RE: William Faulkner from The Sound and the Fury
I really like Faulkner. We studied "As I Lay Dying" at uni many moons ago. I was just reading about it and apparently he wrote it from 12 am to 4 am and didn't change a word. How cool is that. It's meant to be one of the great books of the 20th century - i should go re-read it. I've not read the Sound and The Fury though I've heard of it - I always presumed the title was from Shakespeare: 'life is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing' - it too is in stream of consciousness isn't it, like As I Lay Dying.
I just read, of 'As I Lay Dying', that:
The title derives from Book XI of Homer's Odyssey, wherein Agamemnon tells Odysseus: "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades."
- like you and Faulkner, referencing the Greeks. And I'm reading 'Ransom' at the moment, as you may have seen with my post - a retelling of a part of the Iliad. I love how everything is connected. x
I'm off on holiday but I might download this onto my kindle and give it a read. Thanks for reminding me that it's on my to read list. x
That he was able to construct an entire world in that amount of time is astonishing to say the least. I have to confess I haven't read it either. I've only listened to parts of it and other people's analysis of the work. Rudolf Steiner has a solid understanding of the history of the development of humanity and I learned a lot about Greek and Roman influences on the collective studying his work. Though I can't take his analysis fully on faith he's a researcher I've grown to trust. Same with Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, it's amazing how Greek Mythology is such a powerful force in the stream of the living and changing collective dream of humanity. How we've been retelling the same stories for millennia. I've followed threads from Steiner's references eventually leading to other authors like Voltaire and Goethe and later works from Faulkner and Nietzsche. I've never been able to appreciate Voltaire, Goethe or even Faulkner first hand for longer than a couple hours, it's dense for me and from another time, though I agree they changed the consciousness of humanity. They showed me that the internal struggle is real work that has value. Work that we have to take on or it becomes a curse to the next generation. I would like to learn more so I don't have to rely on another's analysis, maybe I need to slow my role a little. I'm curious of the context and meaning of "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades." This mythos had a powerful influence over me for a long time.
It always makes me happy to meet someone who's investigated a similar thread. I'm sure I could learn a lot from you. Who are we in this dream and what power have we welcomed into our soul? I want to be a man of knowledge, but knowledge changes as it grows and is always beyond what one can ever expect. It seems Goethe copes through living in beauty and the end or disillusionment of a beautiful thing is the tragedy of his life, but there is something more too I think. And I've felt that wholesome sadness that lets in the broadness of the world. While reading Nietzsche though I see nothing to depend on, no milk and honey, just a warrior in the face of void. Like Kierkegaard, both perhaps attempting to be the knight of faith to transcend total Nihilism. I'd like to check out As I Lay Dying, I just read he wrote the book from 15 different narrators following over 50 different streams of consciousness.