Customer Reviews

The Wild Palms

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Faulkner is not everybody's cup of tea, but he happens to be my favorite American writer. While the critics and all those "best books of the century" lists consistently feature "The Sound and the Fury", "Absalom, Absalom" and maybe "As I Lay Dying" as Faulkner's major works--and I too like those books--I have always thought THE WILD PALMS a gem. An underrated, forgotten gem. Perhaps it really isn't his best novel, but still it is a work of genius. I recently re-read it.

Very few novels on the world stage are composed of two completely separate stories. THE WILD PALMS consists of 1) a love story in 1938, taking place in New Orleans, Chicago, Wisconsin, Utah, San Antonio, and the Mississippi Gulf coast, and 2) the story of one man (a prisoner) and his mighty ordeal during the Mississippi River floods of 1927. Parchman State Prison in Mississippi is the sole physical point that joins the two tales, otherwise separate in time, place, class, and impulse. But Faulkner's genius is such that the reader soon understands that the theme of both stories is the same. Faulkner's novels often focus on Fate, how the individual is caught in mysterious, giant webs of `outrageous fortune' beyond comprehension, helpless to oppose the powerful, hidden currents. The present volume is no exception. "You are born submerged in anonymous lockstep"--the main character of story #1 muses on page 54--"with the seeming anonymous myriads of your time and generation; you get out of step once, falter once, and you are trampled to death." In the first case, Wilbourne and Charlotte deviate from the usual path for love's sake, strive mightily to maintain and cherish that love, and pay an inevitable price. In the second, a convict is caught in a flood in a tiny boat when sent to save two people. He rescues one, but is swept away. He completes his mission, returning both boat and rescued woman, despite incredible hardships, only to face a certain ironic destiny. In both cases, other lives or other destinies constantly present themselves, but the protagonists refuse to alter their selected course. It is the antithesis to the Hollywood message that "you can be whatever you want in life, you just have to want it badly enough". Faulkner plumps for Destiny. A person might be, he says on page 266, "...no more than the water bug upon the surface of the pond, the plumbless and lurking depths of which he would never know..." one's only contact with such depths being when Fate is blindly accepted and played out to the bitter end. The forces of Nature, symbolized by the wild clashing of the palm fronds in the winds off the Gulf of Mexico, always outweigh the strength of human beings. The palms clash in the wind at the beginning and at the very end as well. Faulkner concludes that bearing grief, living with it, is better than suicide, better than obliterating the agonies of remembrance with a pill or bullet. Memory, however, bitter and painful, is better than nothingness. The two main characters end in prison, a most un-optimistic metaphor for life. A most powerful novel, a novel that speaks from the crocodile-haunted deeps of every person's psyche.

I supposed this was not a major work because I hadn't heard about it before. Nope, it's major. The most popular form of this book is to rip it in half and such that Old Man is by itself as a short novel. That's really a shame. Old Man, is a rollicking story of a man swept away on the Mississippi during the flooding of New Orleans in 1927 (Hoover's deft handling of the crisis is a large part of the reason that he became president). However, the story doubles its power when it is juxtaposed with the story of two lovers flooded out of civilization by their aching need for each other. You get two uncontrollable forces of nature, both horrifiying to encounter, and both demolishing the prisons within which the protagonists of each story are previously held (let's say the medical career path of one, and actual prison for the other). A primary question in each is whether it's better to be back in the prison or not, and there's a strong case for yes in each.

Both stories are good, but what makes this spectacular is simply the fact that the experiment is attempted. Who does things like this? There's a thematic link between the stories, but it's fairly loose. However, the back and forth interspersion paces the stories perfectly. In non-stop presentation, I think the tone of either of these would be too much to take. As it is, though, this is actually a page turner. More impressively, these aren't two stories that were slapped together (a la the Golden Slumbers medley (God forgive me) or Scenes from an Italian Restaurant) but were written at the same time after a major heartbreak. There's also the greatest two word last line of any novel that I'm aware of. I won't spoil it.

This isn't a great introduction to Faulkner, but it's a fantastic example of why people who love him love him. Milan Kundera singled this one out, maybe not as a favorite, but as a book that should be more highly recognized. I couldn't agree more. Faulkner has the problem of too many masterpieces. At this stage of his career, it's hard to ignore any of them.

I love this guy Faulkner. I read another half chapter of The Wild Palms on the train.
Never read anything by him before.

Faulkner's characters don't sit around and examine their navel. They just Do. Yes act on their passions they Do. His characters are not beautiful people. They have scars, injuries, poverty, depraved morals, injustices, suffering upon suffering. What makes the Wild Palms beautiful is the passion of people living life right on the bone.

A married woman is planning on abandoning her husband and two kids and running away with another man. The other man asks her what about her two kids. On page 41, she answers, "I know the answer to that and I know that I cant change that answer and I dont think I can change me because the second time I ever saw you I learned what I had read in books but I never had actually believed: that love and suffering are the same thing and that the value of love is the sum of what you have to pay for it and anytime you get it cheap you have cheated yourself." No Catholic saint-mystic ever said it better. Pretty good for a crazy Protestant drunk.

You hear talk about stream-of consciousness with James Joyce and Jack Kerouac and so on. This guy Faulkner captures the way our minds think and our mouths talk more realistically than anybody.

Of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor said, "Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track when the Dixie Limited is roaring down."

Something about this book reminds me of the Stephen King material set in the south, the Southern-ness of it and the same kind of characters.

The omniscient author technique is frowned on in serious, modern literature. I don't knw if this aesthetic rule post-dates Faulkner, but he uses it to no ill effect. There's very little difference between when a character is speaking and Faulkner is speaking. It gives the effect of us reading the characters thoughts rather than Faulkner telling us what they are. It works perfectly.

Few to none of the characters in any of the standard, best-seller type books have any inner life. When most of the authors try it, they are quite pathetic at it. I suppose that's because the authors have no inner life themselves. Faulkner does not show us the inner life of any of his characters either. However, as Faulker presents his characters, the reader induces their inner drives from their actions. It works very, very well. Stephen King's characters are like this also.

Stephen King by the way is very steeped in American literary tradition. Essentially, he's New England gothic. He is to Nathaniel Hawthorne what the Frankenstein, the monster, is to Dr. Frankenstein. King is clothed in Hawthorne, bathed in Faulkner and inebriated with Poe. To look at the connection further, I suggest you read the short stories of Hawthorne.

This is the 4th or 5th Faulkner novel I've read. I think it should be better known. The tile of the novel is important, The Wild Palms: [If I FORGET Thee, Jerusalem]. Memory is an important theme of the novel. Pay attention to it. "The Wild Palms" is a New Testament parable, of sorts. The other novella, "Old Man," is an Old Testament parable. Escape is an important theme. Wilbourne (=Will Born, Still Born) and Charlotte travel to New Orleans, San Antonio, Chicago, etc. trying to escape. From what? From whom? On the flip side, the convict can't escape, he's a convict. But he gets an opportunity to escape in the big flood (Noah) but doesn't. Why doesn't he try to escape? Charlotte should be compared to the woman with child the convict "saves" in the flood. Abortion is a theme. Mysogony may also be a theme. Is it? Willbourne is weak, Charlotte is strong. The convict is stupid--his girlfriend, is she smart, in a calculating way? In the end, is Faulkner obliquely saying the wrong people "hooked up," that Willbourne should have ideally met the woman who has the baby, and the convict should have met Charlotte, who in the beginning of the novel just want to "escape" with Willbourne?

If you keep the above points in mind as you read the novel, perhaps it will draw you in, then you too can drown in the flood of myriad meanings and multiplicity of inferences. Overall, a good, if not great novel. Dark, brooding, nihilistic--very tasty, though! Enjoy!!

This book was recommended to me a few months ago by Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk who died in 1968. How this happened is as follows: I was looking through some book cases in the back of a local Catholic church, when I found some audiotapes of lectures given by Thomas Merton to monks in training during the early 60's. I had read his biography, "The Seven Storey Mountain," and wanted to hear his voice and get an idea of what he was like. I listened to many of his tapes--some were good, some not so good--but one of the tapes, titled "The Deluge," was particularly interesting to me. It discussed how the monks could use the writings of William Faulkner as inspiration for meditation on the eternal Truths of the human condition. Most of Merton's discussion was about Faulkner's book "The Wild Palms." I recommend Merton's tape "The Deluge" for those who want an interesting perspective about this book.

As for my comments about this book, I believe it is one of the most pro-life books I have ever read, particularly with its theme of abortion in "Wild Palms" contrasted with the theme of the birth of a thriving infant during the flood in "The Old Man." Also, this book shows that you never know where you will encounter virtue. The convict displays great virtue in "The Old Man" while the modern, educated people in "Wild Palms" show an obvious lack of it.

In summary, if you liked "The Wild Palms," you should listen to Merton's tape, "The Deluge." You can probably still get this through the Merton Society.

The pages in my book were out of order, which is definitely annoying when Faulkner's prose is already dense and hard to follow. I'm definitely returning mine.

This Vintage International edition of this book was unreadable -- all the pages were out of order. Don't order this edition.

I have to confess that it took me two years to finish reading this book, that includes two novel. But it was worth reading. The two stories are very deep and touching.

The stories told in alternated chapters are about love, resignation and dedication. `Wild Palms' is about two lovers who dare to have a very deep and selfless relationship that leads them to madness and death. The other is called `Old Man' and it is about a convict that saves a woman from a flood, but it means much more, it is all about maternity and the old battle of Men against Nature.

I like most `Wild Palms', but it doens't mean I didn't like the other novel. But Palms somehow pushed some buttons inside me. Many people complain this novel is too obvious, and after the second chapter you can predict things that will happens to the lovers in the end. Well, it can be so somehow, but what I think it is more importante here is how far they go and how they take their love affair so serious and passionate. Charlotte and Wilbourne are very brave . When reading I could see the tragic result of their love, but one cannot imagine what leads the to such an ending. `Old Man' also is about love, but a different kind. In this novel, the river is one of the main characters, subjugating men, but also meaning free will.

All in all, it is a very dense novel, that tackles both about bizarre and lyrical sides of life. I don't think it is a kind of book for everyone, due to its difficult and deep subject, but some people will delight with Faulner's words.

Faulkner is unsurpassed at drawing you in so you feel like you are living his characters the way they are living.

I bought this book many years ago in New Orleans, took it home, and tried to read it as written, with the chapters alternating between Wild Palms and Old Man, but I just couldn't get going with it. I put it aside, and picked it up again 15 years later, prior to another trip to New Orleans...just to get in the frame of mind/state of grace that New Orleans requires. This time I did what Faulkner did not want anyone to do. I read Wild Palms all the way through, and then Old Man all the way through. Each story is intense, and even reading them separately, I could feel the connections of theme, character, and tone.

The ending of each is blunt, harsh, shocking. Read them as written, or read them separately, but read them.

As an aside, 50 years ago I tried to read The Alexandria Quartet, faithfully buying each volume as it came out in paperback, but "couldn't get going with it". Someone told me a few years later to start at the end, with "Clea" and all would be revealed. I did as suggested, and went back then and read the whole quartet in order, and have reread it many, many times since. The moral? Whatever it takes to read great fiction, do it, even if it's not the intellectual or critic-approved way to do it.