Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Interlude.The Sound and the Fury I

Perseverance has never been my strong suit. I generally prefer the (quite damning, actually) adjective 'small-souled' to 'effeminate', because it requires less explanation (the transfer of physical traits to the soul, or perhaps tendencies more blameworthy in one sex than the other? at any rate, it is a powerful aversion to discomfort and an irresistible draw to pleasures, but the latter term could be interpreted to mean such things are characteristic of femininity, and the witness of the Saints -Teresa, Joan, and Therese among a thousand others - not to mention personal experience, belie this).

Further, I am absorbing the Second Vatican Council (i.e. studying the documents carefully and spilling what will become a lot of ink on them), and that will take up a lot of time elsewhere instead of writing here. But they're both on blogs, so at least I'm still writing something here. I begin to wonder if separate blogs were a dumb idea.

Also, Faulkner is hard. Never have I ever read more difficult literature. In terms of intelligibility, Aristotle, Heidegger, and Hegel are his equals. I read the first sentence of The Sound and the Fury at least a dozen times, and the first chapter at least seven times, before I had the barest hint about what the blasted thing meant. PTSD flashbacks of Hegel seminars ensued, where we read a sentence of the Phenomenology and literally asked ourselves, 'What does this mean?"

This is easing, but I will have to read the novel at least three times before I have anything intelligent to say about it. It is easy to lose myself in lighter literature (parts of Kristin Lavransdatter, not to mention all of Father Elijah, Father Elijah in Jerusalem, and Voyage to Alpha Centauri have all been devoured since I 'started' Faulkner!), but it's back to the South now, and even the merest taste of the rewards is enough to keep going. This book is rich. I will not think about time, experience, and how they relate the same way again. Never have I ever been brought into the life of another man as I have Benjy (who, incidentally, is thirty-three and whose story begins during the Easter Triduum. I doubt this is coincidence).

He always snags on the nail. 

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