Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Faulkner

William Faulkner was another award winning writer. Like Hemingway won the Nobel Prize 1949. However, his writing style was dramatically different. Long sentences, lots of detail contrast with Hemingway’s short, simple, direct way of writing. And, they had a somewhat public conflict over their differences: "Hemingway," Faulkner said once, "has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."

Even though his writing varied greatly from Hemingway (another favorite of mine), I admire Faulkner because he frequently wrote about the South, history, and things that hold a lot of interest for me. “A Rose for Emily” was one of his southern themed works. I love his description of Emily’s home in the beginning of the story “It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.” I’m one of those people that love to stop and admire old houses. Even when they are falling apart and covered in weeds, I imagine what they used to look like or what they could look like if I could just put it back together again. His detailed description paints a wonderful picture in my mind of what Emily’s ancient home must have looked like.

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