Was coming down the homestretch this afternoon, going through the last twenty or so pages at a fairly steady pace since something was actually happening now. In the middle of this action, while the end is in sight with a big secret revealed and the whole Sutpen clan history ready to be finally laid to rest with a bang, I catch this:
“Wait,” Quentin said. “Let’s drive up to the house. It’s a half a mile.”
“No, no,” she whispered, a tense fierce hissing of words filled with that same curious terrified yet implacable determination, as though it were not she who had to go and find out but she only the helpless agent of someone or something else who must know. “Hitch the horse here. Hurry.” (p. 365)
Leave it to Faulkner to drag out that final end to the story by making Quentin and Miss Rosa–who is an old 65–abandon the buggy and walk a half a mile to the mansion. Faulkner adds to the drama by having them walk the distance, tire, stumble in the dark, and add to the anticipation of the reader as to what they will find there, simply by extending the span of time it takes them to get there. Almost a movie ploy, Faulkner manages it within pages of a novel.
Overall, the writing is eloquent and yet almost to the point of overwriting. There is the repetition of the main story by several different characters (as well as told to and by other characters to them) so that we get a different slant on the story and something different is revealed in each telling. Whether it be fact or feeling, the characters are the focus of Faulkner’s story. The narrative is the story of one man who comes to town, buys up a lot of land to build a mansion because he’s learned late in life not only the difference between black and white but between rich and poor. Then he finds a wife–though we find out he already has a wife and son hidden away and abandoned but taken care of with money because she had an eighth of Negro blood. Well, this son grows up and meets the established son, is pushed into an engagement with his own sister, but retreats because the acknowledged son loves him and refuses to believe his own father when he tells him the truth. Except that part about the Negro blood…
Typical also of Faulkner is the passing down through generations the secrets and often the repeated acts that add drama to a Southern family during the war years. The stories are loaded with sex but not for sex’s sake but more importantly, the aftereffects of each coupling that causes the problems.
Faulkner writes with passion and emphasis on detail. He wants the reader to feel, to comprehend the trials of his characters. Faulkner requires a patient reader who understands that even under the worst possible circumstances, the most horrific scandal, the most important part of the story is within its characters.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology