Faulkner, Mississippi

by Édouard Glissant

In 1989, while teaching literature in Louisiana, the Caribbean writer Edouard Glissant visited Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's home in Oxford, Mississippi. His visit spurred him to an original and powerful reappraisal of Faulkner's work. Like Faulkner's literary descendants in the United States, Glissant is fascinated by the stories of Yoknapatawpha County and disturbed by the author's equivocations about the racism there. Glissant, however, stands in a distinctive relation to Faulkner and his county: as a black Martinican, he is descended from slaves; as a native French speaker, he first encountered the great novelist's work in translation.

Faulkner, Mississippi is a distinctive look at an American icon by a writer deeply involved in the issues of Faulkner's work. Glissant sees the racial complexities of Faulkner as the key to his influence in the next century, and presents Faulkner as the progenitor of Flannery O'Connor, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alejo Carpentier, and Toni Morrison, who all write fiction in which the characters are implicated in a single multiracial calamity. He exhorts the reader to "Look him straight in the eyes, the son of the slave and the son of the slave owner" -- and Glissant's own clear-eyed gaze makes this book a revelation about the work of one of our greatest but still least-understood writers.

Genres: Literature, Literary Criticism

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1998

About the author

Édouard Glissant was a French writer, poet, philosopher, and literary critic from Martinique. He is widely recognised as one of the most influential figures in Caribbean thought and cultural commentary.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is interesting to read a work on Faulkner written by an admiring Francophone Black citizen of Martinique. Édouard Glissant's Faulkner, Mississippi is a bit strange because of where its author is coming from. Many of his references to Caribbean literature were obscure to me because I lack any understanding of their cultural context.

Still, Glissant makes some excellent point, particularly when he describes Faulkner's style:

Faulkner's books have always seemed to me to work this way. Deferred revelation is the source of his technique. This has nothing to do with the suspense of a detective novel or with social or psychological clarification; rather, it is an accumulating mystery and a whirling vertigo -- gathering momentum rather than being resolved, through deferral and disclosure -- and centered in a place where he felt a need to give meaning.

For example, I have just finished re-reading Sanctuary (1932). In the passion of Temple Drake's encounter with Popeye, Lee Goodwin, Tommy, and Ruby, he doesn't make crystal clear the way she was raped until much later in the book, though he prepares the way in advance for the later description.

What is perhaps most valuable about the Glissant book is that Glissant is not like the Compsons' Dilsey, one who has merely endured. but is a literary figure of some note in the French literary scene.

[sean]

wonderful—glissant's reading of faulkner centres around the idea of deferral and uncertainty, the fissures in the work. the almost phenomenological analysis of rac(ism)e in the novels is so illuminating. loved this

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very weird. 20 pages of travelogue, 30 pages of greatest hits from the 2 major bios on Faulkner, then 200 pages just recapitulating the plots of the novels. It’s nice, like his own Compson Appendix

[Ania · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most beautiful, hospitable, perceptive, and honest reading of Faulkner I am familiar with.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely wonderful book--still learning from it...

[John]

I haven't read this book. Even so, I am wondering how this author's take on Faulkner compares with Philip Weinstein's account in "Becoming Faulkner."

[Daniel Polansky]

A literary and social critique of Faulkner's ouvre by a French-speaking Caribbean author. I enjoy this sort of thing on principle but found this a bit florid.

[Tonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really amazing reading of Faulkner. Glissant's language is often a little obscure, perhaps because of the philosophical aspects and/or because of the French to English translation. I'm a fan of Glissant's other works as well. His Poetics of Relation also helps elucidate notions in this text.