Customer Reviews

Intruder in the Dust.

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

"Intruder in the Dust" wraps a fine mystery around and through a story that could only happen in Faulkner country, yet is a timeless monument to man's stubbornness, stupidity and honor. Mr. Faulkner enfolds his prose around you like kudzu and makes you part of his world.

In a small Mississippi town in 1948, black Lucas Beauchamp is wrongfully arrested for shooting white Vinson Cowrie in the back. Sixteen-year old Charles Mallison owes Lucas a debt of honor incurred four years ago. Lucas hires Charles' cynical uncle, Gavin Stevens, to defend him. The most pressing matter is not Lucas' guilt or innocence; it is keeping him from getting lynched before he is arraigned. Lucas is a nightmare of a client. He is stubborn, stiff necked and proud. He dresses like an old time plantation owner and neither owes nor accepts favors from anyone. Uncle Gavin is trying to save Lucas' neck while Charles is trying to clear him. Gavin laments that Lucas would be easier to keep alive if "he would just ACT like a n----r." This Lucas refuses to do. There is body snatching, graveyards at night and some thoroughly frightening characters to liven up the journey.

Another reviewer mentioned "drunk on his prose," and it is a very apt description. It works best if read aloud; you will find Faulkner's rhythm and make it your own. The long sentences don't trouble if you just let his prose carry you along. Mr. Faulkner thinks any southern woman over 35 years old is a secret Amazon of quiet strength and fortitude, which makes for interesting characters, but is a little hard on credibility. There is long section on how "outsiders" (read "Northerners") have interfered and thereby delayed integration. However true or false this may be, it slowed the story down and seemed tacked on.

"Intruder in the Dust" is not generally ranked with "premier" Faulkner ("Light in August," "Absalom, Absalom!"), but it stands on its own as a fine read and certainly is one of his best post-WWII books.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

No it's not one of Faulkner's "big four" (the classics "The Sound and the Fury," "As I Lay Dying," "Light in August" and "Absalom! Absalom!"), but "Intruder in the Dust" is certainly in his next tier of top novels, and is the one book that can fly in the face of the "he never wrote anything great after World War II" way of thinking. I enjoyed this book immensely. Yes, the sentences tend to be extremely long and the book is slow to get going, but find Faulkner's rhythm and stick with the story; you'll be glad you did. As always, the highlight is Faulkner's beautiful use of language, which always towers over whatever story he's writing and whatever flaws you may stumble upon along the way. This story of a black man wrongly accused of murder doesn't always go where you think it will or even where you want it to, but somehow it works brilliantly. Faulkner throws in his take (apparently) on how the South should handle civil rights on its own -- not really necessary to include and a small flaw in the book, I think. But stick with it, get drunk on the prose and enjoy an underappreciated work from a master. This relatively short book will be over too soon.

After twenty years of writing experimental fiction and Hollywood screenplays, Faulkner seemed destined to create a novel like "Intruder in the Dust"--a noir-ish mystery set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, that incorporates his signature prose style into a continuing commentary on race relations in the South. The premise of the accusation of a black man for the murder of a white man may seem too facile, but the novel does not rely solely or even primarily on plot-driven intrigue; it is the criminal aspect only as it relates to the prevalent social attitudes that generates interest.

One day a local white man named Vinson Gowrie is found shot to death, and a black man named Lucas Beauchamp is arrested at the scene and charged with the murder. In this part of the country at this time in history, a black man who is even suspected of murdering a white man is in danger of being lynched, especially by people like Gowrie's relatives, who are from a particularly rough and bloodthirsty enclave living in an area called Beat Four.

The story is told in the third person but from the viewpoint of a white boy named Charles "Chick" Mallison, who in the past has tried to befriend the solitary but kind Beauchamp and is convinced of his innocence. With the help of his uncle Gavin Stevens, a lawyer who decides to represent Beauchamp, his black friend Aleck Sander, and an elderly spinster named Miss Habersham, Chick investigates the matter and discovers, unsurprisingly, that there is more to the case than initially meets the eye.

This sounds like generic pulp detective stuff, and indeed there is not much to say about the plot except that it involves a lumber scam, quicksand, a false grave, and a real culprit who is not too bright; but what makes this novel worth reading is the insight it gives about how easily in this milieu a black man can conveniently take the heat for a white man's crime, regardless of provability of guilt, and the ethical implications that arise from this situation. There is a particular manner in which the characters communicate with each other that reveals this information, conveying Faulkner's sublime sense of the range of personal moralities.

Faulkner has several narrative modes at his disposal, and the one he chooses here is similar to that of "Absalom! Absalom!", employing impossibly long and syntactically deformed run-on sentences that compress copious visual detail into quickly moving scenic impressions. This technique could annoy many, but for those who know how to "read" Faulkner, it may be accepted as a characteristic part of the package. I'd place "Intruder in the Dust" somewhat below "Sanctuary" as an aesthetic achievement, but I still commend it as satisfying, like that tasty last bit of dessert after a full meal.

I am in 11th grade, and my hackles naturally went up upon reading the several reviews written by high schoolers on the subject of this novel. Do not be put off by such efforts to defile a masterpiece. This is one of the most profound and convincing novels I have ever read.

Tolstoy once wrote that the success of any work of art depends ultimately upon the artist's maintaining an "independent moral relation" to his subject, and that he who does not bring to his work a fresh and enlightened view of the universe will invariably fail in attempting to create good art. Applying this criterion to Intruder in the Dust, Faulkner's novel stands as a paradigm of great art; for its moral scope and philosophical perspective are singularly awesome. Faulkner is simultaneously sympathetic toward and critical of that Southern society which serves as his subject, and yet he manages never to stoop to petty preaching or outright sermonizing. His work is a marvel of artistic delicacy and intensity. Bravo.

This novel has a traditional detective story plot and a conventional attitude about race relations (although it was progressive for the South in the late 40s). After that, all bets are off. The style is like a thicket, but that's because Faulkner puts you into the head of a confused boy caught up in events beyond his control. Chick Mallison is white, and his friend Aleck Sander is black (Aleck Sander doesn't know his name isn't two words, because he can't read or write). The paired adult characters of equivalent race are Chick's uncle, Gavin Stevens, a lawyer, who defends Lucas Beauchamp (pronounced "Beecham"), a black tenant farmer accused of a murder he didn't commit by the people who did it. They know that in a prejudiced society, white people are likely to believe a black man is guilty, so they try to palm it off on him. Lucas is a rather severe character who often doesn't seem to appreciate the help he's getting (part of the plot involves trying to prevent the citizens from pulling him out of jail and lynching him), but he's a marvelous character and something of a father figure to Chick by the end of the book. Reading the book is a bit of a chore at first, but I got through it in high school years ago, and am reading it now for the third time. If you want some help getting into the book, you might try a "Masterplots" description of it or a reader's guide to Faulkner (there are several around). You might also look for the 1949 film based on the book, which was filmed in Faulkner's home town of Oxford, Mississippi, with local citizens as extras, and with the great Juano Hernandez playing Lucas.

Those who follow the AP Book of Rules for writing (i.e., subject, predicate, no commas, no decora) will have a tough time negotiating Faulkner's peregrinating sentences, but it's worth it. This book delivers several experiences at one time: a look at the Southern social codes, a textured appraisal of racial relations, an adolescent's step off into adult life, and an entertaining murder mystery. The lead characters are nicely drawn, with surprises; the action and crowd scenes are portrayed in easily visualized imagery. For all the Southern writing I've read, this added more information about the culture and people. I feel sorry for those who don't have the patience for Faulkner's style: a taste for it isn't that difficult to acquire and it's well worth it.

This novel is not only a supervivid representation of the ugly and cowardly side of racism, but also one of the best coming of age stories I've ever read. Funny as well as emotional detail, and between the lines, Faulkner explores and displays in all their glory and infamy the connections between families, friends, strangers, and enemies, to a point further than others are brave enough to go.

... the "owner" of which was a man who said "mister" to whites, but did not really mean it. The meal was served to 12 year old Charles Mallison, after he had fallen in an icy pond, and the server, who didn't mean mister, was Lucas Beauchamp. Four years later the "bill" for those collard greens would come due, and it would be Mallison's actions that would save Beauchamp's life. "Intruder in the Dust" is one of Faulkner's later works, written just after World War II. The perennial themes of his works are exhibited: his examination of life in barely fictional Yoknapatawpha County, whose county seat is Jefferson, (Oxford, MS) and the continued fall-out from America's "original sin," slavery. From Faulkner's majestically southern mansion of Rowan Oaks, he wrote in fear of the "white trash" that surrounded him, so often identified as the Snopes family, but in this novel they are transformed into the Gowries, from "Beat Four." Faulkner's stream-of-consciousness style always challenges the reader to stay engaged, or a vital clue to the story will be missed. And like those slower internet connections, he "backs and fills" his pixels, slowly revealing the entire story. This is also an excellent "mystery" novel; the particular situations involving the grave seem "impossible," but Faulkner makes it all so understandable, masterfully so, in the fullness of time. Faulkner is certainly not for the "fun read" crowd, nor, apparently, based on the reviews posted here, for sophomores in "Advanced Placement" English. I shutter at the thought of how many students have become confirmed non-readers of serious books for the rest of their lives as a result of such classes.

I am an immense fan of Faulkner, and still hope to read or re-read all his works. This time it was a re-read, after 35 or so years, and fortunately, even the first time was not a dreaded school assignment. There remain the wonderful, original descriptive passages that contain nuggets like: "...and forlorn across the long peaceful creep of late afternoon, into the mauve windless dome of dusk..." and "...if there were only some way to efface the clumsy room-devouring carcasses which can be done but the memory which cannot." But on the re-read I noticed Faulkner's "feet of clay." In referring to a patched roof, how much meaning is conveyed by "insolent promptitude," or a lathe's "ineluctable shaft," or "incredulous disbelief"?

But the real "feet of clay" are political, and there is a three page defense of the South's "go slow" policy for granting Blacks equal rights. The passage doesn't work in a literary sense, in that it plops, "cut and pasted," interrupting the dramatic tension of an enthralling mystery. Consider: "...only we (meaning white Southerners) must do it, and we alone without help or interference or even (thank you) advice since only we can if Lucas's equality is to be anything more than its own prisoner inside an impregnable barricade of the direct heirs of the victory of 1861-1865..." James Baldwin, in "Nobody Knows My Name," in his chapter entitled "Faulkner and Desegregation," offers the seminal critique of such an attitude: "After more than two hundred years in slavery and ninety years of quasi-freedom, it is hard to think very highly of William Faulkner's advice to `go slow.' `They don't mean go slow,' Thurgood Marshall is reported to have said, `they mean don't go.'"

Upon the re-read I was also struck by how derivative Harper Lee's classic book, "To Kill a Mockingbird" is, down to the two different men, both sitting in the doorway of the jailhouse, to prevent a lynching, as well as even the mockingbird! It is a point another reviewer made, but I had never realized it before, nor seen it in a critique of Lee's work.

Faulkner may be most associated with black-white relations, but he also has something to say about male-female relations. Consider: "...just enough dirt to hide the body temporarily from sight with something of that frantic desperation of the wife flinging her peignoir over the lover's forgotten glove..." or "I am fifty-plus years old,' his uncle said. `I spent the middle fifteen of them fumbling beneath skirts. My experience was that few of them were interested in love or sex either. They wanted to be married.'"

It pains me to knock a star from a Nobel-prize winning "idol," but the "feet of clay" are most certainly there.

Probably one of the most intense books I've ever read -- well worth the effort. People complain about the way it's written, but although English is not my native language, I do not find this book particularly difficult to read. If you insist on correct grammar and every comma in place, this is not your book -- if you look for a book that is both honest and provocative, search no more.

For everyone that loves John Grisham, and his legal thrillers. You really owe it to yourself to read Faulkner. Once you capture his rant, and learn to wade through his long sentences-you will be glued to this novel. His writing pattern and imagery are addictive, and you will want to learn more about him and other Mississippi writers like Larry Brown, and Barry Hannah--not the millionaire from Oxford.