On Paths Unknown discussion

Hey guys, as discussed in the Quentin section, we're going to try out some 'themes" threads. I'll also do one for "death, time, shadows/the shadow and futility", because those tend to go together, but I thought I'd do a separate one for misogyny and the concept of Southern honor which had a lot to do with female virginity as one can indeed find in many parts of the world; a requirement of female chastity that hasn't aged very well in our modern world of feminism and the concept of equality for all.

And since a kind of endemic racism was also a part of the American South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (and beyond, but let's not go there), we could perhaps stick that in here as well.
Re the racism, I must say that I can't help thinking how a modern person must surely see Quentin's behaviour and thoughts towards Black persons as being patronising and quite offensive, or is that just me?

So these two issues above- are those values and feelings only inherent in the characters as Faulkner portrays them as being denizens of the South, or do you think some of that is perhaps a bit ingrained in Faulkner himself?

I don't know that I've read enough of Faulkner to say it's a part of him, but what Bonitaj (or you?) Told us about what he said to his daughter would nake one think so.

Linda wrote: "I don't know that I've read enough of Faulkner to say it's a part of him, but what Bonitaj (or you?) Told us about what he said to his daughter would nake one think so."

I've often seen that portrayed as just because he had a writer's personality. Yes, I've not read enough of him either, and of course there's always the "he is a product of his time" argument....

I would like to interject and ask the age old question - how do each of you feel about an artist/writer in terms of their work impacting who they are as people.
Do you judge them according to what they are capable of writing?
I think for example of Nabokov and Lolita as a prime example.
Does seeing Faulkner's prejudices/flaws impact your impression of his writing?
I haven't read any of his other work but I like Traveller's comment about his being "a product of his time" argument.

Bonitaj wrote: "I think for example of Nabokov and Lolita as a prime example...."

I think Lolita is an absolutely brilliant piece of literature. I hate when people miss how thoroughly unlikeable Humbert Humbert is and how one should read between the lines of his unreliable narration. ...but Nabokov is really very good at portraying unlikeable 1st person narrators; the psychopath in Despair is a good example.

I do believe though that just a tiny bit of the author goes into the creation of such characters, just as there was, after all, a small bit of Thomas Mann himself in the paedophile he portrays in Death in Venice.

So I'm guessing that the true answer probably lies along the lines of : ... it's a bit of both? i.e. both a portrayal of an external character, but with a tiny bit of the author himself invested into that character, maybe a sort of caricature of a small, probably secret aspect of himself, if you will.

...and having unlikeable traits doesn't make me think less of an author as an author; if he/she is talented, they're talented, and we all have unlikeable aspects to us, surely, well I know that I have...

Sometimes, though, if it shines through too much in the writing itself, then I will condemn that work; it all depends, I suppose, on how it's done, and also on how mature and self-aware the writer is.

Thanks for that Traveller! Being as well read as you are, you would be well equipped in answering the question as cogently as you have!

Linda wrote: "I don't know that I've read enough of Faulkner to say it's a part of him, but what Bonitaj (or you?) Told us about what he said to his daughter would make one think so."

Bonitaj wrote: "I would like to interject and ask the age old question - how do each of you feel about an artist/writer in terms of their work impacting who they are as people.
Do you judge them according to what ..."
I pretty much agree. Hemingway in real life was a bit of a d**k, and a lot of himself went into his writing. And yet, he was a good and successful writer.

I sometimes think *art by definition, requires some inherent "madness" to equate with genius! I think of Picasso and Van Gogh as two primary artists in the visual field. Then there's an extraordinary number in the literary realm, many of whom haven't been adequately researched to "label", except by one's own moral percepts. One of these that stood out to me and yet couldn't change my enthrallment of his writing, was Lawrence Durrell. Apparently there was some incest in his relationship with his daughter Sappho. I can refer back to a book I read a couple of years ago. It's from a GRANTA publication - This particular chapter is written by her.
The book is called 'FAMILY - THEY FUCK YOU UP!

Bonitaj wrote: "I would like to interject and ask the age old question - how do each of you feel about an artist/writer in terms of their work impacting who they are as people.
Do you judge them according to what ..."

I wrestle with that question now and then, most recently with Orson Scott Card and J.K. Rowling and their blatant homophobia..... Sigh!

Traveller wrote: "Linda wrote: "I don't know that I've read enough of Faulkner to say it's a part of him, but what Bonitaj (or you?) Told us about what he said to his daughter would nake one think so."

I've often s..."

I agree. I don't see how he could not, being that racism is engrained in the 'system' and Faulkner being born into an upper-middle class Southern family in 1897....

Saski wrote: "I agree. I don't see how he could not, being that racism is engrained in the 'system' and Faulkner being born into an upper-middle class Southern family in 1897......."

It's extremely hard not to absorb the cultural, social and value trends of the society one finds yourself in, and although people like Victor Hugo and Thomas Hardy managed to transcend these to some extent, usually it requires some kind of "shock" to open your eyes. I have personally had such shocks, and they open your eyes to the multi-layered quality of social realities.

Interesting you say that Traveller - I'm reading another book called
BEING BLACK IN THE WORLD - which is an academic study of the Black Man during the apartheid era. What insights it provides.

Bonitaj wrote: "Interesting you say that Traveller - I'm reading another book called
BEING BLACK IN THE WORLD - which is an academic study of the Black Man during the apartheid era. What insights it provides."

I guess it might be a good exercise to ask yourself which is worse: slavery or Apartheid; after all, terrible things were also done to slaves, and they were as much human beings as anyone else. Did the perpetrators of slavery/apartheid ever stop to reflect on the humanity of those that they chose to see as less than human? Perhaps not much more than the Nazis did, but I'm sure there must always have been those who disagreed but were too afraid to go against the stream.
Anyway, it's a fraught issue, but also a timeless one - where people for some reason or another start regarding other humans as less than human, and this occurs more frequently than we would like to think... one could even simply look at India and the caste system, for example.