What Makes it Great?
Chief among Faulkner’s many strengths are his use of dialogue and his unique voice. In his larger novels Faulkner employs a style of dialogue that can be hard to follow; characters’ thoughts are mixed up with the action in a way that has one going back over the previous page more often than not, trying to figure out what really happened and what was just imagined. In The Reivers, we are treated to the greatness of Faulkner’s genius without all that mental work. The action comes in a straightforward fashion, through the down-home folksy voice of Lucius, now grown to be an old man himself. The delightful narration has that kind of wandering digressive quality that makes your grandfather’s stories both fascinating and infuriating, coupled with a wonderfully dry sarcasm about everything modern.
Did You Know?
William Faulkner’s famed acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize is a profound commentary on the meaning of literature: “The human heart in conflict with itself . . . alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat . . . leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and the truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice . . . [Man] is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart . . .”
Faulkner critic Malcolm Cowley described this as “a sort of homely and sober-sided frontier humor that is seldom achieved in contemporary writing.” Here is the firmly tongue-in-cheek description of the beloved Winton Flyer:
“So he bought the automobile, and Boon found his soul’s lily maid, the virgin’s love of his rough and innocent heart. It was a Winton Flyer . . . You cranked it by hand while standing in front of it, with no more risk (provided you had remembered to take it out of gear) than a bone or two in your forearm; it had kerosene lamps for night driving and when rain threatened five or six people could readily put up the top and curtains in ten or fifteen minutes, and Grandfather himself equipped it with kerosene lantern, a new axe and a small coil of barbed wire attached to a light block and tackle for driving beyond the town limits.” (28)
Along with the hilarious adventures of its heroes, The Reivers deals with some very serious themes—morality, Christian virtue and racism—and does so with the same gift of understatement that characterizes its humor. Lucius, the cherished eldest son of a prosperous family, has been strictly raised to behave as a “gentleman.” (He must work every Saturday morning while his fellows play ball.) He worships his old grandfather, Boss Priest, a man that embodies for him all the virtues that the title “Boss” implies. Shielded from evil by a loving family, Lucius has simply assumed that he is a “good boy.” Yet, from the moment that he consents to accompany Boon in the stolen car, he wages a losing battle with his conscience.
What Lucius doesn’t realize is that the stolen car is just the beginning, and he will be thrown into a situation far more perilous that he could have imagined. For Boon is on his way to Memphis to visit a prostitute in a “bawdy” house, and through him Lucius is exposed to the seamy underside of city life. He meets the alcoholic proprietor of the house, the crooked lawmen who frequent it, and the despicable, voyeuristic nephew who acts as the worst possible guide to this strange new world. Then there is the prostitute herself, Corrie, whose obvious goodness immediately wins his heart. Corrie is the kind of person of whom Jesus was speaking when he told the Pharisees, “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21:31) She’s an angel in disguise.
Too Much, Too Soon
Through Otis (the despicable nephew) Lucius learns the tragic history of Corrie’s life, and becomes her champion. Eventually he is overwhelmed by the revelation of so much, so soon. He says, “I knew too much, had seen too much. I was a child no longer now; innocence and childhood were forever lost, forever gone from me.” Meanwhile, Corrie is watching this young boy, kept afloat in a veritable cauldron of evil only by his moral values. For, though he may have made a mistake in coming along for the ride, Lucius is indeed a “good boy,” and proves himself so with every new challenge. My favorite moment in the book (and one I have shared with my own sons) occurs when the owner of the house offers Lucius a beer.
“Is yours a beer-head too?”
“No sir,” I said. “I don’t drink beer.”
“Why?” Mr. Binford said. “You don’t like it or you can’t get it?”
“No sir,” I said. “I’m not old enough yet.”
“Whiskey, than?” Mr. Binford said.
“No sir,” I said. “I don’t drink anything. I promised my Mother I wouldn’t unless Father or Boss invited me.”
“But your mother’s not here now,” he said. “You’re on a tear with Boon now. Eighty—is it?—miles away.”
“No sir,” I said. “I promised her.” (107-108)
The quiet moral courage of the young boy causes Corrie to rethink her own life. Orphaned and forced into prostitution at a young age, she now realizes that she can choose to change, and does.
Corrie’s transformation, and Lucius’s fearless defense of her against grown men, (even against the man who loves her) form one of the very serious and inspiring themes of this novel. Another is its portrayal of blacks and whites in the deep South. Ned McCaslin is a wonderful character; as the “natural” descendant of a white plantation owner and a black slave, he has a unique perspective on the delicate racial balance of the South. He has no rights, yet he has the respect of his white overseers, and cannily forms a tenuous friendship with Sam, the white railroad worker, based on their mutual financial interests. Foremost among the black characters, however, is old Uncle Parsham, a mirror image of Lucius’s revered Boss Priest. Lucius chooses to stay with Uncle Parsham rather than with a white family, and Faulkner’s account of the family meal is a perfect example of his subtle yet eloquent message of equality.
“Bow your head,” and we did so and he said grace, briefly, courteously but with dignity, without abasement or cringing: one man of decency and intelligence to another: notifying Heaven that we were about to eat and thanking It for the privilege, but at the same time reminding It that It had had some help too; that if someone . . . hadn’t sweated some, the acknowledgment would have graced mainly empty dishes, and said Amen and unfolded his napkin and stuck the corner in his collar exactly as Grandfather did, and we ate.” (164, Italics added.)
Faulkner’s life spanned the Jim Crow years of segregation in the South, and the novel, set in 1905, reflects the rampant prejudice of the time. Against this backdrop Faulkner treats his characters with perfect equality. Both black and white characters are equally complex, neither all good nor all bad, and this respect for the humanity of the black man was revolutionary in its time. Though this is a novel about a child, it is not for children. Like most coming-of-age novels, The Reivers attempts to teach us lessons we may have missed in our upbringing, lessons about honesty, fairness and the value of each living soul. The final scene, where Lucius confesses all to his grandfather, stops just this side of sentimentality, and invariably moves me to tears. The Reivers is a great favorite of mine, and provides a door into the works of a great author.
Quotations taken from The Reivers. 1st Vintage International Edition, New York. 1962.
Talk About It
Have you had a life-changing road trip? How has travel changed your life perspective? Where in the world do you still want to go, and why?
About the Author: William Faulkner
Born in 1897 to an old Southern family, William Faulkner grew up in Oxford, Mississippi, where he attended public school only fitfully after the fifth grade; he never graduated from high school. In 1918, after the U.S. Army rejected him for being underweight and too short (5 feet, 5 inches),
Faulkner enlisted in the Canadian Air Force and later the British Royal Air Force during the First World War. He studied for a time at the University of Mississippi, and temporarily worked for a New York bookstore and a New Orleans newspaper. Apart from trips to Europe and Asia and a few brief periods in Hollywood as a scriptwriter, he remained on a farm in Oxford.
Faulkner created a fictional Southern county similar to his own, the imaginary Yoknapatawpha County and its inhabitants. The created human drama in Faulkner’s work is built after the model of actual, historical drama extending over almost a century and a half. Each story and each novel contributes a part to the whole.
William Faulkner married Estelle Oldham in 1929, and they lived in Oxford until his death on July 6, 1962. He was a quiet, dapper, courteous man, mustachioed and sharp-eyed. He steadfastly refused the role of celebrity: he permitted no prying into his private life and rarely granted interviews.
Faulkner was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes: one for his 1954 novel, The Fable, the other for his 1962 novel, The Reivers. In addition to developing an impressive body of fiction, Faulkner enjoyed notable success with his screenplays, including his adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s novel, To Have and Have Not, and Raymond Chandler’s novel, The Big Sleep.
Source: Blotner, Joseph. Faulkner: A Biography. New York: Random House, 1974. 2 vols.
Certain Is the Way:
Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
It is interesting to trace the route one takes to finding a new favorite book. For example, I would never willingly have read anything by Rudyard Kipling, whom I viewed as, at worst, a political poet of British Imperialism and, at best, merely an author of children’s books. It took a portrait of Kim in another novel to spark my interest enough to overcome my initial prejudice. Laurie R. King’s brilliant mystery series featuring Sherlock Holmes and his young partner, Mary Russell, crosses the lines between fictional and historical characters without hesitation. In The Game, Holmes and Russell are sent to India to find Kimball O’hara, the protagonist of Kipling’s greatest novel. This sparked my interest in Kim, and I was well rewarded with a wonderful reading experience. (By the way, if you love a mystery and are a Sherlock Holmes fan, I recommend the Russell/Holmes series as well!)
Synopsis
Kim is the story of a young boy caught in a clash of cultures. The illegitimate son of an Irish soldier and an Indian woman, orphaned at a young age and somehow abandoned in the Indian backcountry, he is taken up by a Tibetan lama, then eventually becomes a spy for the British. Rudyard Kipling, raised in England and India by parents who helped him see across cultural divides, creates in the character of Kim an irresistible combination of Indian pragmatism and British idealism.
The road trip begins when Kim attaches himself to a Tibetan lama, on a pilgrimage to find a sacred river that will lead him to enlightenment. Fascinated by this new character, as detached as he is from the social constraints of caste and country, Kim becomes the old man’s servant, and the relationship that they forge is one of the sweetest in literature. (The unselfish concern of Kim for the old man and vice versa is a refreshing contrast from the parasitic way Little Nell’s grandfather literally sucks the life out of her.)
Did You Know?
Kipling was a true imperialist, and his blatant racism caused him to fall out of favor with his countrymen. For Kipling, the term “white man” indicated citizens of the more highly developed nations. He felt it was their duty to spread law, literacy, and morality throughout the world. Kipling referred to less highly developed peoples as “lesser breeds” and considered order, discipline, sacrifice, and humility to be the essential qualities of colonial rulers.
As a true child of both cultures, Kim’s usefulness to the government becomes apparent, and he is educated at the British schools while the lama continues his search. These are the less exciting sections of the book, and we sigh with relief when Kim sheds his schoolboy garments and escapes to the back roads for every holiday. Eventually Kim and the lama help unveil a dastardly plot by subversives and Kim is started on a career as an intelligence officer. The lama, meanwhile, finds the river, and enlightenment, in an unexpectedly spiritual finish.
What Makes it Great?
Kipling’s gift for description is stunning, and the relationship between the two protagonists is endlessly satisfying. When these come together the novel simply shines. Much of the narrative involves the efforts of Kim to provide and care for the old man, always with this deep undercurrent of sincere regard and deep affection. And it is here, walking with these two unlikely companions in the streets of some small village on the Grand Trunk Road, that we can see, and smell, and hear, and taste Kipling’s India:
“And now we have walked a weary way,” said Kim. “Surely we shall soon come to a parao (a resting-place). Shall we stay there? Look, the sun is sloping.”
“Who will receive us this evening?”
“That is all one. This country is full of good folk. Besides,”—he sunk his voice beneath a whisper,—“we have money.”
The crowd thickened as they neared the resting-place which marked the end of their day’s journey. A line of stalls selling very simple food and tobacco, a stack of firewood, a police station, a well, a horse-trough, a few trees, and under them, some trampled ground dotted with the black ashes of old fires, are all that mark a parao on the Grand Trunk; if you except the beggars and the crows—both hungry.” (63)
Another facet of this novel is the insight it lends us about Eastern philosophy. The lama’s beautiful faith, so different from our Western striving for perfection, consists in the effort to abandon all desire or selfish intent. We may “acquire merit” by doing good to others, but there can be no ego involved. When an English priest discovers Kim’s Irish parentage, the lama is told that he must give up the boy to the white “sahibs.” Both Kim and the lama are devastated, and their different natures become apparent as Kim considers an escape while the lama seeks to understand how he has failed:
“Said Kim in English, distressed for the lama’s agony: “I think if you will let me go now we will walk away quietly and not steal. We will look for that River like before I was caught . . .”
“Good heavens, I don’t know how to console him,” said Father Victor, watching the lama intently . . . They listened to each other’s breathing—three—five full minutes. Then the lama raised his head, and looked forth across them into space and emptiness.
“And I am a follower of the Way,” he said bitterly. “The sin is mine and the punishment is mine. I made believe to myself—for now I see it was but make-belief—that thou wast sent to me to aid in the Search. So my heart went out to thee for thy charity and thy courtesy and the wisdom of thy little years. But those who follow the way must permit not the fire of any desire or attachment, for that is all illusion.” (91-92)
Poetic Prose
Kipling’s poetry appears in bits and snatches at the beginning of each chapter, and offers perspective and commentary on the action as it unfolds. Whether in verse or prose, poetic insights abound in Kim, and take the novel to a higher plane than one would expect. Here, for example, is an intriguing stanza taken from a poem titled “The Prodigal Son:
Here come I to my own again—
Fed, forgiven and known again—
Claimed by bone of my bone again,
And sib to flesh of my flesh!
The fatted calf is dressed for me,
But the husks have greater zest for me;
I think my pigs will be best for me,
So I’m off to the styes afresh. (77)
What an insightful glimpse into the mind of the addict, or the wanderer of any kind who, when welcomed home and supported on all sides, slides quickly into relapse. When he’s not concentrating so hard on meter and rhyme, Kipling’s prose is also poetic and a delight to read. Simple descriptions have a lyrical quality that sings, as in the passage where the lama returns to the Himalayas, his beloved “hills:”
“Glancing back at the huge ri
dges behind him and the faint, thin line of the road whereby they had come, he would lay out, with a hillman’s generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass . . . would stretch out his hands yearningly towards the high snows of the horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above stark blue . . . All day long they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at evening put on their jewels again.” (230)
Morten Cohen comments, “In a sense, Kim’s quest is everyone’s: the quest for identity, the quest for selfhood. It is a universal theme . . . And, in the end, the quest is more important than the discovery. The quest involves reaching out, searching, and by reaching out and searching, the boy is shaped into the man. There is more meaning in trial than there is in triumph. The knowable, the definable, is dross; the real worth of life is entangled in the unknowable, the magical, the mystical.” (Kim, Bantam Classic Edition, Introduction, xv)
Quotations taken from Kim. Bantam Classics Edition, New York. 1983.
Back to the Best Books Page 8