"Tell about the South. What's it like there? What do they do there? Why do they live there? Why do they live at all?"
Absalom, Absalom!
- Author: FAULKNER, William
- Publication place: New York,
- Publisher: Random House,
- Publication date: 1936.
- Physical description: First Editon, first Printing. Octavo (202 by 135mm), 384pp, folding map, original black cloth stamped in red and gilt, in original dust jacket, clipped, a little wear to top and corners.
- Inventory reference: 22172
Notes
Faulkner's map of the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, where 12 of his books and 30 of his stories take place.
The Book
"Considered one of Faulkner's greatest achievements, and a major contributor to his 1949 Nobel Prize, this groundbreaking work delves into the complexities of Southern history, family legacy, and the themes of race, identity, and morality. The novel is set in the deep South, primarily in the fictional Mississippi town of Jefferson, and spans several generations, covering the antebellum era, the American Civil War, and the Reconstruction period" (Railton et al). Faulkner uses stream-of-consciousness writing, and employs a non-linear structure with multiple narrators who recount the story from their own perspectives, memories, and biases.
'Absalom, Absalom!' leaves the reader considering the complexity of truth and the power of storytelling, as the multiple narrators and their different perspectives create a fragmented and unreliable narrative. More than this, however, the novel deconstructs and challenges the romanticized portrayal of the American South. It exposes the dark underbelly of the region, delving into themes of slavery, racism, violence, and decay. Faulkner portrays the South as a site of historical tragedy and deep-seated flaws, questioning the nostalgia that is often associated with it.
The novel is also home to what was once the longest sentence in published literature (1288 words, if you must know).
The Map
It is well known that Faulkner's "Yoknapatawpha County" is based on his real life home in Lafayette County, Mississippi, which, like its fictional counterpart, is, broadly speaking, a square with 27 mile long sides.
"Faulkner himself drew at least two different maps of Yoknapatawpha. According to Joseph Blotner's biography, as Faulkner was finishing 'Absalom, Absalom!' in the spring of 1936, Hal Smith, his editor at Random House, became increasingly concerned about the novel's readability. To address that issue, it was decided that the novel should include three appendices "to clear up ambiguities and provide guideposts" for readers: a "Chronology" of events, a "Genealogy" of the major characters, and a map. It is not known who originated this idea, but its result was to make Faulkner a cartographer. Faulkner himself clearly chose what went on the map, since it barely addresses Smith's concerns. 'Absalom's' Chronology and Genealogy focus entirely on events and characters in 'Absalom', but on the map Faulkner drew, only 5 of the 27 different locations identify places that occur in the novel; the other 22 refer to places that figure in his five earlier
Yoknapatawpha novels. The map appears in the first edition of 'Absalom' as a two-color foldout at the very end of the book. When readers unfolded the map (below), their attention was being directed well beyond this one novel, to the larger world that Faulkner had been building for almost a decade...
"...The few critics who have discussed the 1936 map have rightly emphasized how much its significance depends on its aggregate nature. Robert Hamblin, for example, argues that Faulkner chose to include locales and events from those earlier novels in order to "reiterate and extend the tragic view of life and history" depicted in 'Absalom': on the map that ends the book, "the landscape of Yoknapatawpha is presented primarily as a setting for grief, villainy, and death." To Elizabeth Duvert, the cumulative intertextual sweep of that map can be read as "Faulkner's vision of landscape as spatialized timet" (Railton et al.).
The map is undoubtedly a monument in fictional worldbuilding. It may, however, also have had a commercial motivation, as a visual way for him to advertise his earlier novels.
The Book
"Considered one of Faulkner's greatest achievements, and a major contributor to his 1949 Nobel Prize, this groundbreaking work delves into the complexities of Southern history, family legacy, and the themes of race, identity, and morality. The novel is set in the deep South, primarily in the fictional Mississippi town of Jefferson, and spans several generations, covering the antebellum era, the American Civil War, and the Reconstruction period" (Railton et al). Faulkner uses stream-of-consciousness writing, and employs a non-linear structure with multiple narrators who recount the story from their own perspectives, memories, and biases.
'Absalom, Absalom!' leaves the reader considering the complexity of truth and the power of storytelling, as the multiple narrators and their different perspectives create a fragmented and unreliable narrative. More than this, however, the novel deconstructs and challenges the romanticized portrayal of the American South. It exposes the dark underbelly of the region, delving into themes of slavery, racism, violence, and decay. Faulkner portrays the South as a site of historical tragedy and deep-seated flaws, questioning the nostalgia that is often associated with it.
The novel is also home to what was once the longest sentence in published literature (1288 words, if you must know).
The Map
It is well known that Faulkner's "Yoknapatawpha County" is based on his real life home in Lafayette County, Mississippi, which, like its fictional counterpart, is, broadly speaking, a square with 27 mile long sides.
"Faulkner himself drew at least two different maps of Yoknapatawpha. According to Joseph Blotner's biography, as Faulkner was finishing 'Absalom, Absalom!' in the spring of 1936, Hal Smith, his editor at Random House, became increasingly concerned about the novel's readability. To address that issue, it was decided that the novel should include three appendices "to clear up ambiguities and provide guideposts" for readers: a "Chronology" of events, a "Genealogy" of the major characters, and a map. It is not known who originated this idea, but its result was to make Faulkner a cartographer. Faulkner himself clearly chose what went on the map, since it barely addresses Smith's concerns. 'Absalom's' Chronology and Genealogy focus entirely on events and characters in 'Absalom', but on the map Faulkner drew, only 5 of the 27 different locations identify places that occur in the novel; the other 22 refer to places that figure in his five earlier
Yoknapatawpha novels. The map appears in the first edition of 'Absalom' as a two-color foldout at the very end of the book. When readers unfolded the map (below), their attention was being directed well beyond this one novel, to the larger world that Faulkner had been building for almost a decade...
"...The few critics who have discussed the 1936 map have rightly emphasized how much its significance depends on its aggregate nature. Robert Hamblin, for example, argues that Faulkner chose to include locales and events from those earlier novels in order to "reiterate and extend the tragic view of life and history" depicted in 'Absalom': on the map that ends the book, "the landscape of Yoknapatawpha is presented primarily as a setting for grief, villainy, and death." To Elizabeth Duvert, the cumulative intertextual sweep of that map can be read as "Faulkner's vision of landscape as spatialized timet" (Railton et al.).
The map is undoubtedly a monument in fictional worldbuilding. It may, however, also have had a commercial motivation, as a visual way for him to advertise his earlier novels.
Bibliography
- Railton and Rieger, http://faulkner.iath.virginia.edu.
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