Customer Reviews

Snopes: A Trilogy (Modern Library)

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The three novels that comprise the Snopes trilogy, The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion, were published over a thirty year span of Faulkner's career. For this reason these books, now published in a single Modern Library volume, provide an incedible insight to Faulkner's evoloution as a writer. At heart, these works are concerned with the rise to power and influence of the Snopes family in Faulkner's mythical town of Jefferson. The Snopes are complete embodiments of evil, and their unique brand of deviousness and complete lack of scruples allows them to overwhelm the inhabitants of the town. The reaction of these people against the tide of corruption, their resistance to this Snopish threat is central to this work. And at the base of all three is a changing attitude toward the Snopish absurdities and evils of the human condition, an attitude that evolves from fierce repudiation to cooperative antagonism. Perhaps these are not the greatest of all the great work that Faulkner produced in his career, but the depth of human understanding and characterizations that are the superlatives applied to Faulkner's work are here in force.

Oprah's Book Club chose three novels by William Faulkner for the summer months: "As I Lay Dying," "The Sound and the Fury" and "Light in August."

When Oprah speaks, America listens, so the three-volume set of the novels Oprah picked -- 1,152 pages of Faulkner, a bargain on Amazon at $17.97 --- has leapt to #2 on the Amazon bestseller list. Home across the country which only have "The Da Vinci Code" and "Tuesdays with Morrie" on their bookshelves will now greet books by a novelist who would have been lionized by the symbolist writers of 19th century France. That's thrilling.

But..."As I Lay Dying" has multiple narrators who favor the stream-of-conscious style. The first section of "The Sound and the Fury" is narrated by an idiot who slips in and out of the present with only italics to guide you. "Light in August" is a comparatively straightforward "traditional" novel, but it's 528 pages.

I'll be stunned if 10% of Oprah's devotees reach page 100 of any of these novels.

The tragedy in Oprah's summer reading list? There are three books by Faulkner much better suited to her purposes. She just picked the wrong Faulkner.

The right Faulkner? Three novels that Faulkner conceived as a trilogy: "The Hamlet," "The Town" and "The Mansion." Compared to other Faulkner novels, these 1,088 pages ($17.61 at Amazon) read like pulp fiction --- the plot is lurid, the motivations of the characters couldn't be more contemporary, and the style breaks no new ground. They're not Grisham, but they're close.

"The Hamlet" is the story of Flem Snopes, all grown up and just about as unethical as his father, and of Flem's effect on the small, unsuspecting village of Frenchman's Bend. Flem's impotent --- but only below the belt. So when he discovers that Will Varner's daughter Eula is pregnant without a husband, he steps forward and offers to help Will out. That makes Flem the son-in-law of one of the town's leading landowners --- and neatly positioned to start taking over the hamlet. (This book was adapted into a film called "The Long Hot Summer," starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles, Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury.)

Eula is a sensual woman, with a body that turns any man's thoughts to just one thing. In "The Town," Flem seems not to notice. He's too busy getting promoted --- first to chief of the power plant, then to vice president of the bank. Can the presidency of the bank be denied him? And, along the way, can he get his revenge on the man who's been having an eighteen-year affair with Eula?

In the final volume, justice finally comes Flem's way. But not before Frenchman's Bend has been transformed --- eaten alive, really --- by the kind of man never before seen in these parts. That is because Flem represents the unethical, unrestrained capitalism that only could flourish in the South after the Civil War had stripped it of its codes of honor. Flem has only one goal and one emotion --- power, and the love of it. In our time, we know this kind of man well. And, as often as not, we live in "communities" where people used to be like family to their neighbors and now barely recognize them to wave.

Rapacious capitalism. The loss of our sense of "home." Men who use women to advance their master plans. These are themes that Oprah's fans could really get into. Maybe after they've struck out with the brainbusters, they'll give these books a chance.

If you love reading Faulkner, then I recommend the Modern Library edition of _Snopes_. Snopes, probably some of the most unjustly underrated Faulkner, is also a fine introduction to his fiction since it contains some of the stories published separately, such as "Spotted Horses." In Snopes Faulkner works the revolving point of view to great effect with primarily four narrators; V.K. Ratliff, the sanguine sewing machine salesman, Gavin Stevens, the sensitive, meddlesome county attorney, Charles mallison, the young boy who grows up with the 2nd and 3rd books, and finally the community of Jefferson itself as a kind of collective 3rd person. Snopes is an inviting, lyrical novel, one that accomodates the reader as a citizen of Jefferson and privileges that new citizen with as much gossip as any other. It's a rich and telling family chronicle as well as a novelistic treatise on time and change in rural Yoknapatawpha County and the town of Jefferson, with real relevance for our own time since as Cleanth Brooks says, Flem Snopes is himself a harbinger of Corporate expansion and agressiveness. Snopes is also a treatment on money, developing more at times a sense of the value of money from the point of view of those with precious little of it than just those with a good deal more of it. These books do get at the human condition, Faulkner wrests even from the innocuous daily affairs a tangible improvement in the catalog of human understading. He approaches his characters, especially the memorable Mink Snopes, with the passion and understanding that they are human and therefore complex and their reasons complex, even if they are simple and criminally minded. It is a pleasing volume that does not disappoint in the end, the satisfying resolution that the reader comes to believe may not happen but does.

It is incredible how many thing can be done in Jefferson Mississippi at the beginning of the century with one dollar...And it is incredible how many things can be done as well for one dollar. The ever-lasting duel between good and evil are pictured in three novels by Faulkner over a life-span. The first creates the background, the scenario were the characters will play their role, the second pictures the slow and almost unnoticed growing of a pest, while the third is the final break down. The continuos shifting from one character to the other allows you to see the same event under different sight-points, emotions and ways of feeling: slowly the reader becomes a citizen of Jefferson, and share with the others the same struggling for life, the same poverty, the same aspiration and, unhappily, the same fear for the Snopes-pest, everything-sacrifing for money and wealth.

These books might be the most accesible Faulkner. They add structure, dimension, and color to the reality of his world of Yoknapataphwa county. The wealth of imagery, metaphor and symbolism is there for those who want it just beneath the surface of an engaging, at times laugh out loud saga of a family of unforgettable characters within a community of equally memorable characters.

Through this portal, one can enter Faulkner's universe, get a feel for his style and an appetite for his work to proceed with momentum to his more complex books.

The size of the book itself, with the 3 novels in one cover, might intimidate some and steer them away. The weight of 3 novels together can be uncomfotable during exended reading. But the text offers the trilogy to be read in succession - the story compels one to do so, and draws one back to do so repeatedly.

Great work from a great writer - a real treat and special component for the library of any reader.

It goes without saying that these three novels are modern classics and well worth reading. I was tremendously excited when they finally became available for Kindle -- and at a very reasonable price! But eBook formatting, even from major publishers and on outrageously priced items, often leaves a lot to be desired -- how does the Snopes trilogy stack up?

I'm happy to say that it really couldn't be better! The book opens to a thoughtful critical essay. There are book marks set for the start of each of the three novels, plus the author bio at the end. Each novel also has its own linked table of contents. The digital conversion, as far as I have read since downloading last night, has been flawless, with no typos, odd spacing, or other glitches.

The bottom line is that this is what every eBook should look like, and the presentation great literature deserves.

Edit -- I am now about halfway through The Mansion and must report that this edition does contain some typos/conversion errors. They are few and far between, and don't ruin the reading experience, but they are there. The books themselves are even better (and funnier!) than I had remembered.

The Snopes trilogy is perhaps the most accessible Faulkner in full format. The novels are a patchwork of previously written, and published, short stories, but it doesn't (or doesnt as WF would write it) feel that way. It's a portrait of an imaginary yet too real county. The people are real, they appear in our lives every day. The world is full of Snopes, and Ratcliffs and Gavins. What truly amazes me is the fact that he was able to literally translate reality into a book. He plotted incessantly while living his life, he sketched streets and houses, buildings, and animals, as a painter would do. The book is not easy to read, and you have to work on it. If you are truly motivated to go ahead past the first 100 pages or so, you will be hooked for ever. I am reading the trilogy for the second time since Christmas (it's August now) and the second reading was even more rewarding than the first. I also strongly recommend the companion book by Fargnoli and Golay "William Faulkner A to Z". This book does a terrific job in helping you understand and re-think the plots, the relationships of people to places (Frenchman's bend for example appears in many Faulkner books and stories), places to people and the genealogy of the Snopes, Sartoris etc. With the trilogy in your hands and the companion on your coffee table you will learn to love this book!

William Faulkner always wanted these three books combined into one. It is thick and somewhat heavy but it is worth any inconvenience. The Hamlet. The Town, and The Mansion are great novels-which can be throughly enjoyed by the masses, not just Faulkner fans. I love this wonderful book.

I've recently gone on a real Faulkner bender (11 novels), and this is a great trilogy. In terms of readability, it doesn't really reach it's stride until the second two (The Town & The Mansion). 'The Hamlet's difficulties stem from the poor folk southern dialect, which, certainly, is part of Mr. William's charm -- Take the time to reread if you must. The problems in 'The Town", and the "The Mansion" stem from Faulkner's structural intent of having each novel stand by itself as a work. This means, (in both novels), that material in the previous works is regurgitated in complete chapters, that, for a reader of the trilogy, adds nothing but ennuis. Don't get me wrong, I love all three of these books ('The Town" being my favorite), but I just wish there was an edition that edited out the redundancies.

What Faulkner has done in this trilogy in particular and in his Yoknapatawpha County tales in general, is to create his own world system. What Kant, Hegel, Marx and other great thinkers have done was create their own system and metaphysics on which rests the universe of their ideas. Snopes and co. are the people who live in Faulkner's world of the Deep South which is a prallel universe to the one we live in... it is as always full of intense characters, flowing lyricism, violence and shifting view points which unerringly and uncomfortably resonate in our own world.