One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner

What was William Faulkner doing when he wrote THE SOUND AND THE FURY, LIGHT IN AUGUST, THE HAMLET, ABSALOM, ABSALOM! and GO DOWN, MOSES? In this fascinating biography, Professor Parini tells you, as his narrative moves from Faulkner's life to his work and back again, describing this great writer`s personal and historical world while analyzing his demanding oeuvre. How did Faulkner acquire his estate, Rowan Oak, after only modest sales for his first books? How did his ultimately lucrative connection to Hollywood affect his work? The answers to such questions are in this thorough, but not long, book. On this level, this biography is a feast for Faulkner fans. Even so, this biography has a maddening quality. In particular, this reader was blind-sided as Faulkner, without any preparation by the author, recited complete Shakespearean sonnets at a dinner party, acknowledged his love of French literature, or spoke French. These incidents obviously capture influences on Faulkner's artistic sensibility. Yet, they are never really built into the experience of the historical man and artist that Parini describes. Faulkner, in addition, was obviously well-read. Yet Parini never discusses what Faulkner was reading, when he was reading it, and how the reading affected him. For an isolated and struggling writer, his reading-though hard to pin down-had to be an important influence and inspiration. In my opinion, occasional references to his reading would have been interesting. But as it is, this biography shows Faulkner in his most creative period without any such literary interests or precursors. In ONE MATCHLESS Time, he is either working madly or on an alcoholic binge.

Parini does his best work investigating the early days of Faulkner and putting them into a social, specifically Southern, context, but unlike Blotner he manages to enlarge that context into the whole space of American modernism. He makes you feel Faulkner's yearning to be accepted as part of an international avant-garde, and yet at the same time he didn't want that, he wanted, like his grandfather, to be a writer revered by his peers down home. Parini does enough with the "gay male friends" theme to warrant further scholarly investigation into gay modernist Southern art and literature, though such a topic doesn't necessarily depemd on the weight of Faulkner's name for it to be interesting in and of itself. And how about his friendship with Bil and Helen Baird and the whole puppeteering thing, I could read about this forever. About the women in Faulkner's life, Parini stumbles a little. I don't think he makes Estelle, Jill, Meta Carpenter, Jean Stein or Joan Williams as interesting as Blotner did. They all kind of converge into an foggy enemy figure, like Judy and Madeleine in Hitchcock's VERTIGO--maybe this was Parini's intention (to paint his hero as a victim of sexual obsession), but the truth is that all of these women were very different characters, and in my opinion still the best book written about Faulkner is the wonderful A LOVING GENTLEMAN, Meta Carpenter Wilde's very moving memoir of her love affair with W. Faulkner. That said, I admire Parini's book and the skill with which it comes together. It makes you want to re-read some of the neglected books, I especially like his defense of the cobbled-together 50s collection BIG WOODS. The truth is I could read a new Faulkner biography every year, they're all pretty good and this one, as the newest, deserves the attention of all of us.

It is a measure of the success of Jay Parini's William Faulkner biography, ONE MATCHLESS TIME, that the overwhelming desire on finishing it is to return to the works of the author and read, or reread, them from the beginning. It is particularly refreshing to find in the sections that analyze the books individually no descent into the obscurantism that pervades so much "professional" literary criticism. Parini's account is, however, marred, as a previous reviewer pointed out, by an unaccountable number of typographical and other mistakes that are no less maddening for their slightness. For example, "Jefferson County" appears several times when Lafayette is intended; there is the birthdate error; and about 20 other typographical glitches. These serve to break the spell that would otherwise propel most readers, I think, to finish this fine book in a gulp.

I've never been a particular Faulkner fan, but after reading Jay Parini's "One Matchless Time," I may well have to revise that opinion. I certainly will have to turn back to Faulkner's books! Parini's book is as enthralling as any literary biography I've ever read, telling a compelling story of a unique literary genius who persevered at his art with almost feral intensity and courage, despite universal discouragement from family, neighbors and editors. Parini is judicious in his appraisal of Faulkner's work, admitting that his fiction was wildly uneven but adding that the greatest Faulkner novels succeed grandly because Faulkner was not afraid to fail grandly. (Faulkner recognized Thomas Wolfe as a kindred spirit in this regard, and criticized Hemingway for not having the courage to risk failure in his fiction.) Parini also duly notes the knotty difficulty of the Faulknerian prose style: "Faulkner cannot be read; he can only be reread," he states astutely. He admits that Faulkner-a man who tried out many personae during his life and told outrageous tall tales about himself--in the end can never be adequately summarized as a man, but adds that he hopes this book "will bring readers back where they belong, to Yoknapatawpha County." I've already bought my ticket! As fine as this book is, however, the proofreading is horrible. Many words are misspelled (Albemarle County, in Virginia, is rendered throughout as "Albermarle") or left out of sentences, creating unnecessary confusion. There are also some factual howlers, such as the following sentence: "On August 25, Faulkner turned fifty." The problem is that in several other places the book notes, correctly, that Faulkner's birthday was SEPTEMBER 25! With all due respect to Parini's talents, such obvious mistakes make me wonder about possible errors I have no means to check. And HarperCollins--one of the most illustrious names in American publishing--issued this book!

Parini's wasn't my first Faulkner bio, I read Joseph Boltner's bio of Faulkner a few years ago and have also read that other look at his work "A Southerner In History". But I really liked this book, I learned new things and felt I was better able to put Faulkner's life and work in perspective. Overall, I'd say it was quite enjoyable and did give an intense portrait of someone who made his own way in the world, whose genius came completely from within himself. It's a good read, organized around Faulkner's fiction so that Parini describes events that occured while Faulkner was writing a particular work and then gives a critical summary of the published work and how it was received at the time. You get a good idea of the figure Faulkner cut by reading comments from those who met him in passing as well as his closest friends. There are also excerpts from letters that I have never read before that cast an interesting light on his marriage and his life after the Big Prize. Parini's title refers to the fact that The Sound And the Fury, As I Lay Dying, A Light In August and Absalom, Absalom (is that it?) and many shorter works were all written during a very short period in Faulkner's life, "one matchless time" as Faulkner called it. I'm keeping the book on my shelf and will probably break out the scotch and re-read some Faulkner this winter, maybe see it in a new light.