Voltaire, re: Faulkner
Spent an entire afternoon one fall at Rowan Oak talking to the son of Ned Barnett. Ned Barnett was Faulkner's butler. The son, at the time I was there, was the caretaker on the grounds of Rowan Oak which is a national historic landmark and he was the one who took Faulkner to the hospital in Greenville for the last time. We sat around fixing his taillight in his car that afternoon and he told stories about Faulkner. He talked about his writing, his dignity, his drinking, his irritation with being discovered after the Nobel Prize and the NY literatti that descended on Oxford. But most of all he talked about his humor and dignity. How he could drink like a fish but never, ever when he was in his office writing.
Anyway, that was on a Sunday afternoon. The grounds were actually closed, so, I couldnt go inside. I was traveling around the country in a van and that was one of the places I wanted to stop, having been mesmerized by Yoknapatawpha County in college and thereafter. Faulkner was, and still is as relevant as ever. The only problem is that the modern world is killing the novel and the novelist, so the voices are fading. And that is a real shame. But not for this boy. |
