo para comprender muchas más cosas que se me escaparon.
Este pequeño relato es sublime y está repleto de temas muy "faulknerianos": la posesión de las tierras, las cuestiones raciales -esclavitud-, el incesto y los lazos familiares "corruptos"; todos son temáticas muy propias del genio sureño. Todo se desarrolla en los bosques del ficticio condado de Yoknapatawpha y la historia comienza hilvanándose a través del temerario, inmortal y sabio Old Ben, el oso que nunca podía ser cazado; el oso inmortal. Pero esto queda casi relegado cuando llegamos al cuarto capítulo, donde Faulkner muestra todo su delirio narrativo y nos empapa de sus reflexiones acerca de la posesión de la tierra, Dios, los ancestros, la esclavitud y otras tantas cosas más que se me perdieron en el desquiciado fluir de la consciencia. Necesitaría al menos una relectura del cuarto capítulo para comprender muchas más cosas que se me escaparon.
November 23, 2015
Leyendo este extenso relato he sufrido desagradables flash-backs de los peores momentos de ¡Absalom, Absalom!. Los primeros tres capítulos los encuentro interesantes, pero tras el cuarto me parece ilegible. Es después de dejar atrás los hechos de la cacería y centrarse en una herencia que aparece el Faulkner que prefiere aparentar grandeza por encima de escribir algo grande. A toda costa se ha de notar que está haciendo algo muy, muy complicado y por eso, por capricho, las frases se extienden a lo largo de varias páginas, las digresiones son abundantes, arbitrarias y aburridas y la pátina bíblica del tono es de lo más empachosa. No encuentro una finalidad a todo ese circo de alta literatura. Prefiero al de 'Luz de Agosto', dónde pone sus cualidades al servicio del relato y no al revés.
Ese Faulkner abstruso y pretencioso también aparece en la mencionada ¡Absalom, Absalom!, sin embargo, si en esa novela puede concederle el beneficio de la duda dado que pude asimilarlo a grandes rasgos, eso no ocurre en El oso, dónde no estoy seguro de lo que ocurre ni a quién. Cuanto menos me ha sido útil de cara a comprender que jamás he de leer Desciende, Moisés ni ningún otro de sus libros con referencias bíblicas en el título.
April 22, 2014
Read for English Literature 101, SPU, 1980 - my first college course. I will NEVER FORGET Dr. Fanny Gates reading excerpts for the class - with her enthusiasm for this author and this particular work, her fabulous sensibility, and her amazing Deep South accent - unforgettable perfection! (I can even remember how gorgeously she enunciated the word "literature". The things we take from college - and the things we don't: I confess to recalling very little of the book!)
August 31, 2023
I know that Faulkner has a special way with words, I just don't care for his way. I hope others enjoyed this one.
March 2, 2026
Amerikan edebiyatının büyük ustasının, vahşi doğanın kapitalist uygarlık ve mülkiyet ilişkileri tarafından nasıl yok edildiğini avcılık metaforu üzerinden anlattığı uzun öyküsüdür. Ormanın simgesi olan "Büyük Ayı"nın ölümü, sadece bir hayvanın değil, ilkel-komünal/özgür bir yaşam tarzının, toprağın çitlenmesi ve paraya tahvil edilmesi karşısındaki trajik sonudur. Amerikan kölelik tarihinin günahlarını ve mülkiyetin yarattığı yozlaşmayı, büyülü ve karmaşık bir edebi dille sorgular. İnsanın doğaya (ve kendine) yabancılaşmasını anlatan kusursuz bir edebi ağıttır.
May 1, 2018
https://yazantasurinchi.blogspot.com....
“Go Down, Moses” adıyla 1942’de yayınlanan ve birbirleriyle alakalı yedi hikayeden oluşan öykü kitabının (roman diyenler de var) en uzun hikayesi aslında “The Bear”, fakat öyle ünleniyor ve övülüyor ki sonraları ‘novella’ olarak tek başına da basılıyor. Faulkner’ın en iyi eseri olduğunu iddia edenlerden tutun da ekokritik edebiyatın baş tacı olduğunu söyleyenlere kadar hakkında birçok denen şey var. Övgüye değer mi konuşmadan önce kitapta neler olduğuna bakarsak:
(Spoiler içeriyor.)
En genel tabiriyle bir av-avcı hikayesi bu, Koca Ben isimli ormanın en güçlüsü bir ayı var ve karakterimiz Isaac’in 10 yaşından itibaren içinde bulunduğu avcılar için adeta bir ölüm kalım meselesine dönüşmüş durumda Koca Ben. Her yılın kasım ayında toplanıp ormana yalnızca Koca Ben’i avlamaya gidiyorlar ve bu artık onların dini bir ritüeli haline gelmiş gibi. Kitabın başlarında Isaac yaşı küçük olduğu için henüz ayıyı avlamaya gidemiyor fakat geri gelmelerini beklerkenki düşünceleri kitabın ana temasını oluşturuyor: Herkesin ayının ölümlü olduğunu ummasına rağmen içten içe ölümsüz olduğuna inandığını, yine ayıyı öldüremeden geleceklerini, zaten kimsenin bunu istemediğini, ormana yalnızca yıllık törenlerini tamamlamaya gittiğini düşünüyor. Gidişlerini tam olarak şu sözlerle tanımlıyor Isaac-Faulkner: “Koca ayının öfkeli ölümsüzlüğüne yapılan yıllık tören-tapınma.” Bu şekilde yıllar geçiyor ve Isaac bu törene katılacak yaşa geliyor. Yılların verdiği yaralanlamalar ve yorgunluk ile ayı artık eskisi kadar güçlü değil ve gerçekten de bir gün ayıya bana göre hikayenin en önemli ikinci karakteri Boon öldürücü darbeyi vuruyor. Fakat kitabın “doruk noktası” gibi gözüken bu sahnesi hiç beklendiği gibi gerçekleşmiyor, sessiz ve sakince, sanki bir şeyler yanlışmış gibi. Ardından Isaac daha da büyüyor, kitabın sonlarına doğru bütün cümlelerin, eylemlerin, noktalama işaretlerinin karıştığı bir bölümde kitabın manasını ortaya çıkaran toprak ve insan düşüncelerini okuyoruz Faulkner’dan. Kitap ayıyı öldüren Boon’un Isaac’a ormandaki sincapları ellememesi için bağırışıyla sonlanıyor.
Burada elbette muazzam bir alegori var. Ayı ölümsüz, yenilmez nitelikleriyle doğayı sembolize ediyor, avcılarımız ise doğanın avcısı olan insanlığı. Doğayı kontrol etme isteği insanoğlunun, öyle bir hal alıyor ki güdülerin önüne geçiyor ve insanı kontrol etmeye başlıyor. Fakat nihayetinde bunu başardıklarında ortaya çıkan sonuç pek de iyi olmuyor, verilen onca kayıp ve üzüntüler kişiyi düşüncelere sevk ediyor. Isaac burada bana göre bir peygamber görevi görüyor, her şeye tanıklık etmiş, çıkarları ve hataları görmüş, olgun değilken ses çıkaramamış olanlara fakat olgunlaştığında düşüncelerini, herkese karşı olarak, ortaya koymuş, toprak ve köle sahipliğini kesin olarak reddeden, dini simgeleyen bir karakter. İnsanı Tanrı’nın kendi varlığını dünyada temsil etsin diye yarattığını söylüyor, toprağa ve diğer insanlara sahip olsun diye değil. Ve istemiyor ona kalan mirası, onun istediği ormanı son bir kez görmek yalnızca, özür dilemek için değil belki ama, hüznünü göstermek için en azından. Fakat değiştiremiyor hiçbir şeyi elbette, bunu da büyük bir ustalıkla gözümüze çarpıtıyor Faulkner Boon karakteri ile. Hani şu ayıyı öldüren, doğayı kontrol etmeyi başaranlar var ya! Bir kere almış bunun tadını, gözü dönmüş bu noktadan sonra, Isaac’a bağırıyor, defolmasını söylüyor bu ormandan: “Birine bile dokunamazsın! Benim onlar!”
(Spoiler bitiyor.)
Tanımlamam gerekirse bu kitabı, ‘güzel bir sanat eseri’ derim. Sade, çarpıcı, binlerce sayfalık kitaplara eşdeğer ve olması gerektiği kadar zor ve en önemlisi kitapların büyük çoğunluğunun aksine bir sanat eseri. Faulkner’a şapka çıkarmak gerekiyor gerçekten. İyinin kötünün dışında, edebiyat nasıl yapılır gösteriyor herkese.
“Go Down, Moses” adıyla 1942’de yayınlanan ve birbirleriyle alakalı yedi hikayeden oluşan öykü kitabının (roman diyenler de var) en uzun hikayesi aslında “The Bear”, fakat öyle ünleniyor ve övülüyor ki sonraları ‘novella’ olarak tek başına da basılıyor. Faulkner’ın en iyi eseri olduğunu iddia edenlerden tutun da ekokritik edebiyatın baş tacı olduğunu söyleyenlere kadar hakkında birçok denen şey var. Övgüye değer mi konuşmadan önce kitapta neler olduğuna bakarsak:
(Spoiler içeriyor.)
En genel tabiriyle bir av-avcı hikayesi bu, Koca Ben isimli ormanın en güçlüsü bir ayı var ve karakterimiz Isaac’in 10 yaşından itibaren içinde bulunduğu avcılar için adeta bir ölüm kalım meselesine dönüşmüş durumda Koca Ben. Her yılın kasım ayında toplanıp ormana yalnızca Koca Ben’i avlamaya gidiyorlar ve bu artık onların dini bir ritüeli haline gelmiş gibi. Kitabın başlarında Isaac yaşı küçük olduğu için henüz ayıyı avlamaya gidemiyor fakat geri gelmelerini beklerkenki düşünceleri kitabın ana temasını oluşturuyor: Herkesin ayının ölümlü olduğunu ummasına rağmen içten içe ölümsüz olduğuna inandığını, yine ayıyı öldüremeden geleceklerini, zaten kimsenin bunu istemediğini, ormana yalnızca yıllık törenlerini tamamlamaya gittiğini düşünüyor. Gidişlerini tam olarak şu sözlerle tanımlıyor Isaac-Faulkner: “Koca ayının öfkeli ölümsüzlüğüne yapılan yıllık tören-tapınma.” Bu şekilde yıllar geçiyor ve Isaac bu törene katılacak yaşa geliyor. Yılların verdiği yaralanlamalar ve yorgunluk ile ayı artık eskisi kadar güçlü değil ve gerçekten de bir gün ayıya bana göre hikayenin en önemli ikinci karakteri Boon öldürücü darbeyi vuruyor. Fakat kitabın “doruk noktası” gibi gözüken bu sahnesi hiç beklendiği gibi gerçekleşmiyor, sessiz ve sakince, sanki bir şeyler yanlışmış gibi. Ardından Isaac daha da büyüyor, kitabın sonlarına doğru bütün cümlelerin, eylemlerin, noktalama işaretlerinin karıştığı bir bölümde kitabın manasını ortaya çıkaran toprak ve insan düşüncelerini okuyoruz Faulkner’dan. Kitap ayıyı öldüren Boon’un Isaac’a ormandaki sincapları ellememesi için bağırışıyla sonlanıyor.
Burada elbette muazzam bir alegori var. Ayı ölümsüz, yenilmez nitelikleriyle doğayı sembolize ediyor, avcılarımız ise doğanın avcısı olan insanlığı. Doğayı kontrol etme isteği insanoğlunun, öyle bir hal alıyor ki güdülerin önüne geçiyor ve insanı kontrol etmeye başlıyor. Fakat nihayetinde bunu başardıklarında ortaya çıkan sonuç pek de iyi olmuyor, verilen onca kayıp ve üzüntüler kişiyi düşüncelere sevk ediyor. Isaac burada bana göre bir peygamber görevi görüyor, her şeye tanıklık etmiş, çıkarları ve hataları görmüş, olgun değilken ses çıkaramamış olanlara fakat olgunlaştığında düşüncelerini, herkese karşı olarak, ortaya koymuş, toprak ve köle sahipliğini kesin olarak reddeden, dini simgeleyen bir karakter. İnsanı Tanrı’nın kendi varlığını dünyada temsil etsin diye yarattığını söylüyor, toprağa ve diğer insanlara sahip olsun diye değil. Ve istemiyor ona kalan mirası, onun istediği ormanı son bir kez görmek yalnızca, özür dilemek için değil belki ama, hüznünü göstermek için en azından. Fakat değiştiremiyor hiçbir şeyi elbette, bunu da büyük bir ustalıkla gözümüze çarpıtıyor Faulkner Boon karakteri ile. Hani şu ayıyı öldüren, doğayı kontrol etmeyi başaranlar var ya! Bir kere almış bunun tadını, gözü dönmüş bu noktadan sonra, Isaac’a bağırıyor, defolmasını söylüyor bu ormandan: “Birine bile dokunamazsın! Benim onlar!”
(Spoiler bitiyor.)
Tanımlamam gerekirse bu kitabı, ‘güzel bir sanat eseri’ derim. Sade, çarpıcı, binlerce sayfalık kitaplara eşdeğer ve olması gerektiği kadar zor ve en önemlisi kitapların büyük çoğunluğunun aksine bir sanat eseri. Faulkner’a şapka çıkarmak gerekiyor gerçekten. İyinin kötünün dışında, edebiyat nasıl yapılır gösteriyor herkese.
Read
December 4, 2014انا حاولت مازهقش، معرفتش، هذا فراق يا فوكنر.
February 24, 2025
Sadly not about Chicago chefs :(
Skimmed in 2 days for the class discussion, did a close read to write the essay and wow Faulkner, I was not familiar with your game! The antithesis of every other coming-of-age story. Prompts a lot of good questions about man’s relationship with physical and human nature in the setting of 1880s deep South. For further complexity, analyze through the lens of race and the color line like I’m currently trying to do (writing this review to avoid drafting my essay outline on this)
Skimmed in 2 days for the class discussion, did a close read to write the essay and wow Faulkner, I was not familiar with your game! The antithesis of every other coming-of-age story. Prompts a lot of good questions about man’s relationship with physical and human nature in the setting of 1880s deep South. For further complexity, analyze through the lens of race and the color line like I’m currently trying to do (writing this review to avoid drafting my essay outline on this)
October 28, 2012
this story remind me "the old man and the sea" in both stories there is a goal. in this story different people are united for one reason. we feel life and nature from this story and I think one of the idea is eternity as well, when at the end of the story it is said that Seam and Loma are not dead, they lived in nature in leaves and so on
November 18, 2015
"Él usó la sangre que había llevado el mal para destruir el mal; lo mismo que los médicos provocaron la fiebre para quitar la fiebre ,el veneno para matar el veneno"
May 2, 2022
i wish to never read william faulkner again.
January 10, 2021
2,5 estrellas, en realidad.
Para nada relato corto (como creí en un principio) y sí denso, inescrutable, complejo y desalentador de ser seguido... No sabiendo a qué vida está narrando ni quién es abuelo, padre o hermano de qué McCaslin ni si es siquiera ya McCaslin; muchas veces también insinuando lo que a un personaje le ocurre (pero a saber si le ocurre eso y no otra cosa o si le ocurre acaso 1/3 de lo que tú te imaginas que le pasa...). No obstante, me ha encantado el estilo de narrar, la forma de expresar.
Sinceramente, no habría leído este libro jamás de haber sabido la complejidad del capítulo 4, en concreto (paradójicamente, el capítulo que contiene frases que me han encantado) y de todo el libro en general. Y al mismo tiempo me enganchaba, ha sido raro.
Faulkner se pierde en contar los lazos familiares inentendibles (al menos para mí, aunque lo hubiera releido 8 veces...) y además te los cuenta en el capítulo 4 (por qué, no lo sé) y no en el 1 (donde ahí te habla del oso, que se supone que es como el colofón de la historia, su final y metáfora); de modo que para mí ha sido como empezar un poco una peli por la mitad y llegar al final y luego terminarla por el principio, pero eso ha sido lo de menos.
Lo de más, las horas invertidas en el fkngrelato corto :)
Y al menos merece un poco la pena, en menos de un 50% por frases como...
*Y sabiendo todo lo que había que saber sobre la guerra excepto el machacamiento y su brutal estupidez...
*Esta hablando de la verdad. La verdad es una. No cambia. Abarca todas las cosas del corazón: honor y orgullo y piedad y justicia y valor y amor [...] Todo trata del corazón, y lo que el corazón mantiene se convierte en verdad, según lo que conocemos por verdad.
*Podría decir que no sé por qué debo hacerlo pero que sé que tengo que hacerlo porque debo vivir conmigo durante el resto de mi vida y todo lo que quiero es vivir en paz.
*Que si la verdad es una cosa para mí y otra para ti, ¿cómo haremos para elegir lo que es la verdad? Tú no necesitas elegir. El corazón ya lo sabe.
*[...] y ellos poseerían durante su breve momento aquella breve e inconsciente felicidad que por su misma naturaleza no puede durar y que por esto es felicidad.
*[...] no sujetados en la tierra, hoja y rama y partícula, aire y sol y lluvia y rocío y noche, bellota y hoja y bellota de nuevo, oscuridad y amanecer y oscuridad y amanecer de nuevo en su constante sucesión [...] luego el largo desafío y la larga caza, ningún corazón para ser forzado y maltratado, ninguna carne para ser macerada y herida.
Para nada relato corto (como creí en un principio) y sí denso, inescrutable, complejo y desalentador de ser seguido... No sabiendo a qué vida está narrando ni quién es abuelo, padre o hermano de qué McCaslin ni si es siquiera ya McCaslin; muchas veces también insinuando lo que a un personaje le ocurre (pero a saber si le ocurre eso y no otra cosa o si le ocurre acaso 1/3 de lo que tú te imaginas que le pasa...). No obstante, me ha encantado el estilo de narrar, la forma de expresar.
Sinceramente, no habría leído este libro jamás de haber sabido la complejidad del capítulo 4, en concreto (paradójicamente, el capítulo que contiene frases que me han encantado) y de todo el libro en general. Y al mismo tiempo me enganchaba, ha sido raro.
Faulkner se pierde en contar los lazos familiares inentendibles (al menos para mí, aunque lo hubiera releido 8 veces...) y además te los cuenta en el capítulo 4 (por qué, no lo sé) y no en el 1 (donde ahí te habla del oso, que se supone que es como el colofón de la historia, su final y metáfora); de modo que para mí ha sido como empezar un poco una peli por la mitad y llegar al final y luego terminarla por el principio, pero eso ha sido lo de menos.
Lo de más, las horas invertidas en el fkngrelato corto :)
Y al menos merece un poco la pena, en menos de un 50% por frases como...
*Y sabiendo todo lo que había que saber sobre la guerra excepto el machacamiento y su brutal estupidez...
*Esta hablando de la verdad. La verdad es una. No cambia. Abarca todas las cosas del corazón: honor y orgullo y piedad y justicia y valor y amor [...] Todo trata del corazón, y lo que el corazón mantiene se convierte en verdad, según lo que conocemos por verdad.
*Podría decir que no sé por qué debo hacerlo pero que sé que tengo que hacerlo porque debo vivir conmigo durante el resto de mi vida y todo lo que quiero es vivir en paz.
*Que si la verdad es una cosa para mí y otra para ti, ¿cómo haremos para elegir lo que es la verdad? Tú no necesitas elegir. El corazón ya lo sabe.
*[...] y ellos poseerían durante su breve momento aquella breve e inconsciente felicidad que por su misma naturaleza no puede durar y que por esto es felicidad.
*[...] no sujetados en la tierra, hoja y rama y partícula, aire y sol y lluvia y rocío y noche, bellota y hoja y bellota de nuevo, oscuridad y amanecer y oscuridad y amanecer de nuevo en su constante sucesión [...] luego el largo desafío y la larga caza, ningún corazón para ser forzado y maltratado, ninguna carne para ser macerada y herida.
August 17, 2024
Back to back reading δύο φορές όπως συστήνεται από τον μαέστρο Φώκνερ Μια για την χαρά της ανάγνωσης και μια για την χαρά της απόλαυσης
August 22, 2018
La narrativa de Faulkner es exquisita y el uso de los recursos literarios impecable. Su prosa es abrumadoramente compleja aunque su estilo es poético y conmovedor. Es uno de esos autores que ganan en voz alta.
A pesar de ello (o a su causa) la profundidad de su historia me ha resultado inalcanzable en un momento en el que necesitaba leer (como anuncia su sinopsis) un relato corto (nada más lejos de la realidad).
Ansío encontrarme de nuevo con este autor en otro momento y con otras de sus obras.
A pesar de ello (o a su causa) la profundidad de su historia me ha resultado inalcanzable en un momento en el que necesitaba leer (como anuncia su sinopsis) un relato corto (nada más lejos de la realidad).
Ansío encontrarme de nuevo con este autor en otro momento y con otras de sus obras.
March 14, 2025
Faulkner’s short novel begins with a bear hunt and expands into much wider areas of human activity The book breaks into two parts; the first covers the 10 to 16 year old life of a boy, Isaac McCaslin who goes on hunts for a huge bear, called Old Ben who roams the area. The bear is cunning and seems invincible to attempts to corner and shoot him. The second part explores the feelings of a mature McCaslin after the bear is finally killed.
For the young Isaac, the ongoing pursuit of the bear instills in him a knowledge and a kind of salute to the bear and the wilderness that it inhabits. When the hunters drink the evening before a hunt for Old Ben, it’s as if they were imbibing “some condensation of the wild immortal spirit. . . hope of acquiring the virtues of cunning and strength and speed” that the bear possessed, and at one point Isaac felt he was witnessing his own symbolic birth in an unconscious imitation of the traits of the bear. He is mentored in this activity by an wise old Indian, Sam Fathers.
The bear is finally run down and killed, and it’s the end of Isaac’s youth. Much later in the story, Isaac's father reads to him Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” with these words emphasized, "She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair." Even though Keats’ poem is about a woman, it seems applicable to what the bear represented to McCaslin. It is the force of nature, powerful and everlasting. Neither the boy, nor the hunters, nor the Indian Sam Father are as capable as the immensity and force of nature. McCaslin understands this and when his father reads Keats to him, the bear, as a force of nature becomes beauty and truth.
The strength of the novel is that he specific hunting of an animal grows into a metaphor for an ideal life, one that never materialized. There is a long historical account about the land originally being sold by the Indians to Isaac's grandparents. The land should have remained free but the Indians were tricked and seduced by money. The notion of "owning" something spread from land to human beings and slavery became accepted. Isaac resisted all of this as much as he could, but in the end the is a voice crying in the wilderness, and the refusal of the South to give up its corrupted values (property and slaves) led to the tragedy of the Civil War.
As the novel ends, the woods, once Old Ben's domain is being logged and cleaned, and when Isaac goes there, he finds a mad old man with a broken gun trying to hunt squirrels. A long way from the beginning noble hunt for the bear.
For the young Isaac, the ongoing pursuit of the bear instills in him a knowledge and a kind of salute to the bear and the wilderness that it inhabits. When the hunters drink the evening before a hunt for Old Ben, it’s as if they were imbibing “some condensation of the wild immortal spirit. . . hope of acquiring the virtues of cunning and strength and speed” that the bear possessed, and at one point Isaac felt he was witnessing his own symbolic birth in an unconscious imitation of the traits of the bear. He is mentored in this activity by an wise old Indian, Sam Fathers.
The bear is finally run down and killed, and it’s the end of Isaac’s youth. Much later in the story, Isaac's father reads to him Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” with these words emphasized, "She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, / For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair." Even though Keats’ poem is about a woman, it seems applicable to what the bear represented to McCaslin. It is the force of nature, powerful and everlasting. Neither the boy, nor the hunters, nor the Indian Sam Father are as capable as the immensity and force of nature. McCaslin understands this and when his father reads Keats to him, the bear, as a force of nature becomes beauty and truth.
The strength of the novel is that he specific hunting of an animal grows into a metaphor for an ideal life, one that never materialized. There is a long historical account about the land originally being sold by the Indians to Isaac's grandparents. The land should have remained free but the Indians were tricked and seduced by money. The notion of "owning" something spread from land to human beings and slavery became accepted. Isaac resisted all of this as much as he could, but in the end the is a voice crying in the wilderness, and the refusal of the South to give up its corrupted values (property and slaves) led to the tragedy of the Civil War.
As the novel ends, the woods, once Old Ben's domain is being logged and cleaned, and when Isaac goes there, he finds a mad old man with a broken gun trying to hunt squirrels. A long way from the beginning noble hunt for the bear.
April 5, 2026
Meh.
Team oso.
Team oso.
June 16, 2024
El començament.
He de rellegir-lo per entendre quants homes, quants animals.
A continuació trobarem paràgrafs extensos, de més d’una pàgina, sense cap punt.
Són cinc capítol. Els tres primers narren la cacera d’un ós singular. No m’interpel·la el tema. No m’agrada la caça. Però..., com escriu Faulkner!
Potser la forma de dir-ho seria: no m’interessa gaire el que escriu, però em fascina com escriu. Un ós que ha esdevingut quasi mitològic entre els habitants i visitants d’aquest lloc feréstec. Grangers, treballadors de la serradora, caçadors... tots s’ajunten el dia de la cacera d’aquest ós tan especial, a la vegada que solitari, intel·ligent i, per tant, perillós.
Som a començaments del segle XX a algun lloc dels sud-est dels Estats Units, comtat de Mississippí. Isaac (Ike) és un nen de deu anys, cosí d’un dels caçadors d’una quadrilla que cada any pels volts de novembre acampen per la zona. Són homes sols i rudes. Cap dona. No apareixerà cap dona en aquests tres capítols.
El nen acompanya els caçadors cada tardor en l’intent de caçar l’os. Primer d’una forma secundària però, amb només tretze anys, ja els demostra haver esdevingut un expert coneixedor del bosc i caçador, tant o millor que alguns dels adults.
En el grup conviuen diverses personalitats. El noi que puja amb els ensenyaments de Sam Fathers, un vell serrador que li fa de mentor i li inculca el respecte envers la terra i els animals.
Un altre protagonista és Boon, descendent d’indis, com Sam. Però amb un caràcter diferent de Sam, més expeditiu, més agressiu. I que beu massa. M’encanten els tocs d’humor, dins d’aquesta trama espessa, testosterònica i salvatge.
Al capítol dos, apareix un protagonista memorable: el gos de cacera Lion. Amansat ―més o menys― per Sam, serà Boon qui més s’aproparà a ell.
Les descripcions de Faulkner em semblen incomparables. Amb punts de vista insòlits, metàfores sorprenents, frases intenses, dramàtiques que, més que llegir-les, em ressonen dins el cap, majestuoses.
I, per suposat, l’ós. Entenc que l’ós representa la natura verge, la conservació del medi ambient davant la intrusió de la modernitat, la serradora, etc... Al mateix temps, em sembla que el destí de l’ós simbolitza el declivi d’unes maneres de fer de grangers, llenyataires, caçadors...
Al capítol quart, la narració és una altra, canvia completament. Isaac té vint-i-un anys. Ja no estem al bosc ni a la cacera. La temàtica és el llegat familiar, els records, els secrets, la genealogia i l’herència.
La forma canvia molt. Si bé els capítols precedents els vaig poder seguir, ara em perdo. Frases que comencen sense majúscula i que acaben sense punt. Una ortografia experimental. Incapaç de saber qui és qui i quin parentesc té amb qui i què va abans i què va després.
El capítol cinquè i final és el més breu. L’ortografia torna a ser la estàndard. Però estic tan descol·locat que sincerament no he entès la situació final.
És un llibre que se’m fa difícil de puntuar. Penso que no tinc dret a fer-ho. La primera part em sembla sublim. La meitat del llibre. Li demano disculpes senyor Faulkner.
También esta vez éranse un hombre y un perro. Dos bestias, contando a Old Ben, el oso, y dos hombres, contando a...
He de rellegir-lo per entendre quants homes, quants animals.
A continuació trobarem paràgrafs extensos, de més d’una pàgina, sense cap punt.
Són cinc capítol. Els tres primers narren la cacera d’un ós singular. No m’interpel·la el tema. No m’agrada la caça. Però..., com escriu Faulkner!
Potser la forma de dir-ho seria: no m’interessa gaire el que escriu, però em fascina com escriu. Un ós que ha esdevingut quasi mitològic entre els habitants i visitants d’aquest lloc feréstec. Grangers, treballadors de la serradora, caçadors... tots s’ajunten el dia de la cacera d’aquest ós tan especial, a la vegada que solitari, intel·ligent i, per tant, perillós.
Som a començaments del segle XX a algun lloc dels sud-est dels Estats Units, comtat de Mississippí. Isaac (Ike) és un nen de deu anys, cosí d’un dels caçadors d’una quadrilla que cada any pels volts de novembre acampen per la zona. Són homes sols i rudes. Cap dona. No apareixerà cap dona en aquests tres capítols.
El nen acompanya els caçadors cada tardor en l’intent de caçar l’os. Primer d’una forma secundària però, amb només tretze anys, ja els demostra haver esdevingut un expert coneixedor del bosc i caçador, tant o millor que alguns dels adults.
En el grup conviuen diverses personalitats. El noi que puja amb els ensenyaments de Sam Fathers, un vell serrador que li fa de mentor i li inculca el respecte envers la terra i els animals.
Un altre protagonista és Boon, descendent d’indis, com Sam. Però amb un caràcter diferent de Sam, més expeditiu, més agressiu. I que beu massa. M’encanten els tocs d’humor, dins d’aquesta trama espessa, testosterònica i salvatge.
... mandaba a Boon a buscar el whisky y le enviaban a él para que procurase que Boon volviese con el whisky o con la mayor parte o al menos con algo.
Al capítol dos, apareix un protagonista memorable: el gos de cacera Lion. Amansat ―més o menys― per Sam, serà Boon qui més s’aproparà a ell.
Les descripcions de Faulkner em semblen incomparables. Amb punts de vista insòlits, metàfores sorprenents, frases intenses, dramàtiques que, més que llegir-les, em ressonen dins el cap, majestuoses.
... la piel azul bajo la cual los músculos no se estremecian bajo ningún roce ya que el corazón que les transmitía la sangre no quería a ningún hombre ni a nada... Lion tenía no solo valor y todas esas otras cosas que forman la voluntat y el deseo de perseguir y matar, sinó la tenacidad, la voluntat y el deseo de resistir más allà de todos los límites imaginables de la carne para poder sorprender y matar.
I, per suposat, l’ós. Entenc que l’ós representa la natura verge, la conservació del medi ambient davant la intrusió de la modernitat, la serradora, etc... Al mateix temps, em sembla que el destí de l’ós simbolitza el declivi d’unes maneres de fer de grangers, llenyataires, caçadors...
Al capítol quart, la narració és una altra, canvia completament. Isaac té vint-i-un anys. Ja no estem al bosc ni a la cacera. La temàtica és el llegat familiar, els records, els secrets, la genealogia i l’herència.
La forma canvia molt. Si bé els capítols precedents els vaig poder seguir, ara em perdo. Frases que comencen sense majúscula i que acaben sense punt. Una ortografia experimental. Incapaç de saber qui és qui i quin parentesc té amb qui i què va abans i què va després.
El capítol cinquè i final és el més breu. L’ortografia torna a ser la estàndard. Però estic tan descol·locat que sincerament no he entès la situació final.
És un llibre que se’m fa difícil de puntuar. Penso que no tinc dret a fer-ho. La primera part em sembla sublim. La meitat del llibre. Li demano disculpes senyor Faulkner.
March 3, 2025
Meh. Had about six killer sentences and as many paragraphs worth reading. Sorry Faulky.
December 24, 2025
makes me want to run into the woods and never come out
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