Another question about the novelist’s tools posed to Faulkner during one of his University of Virginia lectures: Unidentified participant: Sir, do you look at your humor as a—with the same inspiration as you do a serious thing, or is it more … Continue reading
Another riff from Faulkner’s University of Virginia lectures, this one on the Snopes family, the disappearing blackguard, and the curse of respectability. Joseph Blotner: One thing that we sometimes seem to see with acquisitive people like the Snopeses is that … Continue reading
A question posed to Faulkner during one of his University of Virginia lectures: Unidentified participant: Why do you use violence so often in your novels in trying to depict this truth? [The truth being, according to Faulkner, “that man will … Continue reading
I’ve been thinking lately about Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. I criticized Harold Bloom a while back for underplaying the anticolonial bent of the book, and also commented on the misguided focus on the Bible and William Faulkner as primary influences on the novel. That’s … Continue reading
One of the smartest comments ever made about Cormac McCarthy, by Harold Bloom in a discussion about Blood Meridian (via Maud Newton): “He tends to carry his influences on the surface, quite honestly.” That’s about the long and the short … Continue reading
Buy Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers from an indie bookstore, Amazon.com, or Barnes & Noble.
Buy Pike from an indie bookstore, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or PM Press.
Buy Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail! from an indie bookstore, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or PM Press.