Customer Reviews

Knight's Gambit

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

On its surface, Knight's Gambit is a collection of mystery stories that all feature Gavin Stevens, the county attorney for Yoknapatawpha county, who is sometimes considered Faulkner's spokesperson. Even though Knight's Gambit is not a major work, it is Faulkner and therefore worthwhile by definition to many serious readers.

The mystery at the heart of each story is not found in actions, though some of the plots are puzzling, as much as in the characters' hearts and souls. The tales in this collection range from the haunting "Tomorrow," which reminds us that no one ever knows where "love or lightning either will strike," to the title selection, in which Stevens (the Knight) captures his Queen after a twenty years' quest spent translating the Old Testament.

Any of these stories would be worth a close, scholarly look, and it does help to be familiar with Faulkner's canon to appreciate them fully. However, this volume does not require a critical approach. If you like Faulkner, take a break from the constant challenge of his major works and enjoy these stories. In Knight's Gambit, Faulkner enlightens, ennobles, and entertains in almost equal measure.

Despite the fact that I have a degree in literature, I've never been a Faulkner worshiper. His technique, while admittedly masterful, is something I often find to be self-conscious and distracting. That said, Knight's Gambit is my favorite Faulkner book because it is not typical Faulkner; only the title story, which ends the book, has those recognizable long-winded sentences and that rambling style. No one will mistake this for one of his major works, and as mysteries these stories really don't work very well, but what these stories DO have is atmosphere and good characterization. Gavin Stevens, an almost unbelievable reservoir of wisdom and good ol' common sense, is in each of these stories our guide into a treacherous, hardscrabble and sometimes brutal world that, if you have ever spent any time in the rural South, you will recognize immediately. The mysteries themselves, as I said, are not very impressive, but the characters and situations are all well-observed and guaranteed to lodge in the brain after you've finished reading the book. Flawed but memorable, and highly recommended for those who are either weary of Faulkner or would like to read some of his lesser-known but worthwhile work.

Readers familiar with William Faulkner - and those who are not averse to unconventional sentences - will enjoy this collection of detective stories featuring Gavin Stevens as county attorney in small town Mississippi, and his young nephew Charles as assistant. Stevens, an intriguing character who translates the Bible into Greek and plays chess with his nephew, is an interesting mix of the traditional European detective and a southern gentleman who can communicate and empathize with the local townspeople.

As well as crime solving, these stories also offer a unique and vivid portrait of the South of the forties that Faulkner captures through his characteristically tactile and vernacular use of language and shifting narrative perspective. The impoverished farmers that persist, ageless and enduring, the occasional urban outsider or foreigner, and the rich landowner of mysterious circumstances, are some of the characters that populate these stories. Tradition, inheritance, and the looming presence of war shape Faulkner's candid and non-sensational rendering of this microcosm and his tacit exploration of time and mortality.

These are stories about Gavin Stevens, county attorney or Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Some are well written crime mysteries, while other's look at a more general human mystery. "Smoke" has Stevens employing a theatrical device as clever as Sherlock Holmes (in Scandal in Bohemia) to illicit an end to the mystery. Monk contains deductions about the "moron" Monk, and what he could or could not do. The characterizations of the minor characters are all well done.

The stories "Tomorrow" and "Knights Gambit" go beyond conventional crime detection. Knights Gambit, the longest piece, unfolds around a chessboard, and is more complicated. With Faulkner's elaborate sentence structure, I had trouble following some of this story.. perhaps a little too mysterious.

I have long been a fan of William Faulkner and have read everything he wrote, but in my opinion, this collection of short stories is him at his very best. The story "Tomorrow" alone is worth the price of the book and more. You feel every emotion of the characters in it. However, this is true of most of Faulkner's works. If you saw the movie and liked it, you will love the story. The movie falls far short of the story.
Ann Roberts

This book is a collection of five short stories and one novella, all involving mysteries unraveled by Gavin Stevens, the county attorney of Yoknapatawpha County. The stories follow Gavin Stevens's life and career, from his first criminal trial right out of law school in the story Tomorrow to his late-in-life marriage in Knight's Gambit.

With one exception, the stories in this collection are lighter fare than most of Faulkner's works. The exception is Tomorrow which is, by far, the best story in this book and ranks with the finest of Faulkner's fiction. Unlike most of the stories, it is not a murder mystery. Rather, Gavin Stevens tries to understand the reasons behind the lone hold-out juror's refusal to vote to acquit a defendant. Stevens's investigation takes him forty miles and back where he interviews the juror's neighbors and former employer. He pieces together twenty years of the juror's heartbreaking life story which he sums up in the phrase "the lowly and the invincible of the earth - to endure and endure and then endure, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

Hand Upon the Waters is another fine story, not because of the mystery but because of the character of the murder victim. When the story opens, Lonnie Grinnup is already dead. The reader learns about him through the reactions of the community and the recollections of Gavin Stevens. Lonnie was the last of his family and was feeble-minded. He lived in a fortified canvas tent beside a river and showed up at neighbors' houses when nights got too cold. Like the biblical parable of the widow who gave her last coin to help people poorer than herself, Lonnie used all that God gave him. He took in a deaf and mentally-disabled orphan whom no one else wanted and raised him as his son or little brother. I desperately wanted the story to end in justice and retribution.

In the title novella, Gavin Stevens tries to stay one step ahead of someone who is planning a murder. The novella involves a chess motif of a knight double-checking a queen and a castle. Figuring out the chess parallel turned out to be more of a challenge than the mystery itself.

Faulkner was not a lawyer and his courtroom passages aren't always convincing. Nonetheless, there is much human appeal to these stories. There is some evidence that Faulkner based the character of Gavin Stevens on himself, particularly in regard to Gavin's understated romance in Knight's Gambit. Those who are familiar with Faulkner's biography may recognize Estelle Faulkner in Mrs. Harriss of Knight's Gambit.

These short stories were nice for reading when I didn't have time to sit down and read an entire book. All of them gave insight to the times and thoughts of the South in the late 1800's and early 1900's.