William from Oxford was on my mind this morning in the Northern Neck of Virginia. There I was, on my way to my regular Sunday tennis game, only not in my tiny Miata, which awaits the return of a mechanic to town. I was in a large black Ford truck on Ball’s Neck (605). It has no center line. I was sailing along, heading to Shiloh School Road, thinking about Hightower, an important character in Light in August. This deposed Presbyterian pastor, imprisoned in the past, believes his Southern grandfather to have been a Civil War hero.
Then, from the truck’s lofty height, I saw in the middle of the road ahead, a big black turkey buzzard. As I got closer it did not fly up, as they do usually do. This buzzard stayed beside what had to be new roadkill. I stopped. The buzzard moved to the left, I slowly to the right. Then passing by, I saw a lifeless baby fox, a kit.
It all felt Faulknerian, given I was thinking about Hightower, and Jefferson, Mississippi in the 1930s, and the brutal death there of mulatto Joe Christmas. What should I write about in today’s blog?
Late Saturday night, I listened to Faulkner deliver his Nobel Prize acceptance speech from 1950. It is one I know well and have used throughout the years with students.
Faulkner had not wanted to attend the ceremony in Stockholm. But he sobered up and went and charmed his Nordic audience. And later, when his daughter Jill graduated from high school, he gave a short address. I will quote from it because Faulkner has resonance now. By which I mean ‘rat’ now, this August of 2024, so close to the November election.
Here is the end of his short address to graduating high school students. It echoes in part the Nobel Prize speech.
“Man, the individual, men and women, will refuse always to be tricked or frightened or bribed into surrendering, not just the right but the duty too, to choose between justice and injustice, courage and cowardice, sacrifice and greed, pity and self; who will believe always not only in the right of man to be free of injustice and rapacity and deception, but the duty and responsibility of man to see that justice and truth and pity and compassion are done…So, never be afraid. Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion, against injustice and lying and greed…”
Yes, Faulkner was a flawed man. But the creator, the artist, the writer, moved into characters who depict the lie of living in the land of “was” rather than “is” and “will be.” The recurrence of AGAIN, heard chanted and written now, is why Faulkner remains so necessary and valuable. More on Light In August and its characters next week.
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