Snopes (urspr publ 1959; utgåvan 1994)

This is an immersion experience: 1050 pages in the Modern Library edition.

Though I don't know why it's called Snopes. Sure folks by that name figure mightily in the novel, but really it's a sort of social and historical study of the fictional town of Jefferson running from WWI to after WWII. Although there is one good Snopes, the family as a whole represents the destruction of that old way of life by single minded commercial interests. Money, money, and the pursuit thereof.

I read it as part of my exploration of my relation to the rural south in the 1940's and 50's. I was a kid back then, but have enough of a memory of the place to feel it was a different time, really, and a very different place. Not a good place, mind you, just very different from sitting here at the start of the 21st century.

It's a clunky book, full of plots and sub-plots interweaving over time, and told, as Faulkner insists on doing, from multiple points of view. Full also of those nuts and lunatics that people Faulkner's fiction. I think especially of the village idiot who falls romantically and carnally in love with a cow. Though Faulkner handles this delicately and suggestively, not at all in detail.

I surmise Faulkner was one horny fellow. His descriptions of Eula, the central female character, while featuring no salacious details of the modern variety, are quite erotic, taking one back to that teenage time when powerful hormones cast the whole world in sexual tones. She just walks, but in such a way, that her clothes seem to wish to fly off her ample being.

Good stuff. All around good stuff. And mostly and basically, Faulkner treats each and every no good character with complete respect. There's no looking down. And maybe because of this, each character seems a fate. ( )

generally, the praise i see for this trilogy plots a declining slope with The Hamlet unanimously receiving much accolade and varying degrees less being lauded upon the others with The Mansion at the bottom of this descent of fluctuant proportions, from "close, but not quite as good as the others" to "superfluous"...i think The Mansion is simply great so i just wanna give it a little of the credit i feel it's due...i'd say it's even better than The Town (though i shan't deviate from the norm with my regard for The Hamlet)...and as a trilogy i don't think these works are really separable...and any differences in quality across the series is only slight...The Hamlet sets a strong beginning and The Mansion is a strong end...i'll just keep my review vague and forgo the details...so, that's all... ( )

The Hamlet is the best, but The Town is also great. The Mansion is very good, but it's not as terrific as the first two. I recommend reading all three of these at once to get the full scope of the Snopes family, which isn't even Faulkner's most well-drawn family. (I like the McCaslin family) But don't just read one of these and certainly read them in order. Some great writing here. ( )