14. Flags in the Dust by William Faulkner
publication history: cut version published 1929, full version published 1973. Corrected 2006
format: 319-page Nook ebook (published 2011)
acquired: February 29 read: Mar 1-15 time reading: 16:22, 3.1 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Classic novel theme: Faulkner
locations: Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, ~1920
about the author: 1897-1962. American Noble Laureate who was born in New Albany, MS, and lived most of his life in Oxford, MS.

This is an important Faulkner novel. It's his 3rd published novel, but it's the first he set in his fictional Yoknapatawpha county Mississippi. It sets the backdrop of the Snopes trilogy and I think much or most of his other work going forward. But is it any good?

It wasn't published as he wanted in his lifetime. The publisher of Faulkner's first two novels rejected it, saying it was “diffuse and non-integral with neither very much plot development nor character development.... The story really doesn't get anywhere and has a thousand loose ends." That's an entirely accurate description. Without plot drive or clear purpose, it walks along slowly. It opens with a breath of wonderful prose and author control on the pace, intentionally slowing us readers down without losing us. But that doesn't last. Eventually the book drifts. I spent swaths of pages wondering why Faulkner was telling me what he was telling me, and even after I set the book down, found myself mulling over this question and not able to answer it. The eventual publisher cut out a huge chunk of it, maybe 25 percent.

"After a while John Sartoris departed also, withdrawn rather to the place where the peaceful dead contemplate their glamourous frustrations"

And yet I enjoyed it. I took in these characters, and embraced with the glee the introductions to characters who are fleshed out in the Snopes trilogy, and I closed in with real affection. The novel hovers over the mythological Civil War colonel, John Sartoris, his memory and spirit hovering "like an odor, like the clean dusty smell of his faded overalls". His son, Old Bayard, runs his bank in this same Mississippi town. Old Bayard's grandson, also Bayard, has just returned from serving as a pilot in WWI, watching his own twin brother die in air combat. There are lot of missing Sartorises, moms, wifes, dads. They don't come out well. And young Bayard can't settle after his experiences, constantly pushing limits and unable to stop. Mixed in, and largely cut in 1929, is the younger Bayard's eventual spouse, inaptly named Narcissa, a beautiful warm character Faulkner created, first in love warmly with her brother (in a healthy way), also a WWI veteran. The sibling relationship is as beautiful as anything in the book.

I don't know how to approach the race aspects of this book except to say race is important to the book, and it's a racism fail. Faulkner loves his black servant characters, but he loves them as black servants playing secondary humans, not as regular people who are entirely dependent financially, with limited to no opportunities for themselves or their children. You can't overlook these aspects, the love and hard misunderstanding. It's so fundamental to the book, to everything beautiful within the book. I cringed, but also found myself open to letting Faulkner give me his own take. If you want to destroy this book on race, you have easy target.

So recommended for Faulkner pursuers, but maybe not for samplers.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/358760#8473610 ( )

This is the extended version of Faulkner's third novel, Sartoris, which was cut by about 25% before being published in 1929. It is the turning point in Faulkner's writing, where he realized that his home environment of rural and small-town Mississippi was fertile ground, and that he "could not live long enough to exhaust it". ( )

[Flags in the Dust] was originally published in 1929 under the title [Sartoris]. After Faulkner’s original typescript had been turned down by a dozen publishers, Harcourt, Brace accepted it in 1928, with the requirement that it be cut down to 10,000 words—about three quarters of its original length. Faulkner’s friend and agent Ben Wasson did the shortening and revising and Harcourt Brace changed its name. In 1973, [Flags in the Dust] was published by Random House, using the text of the only surviving copy of Faulkner’s original typescript, the one which had begun making the round of publishers in 1927. Some editing and revision was done at that point. In 2006, additional editing was done by Noel Polk, and the text I have just read was published. (Thanks to the End Note from Vintage International Press for this information.)

Having read [Sartoris] sometime in the 1960’s, I was interested to read [Flags in the Dust] when I became aware of its availability. I enjoyed this book a great deal, despite agreeing with the original editor that some cutting would be helpful. [Flags in the Dust] introduces readers to Yoknapatawpha County, William Faulkner’s “own little postage stamp of native soil” and the setting for his best novels. It is the fictitious version of Lafayette County, Mississippi, Faulkner’s birth place. With this earliest of his Mississippi novels, Faulkner begins to familiarize readers with the families and landmarks of his imagined world. And in this early work, only his third published novel, I was happy to enjoy all of the pleasures I’ve come to anticipate in a Faulkner novel: impressive evocation of mood, skilled use of imagery, believable and relatable characters, a moving story, and a setting whose landscape and inhabitants are so real I expect to visit there someday—as soon as I learn to time travel.

Set immediately after World War I, Flags in the Dust tells the story of the homecoming of young Bayard Sartoris from France to his family in Jefferson. Old Bayard’s grandsons, young Bayard and his twin brother John, had served as pilots in France. Just as the war was ending, John had recklessly and unnecessarily flown to attack a German squadron who were flying more powerful and faster planes; he had been killed in the ensuing fight. This encounter is witnessed by Bayard who can neither stop his twin nor protect him when he engages the enemy. The main plot line of the novel involves Bayard’s dealing with the unbearable loss of his brother. As he falls deeper and deeper into despair, he takes ever greater and more violent risks, heedlessly racing cars, horses, wagons, anything that will allow him to attain reckless (of himself and others) speed.

It is in this novel that we first begin to hear stories about the people of Yoknapatawpha County, stories that will be repeated and added to in the novels to come. We hear some of the stories of Confederate Colonel John Sartoris, who survived his war and came home to found the Bank of Jefferson and to take part in the building of the railroad through Jefferson; and of his brother John who didn’t survive, because he rode recklessly into a Yankee camp to steal some anchovies. We meet Narcissa and Horace Benbow, daughter and son of Old Judge Benbow. Narcissa tries to save young Bayard from his self-destructive behavior, because she loves him. We meet Miss Jenny Sartoris Du Pre, who after being widowed young, came to live with her brother Col. John Sartoris, and who remains as the matriarch of the Sartoris family, now consisting only of grandfather and grandson Bayard. She is the aunt of Old Bayard, and the great-great aunt of young Bayard. She is the most formidable and sensible character in the novel, and she is also my favorite. Aunt Jenny too tries to save young Bayard from killing himself, perhaps because she loves him, but definitely because she needs him to father a (male) child to continue the family name. In addition to the Sartorises and Benbows, we meet numerous others, about whom we will hear more in future novels. And another main character in the novel is Byron Snopes, whose seemingly innumerable number of relatives will eventually take over financial power of Jefferson.

One of my great pleasures in a Faulkner novel is the watching of the development of his favorite theme of the eternal presence of the past, the inescapable influence of heredity and place. I love the opening paragraphs of [Flags in the Dust]:

“As usual old man Falls had brought John Sartoris into the room with him, had walked the three miles in from the county Poor Farm, fetching, like an odor, like the clean dusty smell of his faded overalls, the spirit of the dead man into that room where the dead man’s son sat and where the two of them, pauper and banker, would sit for a half an hour in the company of him who had passed beyond death and then returned.

“Freed as he was of time and flesh, he was a far more palpable presence than either of the two old men who sat shouting periodically into one another’s deafness while the business of the bank went forward in the next room….” (p.3)

The majority of the Sartoris men die violent deaths. Colonel John Sartoris, CSA, is eventually murdered. Miss Jenny will comment throughout the novel on the violent streak and rash behavior of all the Sartoris men whom she has watched over eight decades. We wonder if Bayard, given his wild grief for his twin brother and guilt over not protecting him, will be able to escape his heritage and his own nature. Perhaps a quarter of the way through the novel a scene occurs reminiscent of that earlier Bayard, great-great uncle of the novel’s young Bayard. Young Bayard and a friend, wandering through town, approach the livery stable. Bayard sees a horse trader and a magnificent stallion, tied with rope and halter, that the trader has brought to sell:

“The stallion stood against the yawning cavern of the livery stable door like a motionless bronze flame, and along its burnished coat ran at intervals little tremors of paler flame, little tongues of nervousness and pride.” (p. 127)

Determined to ride the supposedly unmanageable horse and ignoring all attempts to stop him, Bayard manages to mount the untacked horse. Then he rides at breakneck speed through the streets of Jefferson, barely able to control him. A small boy wanders into the horse’s path, and trying desperately to avoid the child,

“Bayard leaned forward and wrapped the rope about his hand and swerved the beast toward the opposite sidewalk….The small figure came on, flashed safely behind, then a narrow band of rushing green; a tree trunk like a wheel spoke in reverse, and the stallion struck clashing fire from the wet concrete. It slid, clashed, fighting for balance, lunged and crashed down; and for Bayard, a red shock, then blackness. The horse scrambled up and whirled and poised and struck viciously at the prone man with its hooves…” (p. 131)

Since this is one of the earlier incidents, it should not be a spoiler to say that Bayard eventually recovers from his injuries, living to mend his ways—or not.

The plot in this novel is more straightforward than later ones. The writing is gorgeous, and we can’t help but realize how at home William Faulkner is in this setting. I have to restrain myself from quoting at greater length, but I do recommend [Flags in the Dust] without reservation. ( )

A fitting eulogy to the author’ lost faith, conspicuous for its absence enabling the characters’ self-destruction. ( )

This was an interesting one for me......not sure what i was expecting, but was surprised at what i got. I think i have heard ad nauseum as to the tediousness of Faulkner's Mississippi works, and i must have been expecting dreadful tediousness......and although it was a wee bit disjointed and often a little confusing, it was in no way dreadful. So, i guess that's a big ole plus. Multiple generations of the Sartoris family, with the men all having the same names over and over, made it challenging to figure out who in the heck we were talking about, especially in the beginning. Some generations were skipped or barely mentioned. (I actually had to cheat and draw myself a little chart, after i went back and reread the first 2 chapters.....but the unexpected part was that i wanted to!) Interesting, mysterious characters.....given to us in little bits and scraps....i had to work to figure it all out. Seemingly a very insightful look at the post Civil War deep south, with lots about daily life, impact of WWI, the racial interactions....painful to ponder, but likely authentic to the time. But i flew through it rather quickly.....and i have to say i enjoyed it. I will not be shy when the next one of a sizable stack of Faulkner ends up in my hand. Also, i did what i rarely do, which is read the introduction by the gentleman scholar whose job it was to gather the old manuscripts of Faulkner to finalize and publish in its entirety that which publishers refused to do when originally written in the 1920's. A fascinating tale of its own.....and one which did not in any way give away what i was about to read. So, if i had not had to work quite so hard, a 4, but 3.5 is what it gets.....and that is not bad. Have no fear..... ( )