I never much liked the two short stories by William Faulkner ("A Rose for Miss Emily" and "The Bear") that I was forced to read back in high school. At the time I thought that was Faulkner's fault.
I was set straight about "The Bear" on the eve of cancer surgery I had last summer. I've written elsewhere about the how important Faulkner's words and insights into human behavior proved to me that dark night. And if, nearly half a century out of high school, I still don't think too highly of "A Rose for Miss Emily," I'm at least not fool enough to blame Faulkner for it.
I say all this by way of introduction to another, near-forgotten work by Faulkner: his acceptance speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. I re-discovered this gem in the same beaten-up old text book that contained "The Bear. " I've been eager ever since to find a way to put it back out where folks -- particularly writers on OS -- might see it. Jonathan Wolfman's recent open call for inspirational passages from favorite pieces of fiction provided the opportunity I'd been looking for.
Faulkner's acceptance speech was addressed directly to the writers of his day. And, as I think you'll see, to the writers of our day and future days as well. I'll say no more about the speech other than to invite anyone who has discovered similar bounties to share them here with us.
Enough. Here it is, with a contextual introduction by Richard Ellmann:
All his life William Faulkner had avoided speeches, and insisted that he not be taken as a man of letters. 'I'm just a farmer who likes to tell stories.' he once said. Because of his known aversion to making formal pronouncements, there was much interest, when he traveled to Stockholm to receive the prize on December 10, 1950, in what he would say in the speech that custom obliged him to deliver. Faulkner evidently wanted to set right the misinterpretation of his own work as pessimistic. But beyond that, he recognized that, as the first American novelist to receive the prize since the end of World War II, he had a special obligation to take the changed situation of the writer, and of man, into account."
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
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Lorraine: What's sobering to me is that I did -- or was supposed to -- read this back when. What do they say about youth? That i's wasted on the young?
Lea: I hear you. Maybe we won't make it. I sure have had my doubts over the years. But in the meantime, as writers and human beings, it sure seems worth trying to abide by his lofty goals and see what effect that has on us all . . . .
I have to take a powder here -- working the night shift. But I'll be back.
The opening description of the baseball game in "Underworld", Don DeLillo, is the most stupifyin' sustained work of description in the history of writing, and inspires me to someday do something like it.
This line
'I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. '
This little queer girl gonna win.
He writes, I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
I worry a great deal these days about the possible extinction of mankind. Whether we go extinct or not will likely not be a matter on which poets can have much influence, though if the poets can help people understand the dire nature of climate change, of fishing out the oceans, etc. that would be appreciated. But I am greatly troubled by an attitude that seems increasingly common in society where people can just say stuff and expect that to make it true.
“We're America. We have the best health care system,” for example. The stats don't bear that out. When you start to believe these kinds of things, you start to believe we shouldn't fix things.
And when you start to believe “man will not merely endure: he will prevail” you start to believe as a necessary consequence that it's not possible to screw that up. It is possible to screw it up. So it is simply not true that “Man” will do these things. “Man” might. Anything beyond a maybe risks complacency just now. In fact, we are finite and easily exhaustible. We are precariously perched in a tiny, habitable corner of a gigantic not-very-hospitible Universe. There is much beauty in that but also much fragility.
So I'm all for pleasantries and I think it's fine of him to have this kind of optimism. But people react to art differently and that's my reaction to this—fear. Fear that people might take such pleasantries as true. People these days seem to like to purchase truth. That's why some watch Fox News and some MSNBC. They shop for truth. I'd like to see mankind's tale of survival written by historians, not dead poets.
For me that captures it.
As for man's immortality I guess that, naturally, I read that a bit differently. "He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
To me that says nothing about mankind being alive on this planet for eternity. Faulkner knew that some day our sun will burn out and "poof!" Rather it is the soul, the spirit, of humans that is immortal. To say that we have souls speaks to one possibility of the human condition, one I happen to believe, for many would deny the existence of the soul. No?
Monte
Mark: I think you're right -- Faulkner will stand, though maybe not as popular as the others you mention. Once again, Fitzgerald and Hemingway were required reading that didn't have the desired effect on my soul -- callow youth prevailed. But I discovered Steinbeck on my own and it made all the difference.
Love your comparisons too.
Nikki: I've read your recent stuff. I don't know what you're talking about.
Jon: The pleasure was all mine . . .
Maria: I'm no Faulkner scholar either -- just these couple of short stories and unsuccessful stabs at "As I Lay Dying" and "Sound and the Fury." Once again, when I was too young & too impatient. It looks like Jonathan's going to help us both do some catch-up.
Stellaa: And yes again.
((ringing phone)) {editor wants to know what "legerdemain" means and what it's doing in a story about the Woodstock Town Board. thought I could slip it by. have to go . . .)
I read Faulkner and struggled with his long paragraphs and sentences. I found it very hard slogging in my AP english class my Junior year in high school. The teacher, who was a very inspirational to me in my creative writing and who later took his own life, then did the unthinkable.
After reading Faulkner he had us read Hemingway.
But that is a great speech.
Irania: Maybe none of us will match him but, as you say, trying to live up to his aims seems a good thing to me too. Nice to make your acquaintance.
I have to admit that while I recognize the fears you describe, I don't share them, at least not in the either/or way you present them. I think there's got to be room for poetry AND science. One doesn't, as far as I can see, negate the other.
In my experience, both saved me when I had surgery. I bless the people who developed CT scans and made surgery an almost routine avenue for combating cancer. I'd be dead now if not for medical science.
But I also bless men & women like Faulkner who remind me of larger truths. For me, the passage that quite literally brought me to my knees when I re-read it after surgery was this:
"He (the writer) must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands."
I called this post a reveille -- a wake-up call addressed specifically to writers. For that reason alone, it seems invaluable to me. That quote above describes for me the task facing any serious writer, as well as being a prescient description of the sort of writing we see (and see extolled) today -- empty, stylized, heartless stuff.
Are these fear-filled times? Unquestionably. So how do we as writers address such times? Call me old-fashioned, but the risks of ecological catastrophe seem as great to me as nuclear Armageddon did to Faulkner. But what he said is more than mere optimism. At the risk of sounding pompous, I'd have to say that the same rule for writers applies now as then -- to write and to be as fearless as we are able. Only good can come of such effort.
anna: I think we agree. Thanks for stopping by.
Monte: Isn't it great to be reminded that there IS something worth writing about, and that it's all there in front of us? That's why I wanted to write in the first place, long ago. And I've taken every diversionary path since then. As I said, a reveille. What could be sweeter, or more necessary, to be woken to the possibilities and even requirements of being a writer?
Scarlett: Happily, there's no required background for hearing what he's saying. Hell, it took me 45 years or so to come around. Welcome to the club.
Mrs. M: Obviously, I'm not alone in thinking these are some of the most mull-worthy wordsyou're likely to find anywhere. Cheers!
help me see the connection I share with every human being who ever walked the earth,
One doesn't negate the other.
For example: what Faulkner has to say about the insidiousness of fear is for me undeniable, from my experience
Susan: So much good writing, so many great stories have gone down the memory hole, and so much detritus has bobbed to the surface to replace them. Some books (and I have a couple of titles in mind) never even got near the memory hole -- they were forgotten almost before they were published. If the net is good for anything, it should be good for bringing back books and authors whose work, like Faulkner's go in and out of fashion. Happy to to help resurrect someone who's not really dead.
Geoff: We have similar AP stories to tell. Mine was in senior year, also with an inspirational though distant teacher whose memory I revere for introducing me to T. H. White's "The Once and Future King." Maybe he knew 17-year-olds weren't fit for a writer as dense and flavorful as Faulkner. And therein, I think, lies a future post.
Jim: Thanks man.
Not that any of what I've said requires poets to stop working today. It only requires the poets to focus on the truth. It's sometimes assumed that poets aren't constrained by truth and can make it up, but good poetry is about the truth even when its form suggests otherwise. And good poets, in my opinion, should not these days be writing about mankind's enduring nature but about his fragile nature. Perhaps we can give Faulkner a pass on that, since one of the great things about writing is that it can survive one's death but one of the sad and defining things about death is that it robs the creator of the ability to react to new circumstance.
You may, if you like, count my remarks as less a criticism of his words and more a caveat injected by me about the context in which those words were written. And yet, by way of minor criticism even so, though he wasn't speaking to the climate change world, he was speaking to an era of nuclear proliferation, and the issues were not that different. Perhaps even then he should have spoken of fragility.
Well, most of art is about provoking thought. In that you can count your piece successful. :) In any case, thanks for responding.
From your bio, I notice that you--like me--were essentially blind until 4th grade. Very nearsighted... I think that it has hurt my visual observations somewhat, having lost the chance to develop the capacity in my synapses.
Cheers