The Life of William Faulkner: The Past Is Never Dead, 1897-1934

The Life of William Faulkner #1

by Carl Rollyson

William Faulkner emerged from the ravaged South--half backwoods, half defeated empire--transforming his corner of Mississippi into the fictional Yoknapatawpha County and bestowing on the world some of the most revolutionary and enduring literature of the twentieth century. The personal story behind the work has fascinated readers nearly as much as the great novels, but Faulkner has remained elusive despite numerous biographies that have attempted to decipher his private life and his wild genius. In an ambitious biography that will encompass two volumes, Carl Rollyson has created a life of Faulkner for the new millennium.

Rollyson has drawn on an unprecedented amount of material to present the richest rendering of Faulkner yet published. In addition to his own extensive interviews, Rollyson consults the complete--and never fully shared--research of pioneering Faulkner biographer Joseph Blotner, who discarded from his authorized biography substantial findings in order to protect the Faulkner family. Rollyson also had unrivaled access to the work of Carvel Collins, whose decades-long inquiry produced one of the greatest troves of primary source material in American letters.

This first volume follows Faulkner from his formative years through his introduction to Hollywood. Rollyson sheds light on Faulkner's unpromising, even bewildering youth, including a gift for tall tales that blossomed into the greatest of literary creativity. He provides the fullest portrait yet of Faulkner's family life, in particular his enigmatic marriage, and offers invaluable new insight into the ways in which Faulkner's long career as a screenwriter influenced his iconic novels.

Integrating Faulkner's screenplays, fiction, and life, Rollyson argues that the novelist deserves to be reread not just as a literary figure but as a still-relevant force, especially in relation to issues of race, sexuality, and equality. The culmination of years of research in archives that have been largely ignored by previous biographers, The Life of William Faulkner offers a significant challenge and an essential contribution to Faulkner scholarship.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Classics, Biography Memoir

512 pages, Hardcover

Published March 24, 2020

About the author

Carl Rollyson, Professor of Journalism at Baruch College, The City University of New York, has published more than forty books ranging in subject matter from biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Norman Mailer, Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, and Jill Craigie to studies of American culture, genealogy, children’s biography, film, and literary criticism. He has authored more than 500 articles on American and European literature and history. His work has been reviewed in newspapers such as The New York Times and the London Sunday Telegraph and in journals such as American Literature and the Dictionary of Literary Biography. For four years (2003-2007) he wrote a weekly column, "On Biography," for The New York Sun and was President of the Rebecca West Society (2003-2007). His play, THAT WOMAN: REBECCA WEST REMEMBERS, has been produced at Theatresource in New York City. Rollyson is currently researching a biography of Amy Lowell (awarded a "We the People" NEH grant). "Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews, a biography of Dana Andrews is forthcoming in September from University Press of Mississippi. His biography, "American Isis: The Life and Death of Sylvia Plath" will be published in February 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of her death. His reviews of biography appear regularly in The Wall Street Journal, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Raleigh News & Observer, The Kansas City Star, and The New Criterion. He is currently advisory editor for the Hollywood Legends series published by the University Press of Mississippi. He welcomes queries from those interested in contributing to the series. Read his column, "Biographology," that appears every two weeks at bibliobuffet.com

Reviews

[J M-B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first biography of Faulkner I have read and I look forward to the next volume that will take the account of his life beyond 1934. Biography is not necessarily the best way into a writer's work, but I am slowly reading Faulkner's novels in chronological order (only up to 'Mosquitoes' so far, don't laugh...) and it is helpful to understand more about the cultural legacy of the South and the Reconstruction - especially for a non-American. Rollyson's close readings of Faulkner's texts are, apart from the stray bits of Freudian speculation, really creative and insightful and the bibliography gives access to a considerable amount of recent scholarship. My one criticism would be that Rollyson structures his life of Faulkner around proposing endless direct parallels between his literary works and his personal relationships. It gives an impression of a narrative structure having been imposed on the subject by the genre of biography itself and feels, at once, repetitive and an oversimplification of the creative process.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ends with Faulkner writing Pylon. So far, so good (apart from the many pages of literary criticism devoted to TS&TF). I appreciate the extended treatment of Faulkner's hollywood work and the different perspective on it.

[Ben House · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You have seen a country wagon come into town, with a hound dog under the wagon. It stops on the Square and the folks get out, but that hound never gets very far from that wagon. He might be cajoled or scared out for a short distance, but first thing you know he has scuttled back under the wagon; maybe he growls at you a little. Well, that’s me. ” William Faulkner

The Life of William Faulkner: The Past is Never Past by Carl Rollyson is published by the University of Virginia Press.

While many readers have struggled, agonized, and even given up when trying to read or understand some of William Faulkner’s fiction, perhaps his life itself is the most difficult challenge. On the one hand, the factual account of when and where he was born, lived, and died, who his family members were, and what books he wrote are all pretty easy to figure out. Any encyclopedia for us older readers or Internet search for the rest can yield those details.

This is why biographies are so important, revealing, and enjoyable. Faulkner presents a real challenge both to the reader of his fiction and to his biographer. Authorship of great literature is a process that contains a certain degree of magic or mystery. “How did any person write such things?” we think as we read the great works.

Some have assumed that Homer was not really the blind poet of legend, but was a different poet, perhaps also blind, with perhaps the same name. (I know that sounds crazy.) Maybe The Iliad was actually composed by several authors, some have suggested. Shakespeare presents one of the greatest literary mysteries of all time. How did any one man write the plays? Moreover, how did any one man born in Stratford-on-Avon, who had a good but not spectacular education, and limited travel experiences write such far flung, diverse, and powerful lines with such a vast array of characters?

Greeks spoke of the Muses and Milton called upon the Holy Spirit for illumination, and we all speak of being inspired to write. The bottom line is that great words, worlds, and imaginations flow from the minds and pens of some few very special and gifted people.

William Faulkner was born in Mississippi in 1897. His family had some honored historical people, particularly his great grandfather, Colonel William Clark Falkner. Young Faulkner ( who added the “u” to his last name) was decently well educated and was a sharp kid. The only social advantage he seemed to have was that his family lived in town where his father labored in work that would have been more secure than subsistence farming.


Colonel William Clark Falkner, whose life story will appear in part in great grandson William’s fiction.
In the early years, the boy Faulkner traveled the country a bit, supposedly in search of education and life experiences. He attended the University of Mississippi where he contributed a few pieces to the college paper, but did not either complete a degree or distinguish himself as a student. He went “off to war” during World War I, but his record was and remains quite sketchy. In that time, airplanes were a real fascination for many, including Faulkner. He went to Canada where he joined the Royal Air Force. He came back home with a uniform that was real and a limp that was an affectation.

He was a goof off at his job as a post master. He gave all appearances of being a ne’er-do-well. He was interested in a few girls, particularly Estelle Oldham, whose family connections were a barrier to Faulkner. From Oxford, Mississippi, he left and spent some time in New Orleans where he developed his writing skills, hobnobbing with Sherwood Anderson–a successful author of the time, and dividing his time between charming people and being drunk.

Truth is, I find the younger Faulkner almost totally unlikeable. I find few redeeming traits in his habits, ambitions, and actions. Had I known him in those years, I would have written him off as a loser. He wasn’t winning too many accolades as a promising fellow from his townsmen nor his colleagues. But he kept scribbling away.

During these years, he published several novels that tend to be overlooked and unread in these times. One was titled Soldier’s Pay and the other Mosquitos. This was basically the same era in which Faulkner’s two contemporaries, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were emerging as the brilliant literary lights of their times.

Reviews for Faulkner’s early works were decently commendatory. But he had to return to his native ground of Oxford, Mississippi (both literally and imaginatively) before his literary abilities began blossoming. His third novel was titled Flags in the Dust. It was a story that combined elements of his connection to his locally famous great grandfather and heritage with the experiences and despair of post-World War I America. The book got chopped down by his publisher-editors and was titled Sartoris. I was a freshman in college in 1974 when my English teacher, who was then in love with Faulkner’s works, said that the original full novel had finally gotten published.

In the next decade, the 1930s, Faulkner wrote a half dozen of his most enduring novels. These included The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom. He rose to his heights as an artist, but he was only able to survive by writing short stories that were quick sellers and writing movie scripts for Hollywood.

All of this is covered in great detail in Rollyson’s first volume biography. Prior to this biography, a massive two volume work was written on Faulkner by Joseph Blotner. (I learned of this work from my college teacher in 1974 as well. ) A slew of shorter biographies and studies of Faulkner also came out over the years. My favorite one volume study if Jay Parini’s book One Matchless Life, and I also love Cleanth Brooks’ several volumes of literary studies on Faulkner’s works.

What Rollyson does in great detail is something of a combination of biography and literary examination. In fact, from Faulkner’s short pieces and poems in his earliest attempts to his great novels, Rollyson connects the story of Faulkner with the story that Faulkner was writing. This unveils lots of insight into Faulkner’s writings. While he was not doing autobiography, his fiction was imitating his life.

Faulkner married his lifelong sweetheart Estelle. One could wish that this small town romance story was a pretty one, but it isn’t . Estelle initially married a different man, left Oxford, had two children, and then got divorced. Faulkner, once the not approved beau, took advantage of her return and married her. He truly seemed to be a good step-father to the children, for he was, in spite of all his faults, a gentle and caring man. Faulkner and Estelle were in need of some serious intervention and counseling through the years. Both were severe addicts: William to alcohol and Estelle to alcohol and drugs. Finances were rough as Faulkner was often waiting for story payments or advances in royalties.

Despite having written what are considered several great novels, Faulkner was not writing page turners or thrillers or best sellers. His successes eked out enough money for the Faulkners to slowly renovate a run down piece of property just outside of downtown Oxford. They named the place Rowan Oak.

Rollyson’s account of Faulkner is often dark and troubling. His revelations into Faulkner’s life, often correcting previous accounts or adding to the known sources of information, are helpful in trying to see what the man was really like, what made him tick (to use an overly ancient cliche}.

The sections that deal with some of Faulkner’s movie script writing are really hard to follow because many of us who read Faulkner have not read these accounts. Still, this account does add quite a bit to the possibilities of figuring out the often deceptive, secretive, private, but brilliant life of the future Nobel Prize Winner.

Nope, this is not the book for those who have not read Faulkner’s works, nor for those who just want to learn the basics about his life. But for any wanting to travel further into the depths of the wilderness of the man who created Yoknapatawpha County, get this book.

Post Script: Often we have to wait for a long time for the second volume of a work to appear. But in this case, volume two of Rollyson’s study of Faulkner is already out. The Life of William Faulkner: The Alarming Paradox, 1935 to 1962 is published by the University of Virginia Press.

[Gojan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biographical dive into Faulkner’s early career is a deep and satisfying journey, one that I plan to continue by reading the author’s second volume about a writer who has alternately perplexed and entertained me for half a century. Like many of Faulkner’s own lyrical sentences, some of Rollyson’s spot-on observations are often worth re-reading and reveal an uncanny connection with the subject matter –– the defining mark of a good biography, as far as I’m concerned.

I highly recommend this book for anyone, scholar and pure Faulkner fan alike, who enjoys eavesdropping on literary history…whether or not you know how to pronounce “Yoknapatawpha County.”

[David Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third biography of William Faulkner I’ve read, and I should mention right off the bat—something I don’t remember ever saying before—that I didn’t read every word. I read Joseph Blotner’s 2,000-page two volume door stop back in the seventies when it came out. It took a huge chunk our of my frugal budget, and I wondered at the time if any book was worth that kind of money. I read every word of that book despite the plodding, pedestrian writing, avid for any information I could get about the writer I considered the greatest in all of American literature. A few years later I read the much slimmer David Minter volume, reviewing it for The Sun[1], and remember liking that better, and feeling it was better written. Since then I’ve ignored the multiple Faulkner bios that have appeared. But having recently finished a long survey of his work, I thought I’d check out the latest scholarship on the man.

This is a beautiful two-volume biography, which I will definitely finish, by a capable biographer, who writes better than Blotner and apparently had access to a lot of new material. But somehow I wasn’t counting on so much literary criticism, page after page of summaries of not only all the novels (which I just read), but also many stories and even screenplays. I read Rollyson’s analysis of the important novels, like The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, but I don’t care to go through an intricate analysis of Soldiers Pay or Mosquitoes, novels which the man wrote before he discovered his little postage stamp of soil. And I sure as hell don’t want to hear about screenplays of movies that never got made.

There is still no explaining the man’s genius. But I got a better understanding of how this complex figure emerged from an ordinary family in Oxford, Mississippi, and what relationship he might have to the various fictional characters he created. Faulkner’s father was a nullity, not so much like the elder Compson in The Sound and the Fury and Absalom! Absalom! (he shared that man’s love of booze, but wasn’t the same kind of blathering philosopher) but more like Jason Compson, stuck in dead-end work and furious that his life had come to this. He didn’t communicate much with his son.

But Faulkner in a way had two mothers, the cultivated and sympathetic Maud Faulkner, who lived nearly to the end of her son’s life and encouraged his artistic pursuits all along (she had the precocious young man reading Conrad and Shakespeare when he was ten) and Caroline Barr, the black woman to whom he dedicated Go Down, Moses[2] and who filled him in on the African American perspective. Especially early on, Faulkner wasn’t much different in his attitudes from many white Southern males. But he had Caroline Barr’s stories in there somewhere, giving him a fuller perspective that flowered eventually.

Faulkner was always a bit of an outsider, hanging around with the girls rather than the boys, and he was terribly attached to a little girl who shared his interest in poetry and the other arts, Estelle Oldham, the woman he eventually married. She saw the young man when he was just a boy and said she would someday marry him. They were close companions throughout their youth. And though Faulkner started off as a graphic artist, then became a poet, then moved on to longer fiction, he was always focused on some kind of artistic life. In that way his life seems one steady stream.

The other major influence was Phil Stone, the older attorney whom people always mention and who was very influential on and helpful to Faulkner as he came into his manhood. Stone always sounds like a blowhard (especially if he’s a model for any of the lawyers in Faulkner’s fiction), and no one has said he was a scholar, but he seemed to know which writers were important and to have supplied his protégé with books, something that didn’t go without saying in Mississippi in the early twentieth century. He also helped Faulkner seek publishers for his early poetry and helped fund the volumes himself. He really believed in the man.

Faulkner’s early wanderings weren’t aimless; he was consciously trying to enlarge his perspective. He traveled to New Haven because his mentor had gone to Yale, went to New York, New Orleans, eventually set off for some months in Europe because he knew he wanted to be a writer and to see these places. He had some of the arrogance of young artists trying to make their way in the world (“I could have written Hamlet,” he said to one startled group of young poets), but mostly he was an introvert hanging around on the fringes of things and watching. And though he was never interested in formal education—he enrolled in the University of Mississippi in a desultory way, but never came close to graduating—he was reading and writing furiously, had finished Soldier’s Pay at the age of 28 and was already working on Mosquitoes on the voyage to Europe.

Estelle, meanwhile, had been married off to another man by her parents, someone who had better prospects, and moved to Hawaii, though she returned to Mississippi periodically. She became a full-fledged alcoholic, and cocaine user, during that her marriage, so she and her future husband shared that predilection (Rollyson never mentions in this book that Prohibition was in effect during much of Faulkner’s young manhood, so all the boozing he did was illegal, in addition to being problematic in other ways). Faulkner in the meantime was mooning after and falling in love with a number of women. He also frequented brothels, especially in Memphis, but may just have used them as safe places to drink. No one ever remembers him going upstairs with one of the women.[3]

He seemed to be pushed in two directions by his parents, developing the artistic side that his mother cultivated, but also wanting to overcome the dead end of his father’s life. He didn’t just want money and things (though he eventually bought an airplane), he wanted to own land, and lots of it. So he was constantly alternating between his more artistic work—like The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, brilliant works like nothing else in American literature—and work that would make money, like Sanctuary and the stories he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post, and eventually the screenplays for Hollywood. But it was the same man who wrote all of those things, and there are flashes of brilliance in all of them. Rollyson points out that when Faulkner famously rewrote Sanctuary in the galleys, trying to make sure he didn’t shame his more artistic work, he didn’t take the sensational elements out (it’s still a story of sexual assault and rape); he worked to make it a more exciting and compelling narrative.

The sad thing—which I don’t remember reading before—is that while Sanctuary sold much better than his previous novels, it was published as the Depression struck, and his publisher—Hal Smith, who had long championed his work—went bankrupt, and couldn’t pay him anything. There was a harrowing period when he couldn’t make the mortgage payment on Rowan Oak (the huge dump of a house that he had bought, and on which he himself did most of the repair work; he was an excellent carpenter, like Cash in As I Lay Dying). And it was around that time that Hollywood discovered there was a literary genius in Mississippi, and began to pay him the money he needed. It took him away from his important work, but never for good.

This book ends as Faulkner has started Absalom! Absalom!, perhaps his second greatest novel, and is working in Hollywood. He interrupts both those things to write Pylon in a period of a few weeks, and has bought the small airplane which he would fly and eventually give to his youngest brother Dean, who would learn to fly it and die in it. The man never did greater work than he had already done. But he sometimes matched it, and grew more complex as an artist and as a man.

[1] https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues...

[2] “Who was born in slavery and who gave to my family a fidelity with stint or calculation of recompense and to my childhood an immeasurable devotion and love.”

[3] I’m not sure I believe that. Faulkner’s overtures to other women in those days sound unsuccessful, and he didn’t marry Estelle until he was nearly 32. He had no sexual outlet at all through his teens and twenties? He seems in his writing quite familiar with brothel culture.

[Dr. Jon Pirtle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the sixth or seventh biography of Faulkner I have read, and it is among my favorites. Rollyson spends more time examining Faulkner's development and growth as a writer in the novels and stories prior to "The Sound and the Fury" than any of his other biographers. We see Faulkner's lies about his military accomplishments, about flying, about combat, etc. that he tried to hide behind in order that he could come into his own via his writing. How he endured poverty, rejection, alcoholism, and yet still produced some of the 20th century's most influential literature is stunning. Thoroughly enjoyed Rollyson's two volumes on the literary titan, Faulkner.

[Colton Ness · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really enjoyable biography, does get bogged down in explaining the plots of Faulkner's books at times.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insight into Faulkner. Looking forward to volume two.

[Scott Brillon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come.