William Faulkner and the very bad terrible no good book

I have always hated William Faulkner. Nothing in the past 48 hours has changed my opinion of his writing. I hated "The Sound and the Fury" when I was in college, and to this day I still get a headache when I think about it.

The world is left poorer and darker when writers like Shakespeare, Zora Neale Hurston or Emily Dickinson leave it. I am convinced that when William Faulkner died and could no longer write books, the English language threw a party that the sun, moon and stars all attended and danced at.

***

Seriously, William Faulkner. College and high school literature classes would be merrier for thousands of students every year if he had limited his writing to the weekly grocery list and the occasional check to cover the utility bill.

Faulkner's are books that Ernest Heminway should have edited. Think of how "The Sound and the Fury" would have been simpler:

Part one: "My sister Caddy got pregnant. I have a mental disability of some sort, and have been castrated."
Part two: "I am insane and incestuous, and I make no sense. Now I am dead."
Part three: "I am anti-Semtiic, racist and offensive in every way."
Part four: "William Faulkner was too. Plus this book is painful to read."

Hemingway also could have improved "As I Lay Dying" by writing it: "The soldier had not been able to have sex ever since he was injured in the war. His wife died, so he took his daughter's money to get his teeth fixed and married someone else. Also, I hate women."

See? It is much easier to read Faulkner this way.

***

The average reader may enjoy reading a story J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote about Faulkner. It goes like this:

"Long ago, in a hole in the ground, there lived a William Faulkner. His books were aggravating, so we rented a cement mixer and filled in the hole while he was writing one of his them. I am very fond of you, Mr. Baggins, but surely you don't suppose this all happened solely for your benefit? It is a very big world, and you are only one reader, after all."

***

To be honest, I do not mind if William Faulkner failed to pay his utility bills. It would have meant he wrote even less. Perhaps his electricity would have been cut off, and his straits would have been so dire that his wife would have been forced to sell his internal organs to pay the rent.

As long as he was denied access to writing materials, that could be a win-win for everyone.

***

In conclusion, William Faulkner received the Nobel prize for literature, and now he is dead. I am sorry that he is dead, but I also am sorry that he wrote books that people have to read. The world would have been a much happier place if he had joined the glee club instead and learned to sing songs like "Jesus is a Friend of Mine."

Actually I've heard that song. It's bad enough that I can believe he was involved in its composition.



Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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books to ban

I was perusing the list of most commonly challenged books in the U.S. on Wikipedia and noted that "James and the Giant Peach" was number 56 on the American Library Association's list of most challenged books of the 1990s.

I'm sorry, but did I miss something when I read that book? It's like any number of other children's books, particularly by Roald Dahl. Boy has a miserable life. Someone intervenes, and the boy is able to escape his misery. He goes on an adventure, where there are dangers, but his quick mind and resourcefulness save both him and his companions. What's wrong with that?

Perhaps it is the anti-rhino views expressed by the author.

Hemingway made the list three times, and Mark Twain twice. I could be mistaken, but I expect that's because Twain uses the N-word, which use has overshadowed the remarkably nonracist sentiments expressed in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" particularly; and because Hemingway often writes about wounded men unable to have sex.

What I did find striking is the books that didn't show up, at least when I casually skimmed the list. "Mein Kampf," for instance.

It floors me when people want to ban books. I haven't read all the books on that list, but I've read a good deal of them, and none of them seemed remotely worthy of being banned. I can't even see them as objectionable. Many of these are books that I would consider "must-reads." Many others fall under "Yeah, I really ought to read that."

I read "Old Yeller" to Evangeline when she was in first or second grade; and this past summer we were cracking up together over "The Canterbury Tales." "All's Quiet on the Western Front" might be a little heavy for her as a bedtime story, but that's more of an age-appropriate issue, sort of like not letting her watch "Blazing Saddles" or read "Lord of the Flies" until she's older.

Maybe part of the issue is ambiguity in what the ALA means by "banned books." There's banning in the sense that firemen come to your house and douse your private library with kerosense, and there's banning in the sense of "I don't want that in my house" or "You shouldn't read that." Perhaps "banning" is too strong a word for that sense, but in any event I can't see telling people not to read most of these books either.

I don't think there's a book in existence that deserves to be destroyed, with the possible exception of "Jane Eyre."



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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hemingway, bush, and really bad books

I was up late two nights ago, when to my surprise I started getting IM's. I should explain that it's a given that I don't get IM's; I'm over 30. No one instant messages me — or almost no one. It was a friend of mine from one of those places God Hath Forgot, one who has developed a razor wit and a great deal of artistic skill. For the sake of this transcript, I shall call her by her Indian name, Walks in the Rain

On New Orleans legacy of President Bush
Dave: Natasha's brother Kevin lives in New Orleans. He and his wife were told "Evacuate or have ID with you so we know whose body it is."
WitR: I guess they weren't taking any chances after Katrina
Dave: Can't blame them. That'll be an albatross around Bush's neck about as long as Iraq will be. Twin failures.
WitR: is there room for another albatross around his neck? he's got a flock already
Dave: It depends. How many arrows does he have in that damn crossbow of his anyway?
WitR: secretly Cheney is his living quiver. That's why he always looks so uncomfortable.
Dave: Ah. The old +5 Quiver of Cheney. Guaranteed to hit an albatross at every turn.
WitR: if not quail.
Dave: And I guess that makes the GOP the crew of dead souls manning the ship.
(Clearly Cheney has a cursed -5 shotgun of birding)

On Samuel Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and other great literature
WitR: I have not read the poem since ninth grade and just barely remember that the crew is dead
Dave: For shame. I read the book just a few months ago to my kids.
WitR: well, i tend to forget things that i associate with ernest hemingway and my ex's music collection
Dave: You associate "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" with Hemingway!?
I think I'm going to be sick, just imagining how Hemingway would tell the story.
WitR: no, i associate everything i was forced to read for school with ernest hemingway
Dave: "The ancient mariner had been wounded in the war, and had never been able to have sex since."
It was assigned in freshman lit. I enjoyed it anyway.
"her hair was black, her lips were red, her skin was white as leprosy"
WitR: "There was a man. He shot a bird. Everyone died. The wind was cold."
you realize that i had more than one book assigned by hemingway, and yet we never got around to discussing his BLATANTLY obvious misogynistic issues
Dave: Well, you did go to a Christian high school. Misogyny is a fabrication of feminazis, don't you know.
WitR: no, really! we like women! we just don't think they should do anything that doesn't involve uteruses.
Dave: Unless their husbands or fathers tell them to.

On the coherency of the Inernet and those who write therein:
Dave: OK, I just read so-and-so's post. I can't tell if he's agreeing with you or dismissing your post as the first wave of analyseing (sic) Palin, or fluf. (sic)
His creative spelling doesn't make him easier to understand.
WitR: i can deal with creative spelling because my college roommate had a learning disability. It's the creative syntax and punctuation that throws me off.
Dave: If it were just creative spelling, I could manage. But he's got the syntax and punctuation too -- not to mention unclear and underdeveloped thoughts -- and the total leaves me at a loss.
WitR: I think he may just be a malfunctioning turing program
Dave: On the other hand, his "be-bop" post makes perfect sense.
WitR: maybe the closer he gets to agreeing with me, the better he writes
Dave: Doubtless that's true of us all.
The Buddha himself gained enlightenment, started agreeing with you, and wrote flawlessly.
WitR: i think if i'm the pinnacle of human development, someone is playing a serious prank on humanity
Dave: This is revelation to you?
WitR: merely stating the obvious for the elucidation of humankind
it's Zen
for my next trick i will clap one hand

On the latest attempts at the Great End-Times novel:
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com <-- egads="" horrible.="" looks="" p="" this="">Dave: Wow. How on earth do you find these things?
WitR: facebook sidebar ad, actually. god only knows why it showed up for me, usually i get olivia cruises and photography classes
Dave: You realize I have to buy you a copy of the book for Christmas now. Along with "The Eye of Argon."
WitR: do it, and i'll send your daughters a starter beading kit
Davw: We'll add the beading kit to all the other beading kits they have. You'll have to do better than that to threaten me.
WitR: curses. foiled again. st. bernard puppy?
Dave: Evangeline's allergic to dogs. Sorry. "it was inconceivable, but it was becoming clear that the earth's rotation was inexplicably slowing down" It's that whole lost day with Joshua all over again! Thank God NASA already has it figured out. "What happens if it keeps slowing down?" asked the President.
WitR: i like how the Senate chaplain is now in high-level security briefings
Dave: Good to know that Bush is still at the helm when Armageddon comes. "Doctor Wang removed a pipe from his coat pocket and began to fumble with it. He could not conceal the fact that his hands were shaking" Oh, thank God, it;s just his hands shaking. For a moment I thought he was going to get footloose.
WitR: oh man. read the page on lucifer's DNA it involves Nephilim, naturally
Dave: Of course. I hadn't realized it, but that whole tradition has roots in the book of Enoch. Pullman drew on a lot of that for "His Dark Materials."
WitR: carey builds on a lot of angelology for the kushiel series, actually more of an alternate-universe setup there
Dave: Where's the page on Lucifer's DNA?
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com/luciferDNA.htm
Dave: I have to say, so far it looks better than "Left Behind."
WitR: that's about like saying that Wendy's is better than McDonalds
Dave: I didn't say it was high praise.
WitR: honestly, reading the setup, it COULD be interesting, in THEORY, but sadly, the fact that the author is a Christian totally blows its chances of doing so
Dave: His explanation of the book and Uizhun-Tabriz actually is pretty interesting. Too bad he didn't write the book that well. I hate to agree, but you're right.
WitR: http://www.arrivaloftheprince.com/StoneTablets.htm
Dave: The only good writers in the Christian market are all dead.
WitR: that's because no living author with a sense of decency would be caught dead in the Christian market if they're any good at all they have a major market presence anyway
Dave: "The deciphered message of this tablet is: 14q43 215860406 215882973" My life has been transformed.
WitR: yes! now you know God's mastercard number.
Dave: Alas, they won't accept the cattle on a thousand hills down at the supermarket.
WitR: yeah, but think of the amazon bill you could run up with it
Dave: Adds a whole new meaning to "Forgive us our debts," doesn't it?
WitR: indeed, though you have to wonder what God's credit score would be satan's is obviously 666 so given numerology, that would make jesus' a respectable 777
Dave: In this economy, it's probably dropped. Although Satan probably qualifies for a Bush tax cut. Jesus, being working class, it SOOL, being as he's a shameless grifter and leech on the welfare state. I bet his credit rating is in tatters.
WitR: well, i'd imagine rather that he has little to no credit history, never having the wherewithal to apply for any
Dave: Where have you been the last twelve months? That's no impediment to getting financing.
WitR: yeah, but whenever he applies for a mortgage he keeps getting denied when he uses a house in Heaven as collateral >>#That Lucifer was a mortal—and therefore had DNA. This fact is also in the Bible.<< Of course! I totally learned about Lucifer's DNA in sunday school.
Dave: Sure. It's right before the passage that talks about the collapse of the vapor canopy sending all the animals into the first-ever hibernative state.
Surely you remember that.
WitR: unfortunately there actually was a vapor canopy entry in the world history / bible class i took in high school
Dave: Well of course there was. You didn't think I was writing that by accident, did you?