Turns out William Faulkner found an old slave owner's diary at some point in his life, and he used it for inspiration for his first stories...not to mention some of his novels about Yoknaphatawpha County. Some inspiration! He did win the Nobel Prize for literachoor, y'know. I should have such inspiration!
Actually, I do....I wrote kind of a memoir and I used it for my master's thesis at City College. Maybe I'll get in there and make a bunch of stories out of it. Yoknaphatawpha County, indeed. We had plenty of that kind of good old down-home b.s. out where I lived...western North Dakota and Minneapolis and Eastern Iowa. Enough to curl your hair....actually, in western ND, that would be "curl your HAIRS" plural.
Well, I'll get with it. This is what retirement is for, non?
[UPDATE...I've corrected the first line to show that the diary belonged to a wealthy plantation owner, NOT one of his slaves.]
That would be interesting and I am looking forward to read some of those stories!
ReplyDeleteFinally, we got internet at the new place and it's nice to bloghop again!
Stories within a story. Life is full of them. Go ahead and write those stories.
ReplyDeleteFor my money you can do better than Faulkner (Nobel or not). I don't appreciate Faulkner. Sorry about that.
Charles! Welcome back to blogland....
ReplyDeleteDarlene: That's interesting that you don't like faulkner. I was introduced to Faulkner by a neighbor, who brought over a bunch of his books: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion, The Unvanquished. That's also about all of Faulkner I've ever read. But I loved those books. Maybe I got lucky.
Maybe I just got unlucky. I haven't read the books you mentioned. I just remember "As I Lay Dying" as being one of the most depressing books I ever read. I didn't like his style or the subject matter.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like Faulkner 'till the second time around. Hmmm...same was true for Joyce. I guess it's me more'n them. And the beauty in Faulkner was like some kind of denuded Southern landscape. Nothing cheery. Just stark forms, searing wind, the scrape of dying leaves. I remember he described the inhabited towns along the river as "little clots of humanity."
ReplyDeleteHe still makes me shiver.
Cat
well, my guilty secret is i now love funny writers pretty much to the exclusion of everyone else: dave barry, carl hiaasen, janet evanovich. there's also hannah swenson, a woman who writes "mystery" novels featuring a heroine who owns a bakery in minnesota. if i forget her name, the librarians always know who wrote "fudge cupcake murder." her books are not as funny as the others', but for sly, minnesota lutheran satire, you can't beat them. (when the heroine's mother calls, the cat always hisses when the phone rings.)
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