Faulkner: The Nobel Prize Winner
My first reaction when I thought about writing about Faulkner was, “No, he’s done so much, it’s overwhelming.” And, I was right. I now have 21 pages of research that I plan to whittle down – starting with Faulkner and Clark Gable, the movie star.
Faulkner spent a lot of time (between 1932 and 1945) in Hollywood and, as a screenwriter, worked closely with the famous director, Howard Hawks who invited him to go on a hunting trip with Gable who asked, “Mr. Faulkner, who would you say are the best living writers?” Faulkner replied, “Thomas Mann, Willa Cather, John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway and myself.” Gable asked, “Oh, do you write, Mr. Faulkner?” Faulkner replied, “Yeah. What do you do, Mr. Gable?”
HE WAS BORN IN NEW ALBANY, MISSISSIPPI (9/25/97 to 7/6/62). His mother and grandmother were voracious readers, as well as fine painters. Faulkner was raised from birth by his “mammy” as he called her. She was a black woman called Caroline Barr. When she died at 104 he delivered the eulogy. It was one of the few times anyone ever saw Faulkner cry.
THE AUTHOR’S GREAT-GRANDFATHER led a Confederate regiment, built a 62-mile railroad from Oxford to Tennessee and got elected state senator. He also wrote several novels and, as a child, Faulkner reportedly said, “I want to be a writer like my great-granddaddy.” This ancestor was later shot by his ex-business partner in a public square. A fictional Colonel Satoris was modeled on the real one for “The Sound and the Fury.”
HE DROPPED OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL and later enrolled at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) where one could matriculate without a high school diploma. He did poorly in English and left after a year. He wrote poetry and essays for a local magazine and then when he was 27 he moved to New Orleans where Sherwood Anderson urged him to put these endeavors aside and write about the people and places of his childhood. Faulkner lived with Anderson and his wife in the Pontalba building just off Jackson Square, located only a short walk from Rathbone Mansions.
The University of Mississippi, usually called “Ole Miss” that Faulkner attended for a year – the school was founded in 1848 – or, 172 years ago when it opened with 80 students
Two years later his first novel “Soldiers’ Pay” was published. He made a brief trip to Paris, returned and in 1929 he developed the fictional Yoknapatawpha County – a place nearly identical to Lafayette County, in which Oxford, Mississippi is located. A year later, in 1930, Faulkner released “As I Lay Dying.”
FAULKNER BECAME FAMOUS AND KNOWN for his faithful and accurate dictation of Southern speech. He also wrote about social issues that many writers would not touch: slavery, the “good old boys” club and Southern aristocracy. In 1931, his book “Sanctuary” was published – a story that focused on the rape and kidnapping of a young woman at Ole Miss. It shocked and appalled readers, but it was a commercial success.
HE MARRIED HIS OLD FLAME AND SETTLED down to write “Light in August” that came out in 1932 and introduced his readers to Joe Christmas, a man of uncertain racial makeup and Joanna Burden, who supported voting rights for blacks and is brutally murdered. Note: “Time” magazine has listed this book and “The Sound and the Fury:” as two of the “Best 100 English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005.
MOST OF HIS 19-NOVEL SAGA ABOUT OXFORD was written in his home on Old Taylor Road (a 10-minute walk from the Courthouse Square). The house is named Rowan Oak – pronounced the same as Roanoke in Virginia. Faulkner bought the 124-year-old house and 14 acres of heavily wooded land in 1930. He had just sold the film rights to “Sanctuary,” which he wrote while working the night shift in a local boiler factory and could afford the $5,000 Depression price tag.
The battered, old typewriter at Rowan Oak where Faulkner created 19 novels – and yes, he typed with two fingers as he wrote one masterpiece after another
HIS PUBLISHER WENT BANKRUPT: SO THE MONEY that he was expecting, in 1932, from his novel “Sanctuary” ($4,000 or $68,000 in today’s money) vanished overnight. Then Leland Hayward, a prominent talent agent, secured him a $500-a-week contract (the equivalent of $8,500 today) to write scripts for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
HE WAS SO SCARED HE SOUGHT REFUGE in Death Valley. “It was the quietest place that I could think of,” he said. But after a week of solace and solitude he returned – ready to write and completed four story treatments in four weeks. He had a script in five or six days and Hawks said, “It was one of the finest scripts I’d ever read.”
Faulkner was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature (currently $913,279.00 in our money) and won two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards as well. But, this isn’t how I want to end this – I feel that a fabulist tale is a better idea. So here it is: Los Angeles in the thirties was quite different and much rougher than now.
So one day, Faulkner said, “I’m goin’ pig huntin’ – and he did – this meant a whole day on Santa Cruz Island stalking wild boar. After this, he returned to the Beverly Hills Hotel “unshaven, clad in his hunting shirt and carrying a borrowed weapon under his arm,” said a bystander. “As he walked through the lobby, he sent guests and hotel staff running for cover. Earlier there had been an armed robbery and everyone thought Faulkner was the crook returning to the scene of his crime.” That does it – a perfect ending!
Shaun Nelson-Henrick