The Ink of Melancholy: Faulkner's Novels from the Sound and the Fury to Light in August (Hardcover)

~ Andre Bleikasten (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The period from the late 1920s to the early 1940s was in Faulkner's career one of prodigious fertility, and the creative outburst on which it opens -- from The Sound and the Fury (1929) through As I Lay Dying (1930) and Sanctuary (1931) to Light in August (1932) -- touches indeed on the miraculous. It is the four children of this miracle that André Bleikasten re-examines and re-evaluates in his substantial new book on Faulkner. But rather than approach Faulkner's fiction from a priori theoretical assumptions and process it through some prefabricated grid, he has concentrated on the text themselves: on the motivations and circumstances of their composition, on the rich array of their themes, structures, textures, on their various narrative protocols and the endless interplay of their tropes and codes, on their points of emphasis and repetition as well as their rifts and gaps.

Brilliant in its thought and argument, drawing eclectically on the resources of philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, and other disciplines, and using modern critical theory without ever being arcane or trendy, Bleikasten's book is a highly personal performance and one of the most insightful and stimulating studies that Faulkner has received.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press; 1ST edition (June 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253312000
• ISBN-13: 978-0253312006
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,166,436 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the Faulker critics, December 7, 2005

By	The Windhover "Reader New York" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This is the best Faulkner criticism I have read. Bleikasten sets his examination of four major novels -- "The Sound and the Fury," "As I Lay Dying," "Sanctuary," and "Light in August" -- in relation to Faulkner's emergence from an apprenticeship as a fully formed novelist with "The Sound and the Fury." He draws on the insights of French poststructuralism and psychoanalysis to render a detailed explication of each novel.