Audio Clips
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Was the novel hard to write? (15 May 1958; 0:36)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, did you find Absalom, Absalom! a very difficult novel to write?
William Faulkner: Yes'm, it—it was difficult. I—I worked on that next hardest to The Sound and Fury, as I remember. Yes, I worked on that for a year, and then put it away and wrote another book, and then the story still wouldn't let me alone—I came back to it. Yes, that was very difficult. There was a lot of rewriting in that.
When did you think of the title? (13 April 1957; 0:30)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Is the title of Absalom, Absalom! taken from the passage in the Bible found in Second Samuel?
William Faulkner: Yes.
Unidentified participant: Did you write the novel with this episode in your mind or did you first write the novel and then realizing the similarity of the name —
William Faulkner: They were simultaneous. As soon as I thought of the idea of the—of the man who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him, then I thought of the title.
Do any of the story tellers have the right view? (8 May 1958; 1:50)
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner—
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: In Absalom, Absalom! is any one of the people who talk about Sutpen have the right view, or is it more or less a case of thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird with none of them [getting it?] right?
William Faulkner: That's it exactly. I think that—that no one individual can—can look at truth. It—it—it blinds you. You look at it, and—and you—you see one phase of it. Someone else looks at it and sees a slightly awry phase of it, but taken all together, the truth is—is in what they saw, though nobody saw the truth intact. So—so these are—are true as far as—as Miss Rosa and as Quentin saw it. Quentin's father saw what—what he believed was truth. That was all he saw. But the old man was—was himself a little too big for—for people no greater in stature than Quentin and Miss Rosa and Mr. Compson to see all at once. It would've taken, probably, a wiser or more tolerant or more sensitive or more thoughtful person to see him as he was. It was, as you say, thirteen ways looking at a blackbird. But the truth, I would like to think, comes out, that when the reader has read all these thirteen different ways of looking at the blackbird, the reader has his own fourteenth image of that blackbird, which I would like to think is the true one.
Who is the novel’s central character? (13 April 1957; 0:50)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Who is the central character of Absalom, Absalom!? It seems so obviously to be Sutpen, yet it's been said that it's also the story of Quentin, and I was wondering just who is the central character?
William Faulkner: The central character is Sutpen, yes. The story of a man who wanted a son and got too many, got so many that they destroyed him. It's incidentally the story of—of Quentin Compson's hatred of the—the bad qualities in the country he loves. But the central character is Sutpen, the story of a man who wanted sons.
What is Sutpen questing for? (7 March 1957; 2:25)
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner—
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Along this respectability/scoundrel line, how do you explain Colonel Sutpen, who sweeps into Jefferson and grimly sets himself up, and [along the line?] decides he'll have respectability? Marches into town with the willpower that's possibly equaled only by his mother—his eventual mother-in-law. Does he really lose his individuality or is respectability just another notch on his rifle, so to speak?
William Faulkner: He wanted more than that. He wanted revenge as he saw it, but also he wanted to establish the fact that man is—is immortal. That—that man, if—if he is man, cannot be inferior to another man through artificial standards or circumstances. What he was trying to do—when he was a boy, he had gone to the front door of a big house, and somebody, a servant, said, "Go around to the back door." He said, "I'm going to be the one that lives in the big house. I'm going to establish a dynasty. I don't care how." And he violated all the rules of—of decency and honor and pity and compassion, and the fates took revenge on him. That's what that story was. But he was trying to—to say in his blundering way that—that, "Why should a man be better than me because he's richer than me, that if I had had the chance I—I might be just as good as he thinks he is, so I'll make myself as good as he thinks he is by getting the same outward trappings which he had"—which was a big house and servants in it. He didn't say, "I'm—I'm going to be—be braver or more compassionate or more honest than he." He just said, "I'm going to be as rich as he was, as big as he was on the outside."
Unidentified participant: He never really attained this respectability?
William Faulkner: No, he was—the—the Greeks destroyed him, the old Greek concept of tragedy. He wanted a son which symbolized this—this ideal, and he got too many sons. His sons destroyed one another and then him. He was left with—the only son he had left was a Negro.
Is Quentin the same as in The Sound and the Fury? (8 May 1958; 0:58)
Frederick Gwynn: Sir, speaking of those two books, as you read Absalom, Absalom!, how much can a reader feel that this is the Quentin, the same Quentin, who appears in The Sound and the Fury, that is a man thinking about his own Compson family, his own sister?
William Faulkner: To me he's consistent, that he approached the Sutpen family with—with the same ophthalmia that he approached his own troubles, that he probably never saw anything very clearly, that his was just one of the thirteen ways to look at Sutpen, and his may have been the—one of the most erroneous. Probably his friend, McCannon, had a much clearer picture of Sutpen from what Quentin told him than Quentin himself would.
How is this novel Quentin’s story? (8 May 1958; 0:39)
Frederick Gwynn: It's still Sutpen's story, not Quentin's story.
William Faulkner: No, it's—it's Sutpen's story. But then every time any character gets into a—a—a book, no matter how minor, he's actually telling his biography. That's all anyone ever does: he tells his own biography, talking about himself. In a thousand different terms, but himself. Quentin was still trying to—to get God to tell him why in Absalom, Absalom!—maybe he was in The Sound and the Fury.
How much of Quentin and Shreve’s reconstruction true? (13 April 1957; 1:04)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: So much of the story in Absalom, Absalom! is reconstructed by Shreve and Quentin. How does the reader know which to accept as objective truth and which to consider just a [reflection?] of their personalities?
William Faulkner: Well, the—the story was told by Quentin to Shreve. Shreve was—was the—the comment—the commentator that held the thing to—to something of reality. If Quentin had been let alone to tell it, it would have—have become completely unreal. It had to have a—a—a solvent to keep it real, keep it believable, creditable. Otherwise, it would have vanished into—to smoke and fury.
When did Bon know Sutpen was his father? (27 April 1957; 0:52)
Frederick Gwynn: In Absalom, Absalom!, which you said you didn't remember very well last time, do you happen to remember when Charles Bon realizes that Sutpen is his father? Is it before or after he leaves New Orleans to go to the university?
William Faulkner: I should think that—that his mother dinned that into him as soon as he was big enough to remember, and that he came deliberately to hunt out his father, not for—for justice for himself, but for revenge for his abandoned mother. He must have known that. That must have been in his—the background of his childhood, that this—this abandoned woman never let him forget that.
Why can’t Sutpen acknowledge Bon as his son? (8 May 1958; 1:49)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, a central theme of Absalom, Absalom! is that Sutpen will not or cannot acknowledge Charles Bon as his son. Why does he not do this, why—why—why does he leave it to Henry? It—it seemed to me it would have been more in keeping with Sutpen's character [to] [...] [confession of it to Bon or if he had even destroyed Bon so that he?] —
William Faulkner: Well, he didn't acknowledge Bon for the reason that—that Bon was part Negro. To have acknowledged Bon as his son would have destroyed the very dream, the drive, which had compelled him to go through hardship and—and suffering to begin with. He couldn't acknowledge Bon as his son.
Unidentified participant: Did he acknowledge Clytemnestra as his daughter?
William Faulkner: No. Well, that would not have mattered because Clytemnestra was a female. The important thing to him was he should establish a line of dukes, you see. He was going to create a dukedom. He'd have to have a male descendent. He would have to establish a dukedom, which would be his revenge on the white Virginian who told him to go to the back door. And so he—he—to have a Negro—half-Negro for his son would have wrecked the whole dream, so he couldn't. If he had thought that—that it would ever be exposed that Bon was his son, he may have killed Bon himself. If it'd ever come to that point, he would destroy Bon, just as he would destroy any other individual that got in his way.
When did Bon know he was part Negro? (8 May 1958; 2:45)
William Faulkner: Yes ma'am.
Unidentified participant: I'd like to go back to Charles Bon in Absalom, Absalom! I have the impression that [up until?] very near the end of the book that he did not realize that he was Sutpen's son. Because he's several times mentioned wondering what the secret was that his mother kept and worried about. And yet about twenty or thirty pages from the end of the book he says to Henry that "It's the miscegenation and not the incest that [you fear] in my marriage to Judith." So at what point did—did he find this out and how did he find out?
William Faulkner: I think that Bon knew all the time that—that his mother was part Negress, but during Bon's childhood that was not important. He grew up in—in the Indies and New Orleans where that wasn't too important. His mother was a wealthy woman. She could have called herself a Creole, whether she had Negro blood along with the French or not. It became important only when Bon realized that it was important to his father. I think that Bon got into that business—well, of course, because he formed a friendship with Henry and felt that he—that Henry, the—the ignorant country boy had given him a sort of worship, an admiration and a worship, which—which he enjoyed. Then when he saw the sort of stiff-necked man that Henry's father was and knew that that was his father too, he, in a way, had given his father a chance to say, "I will acknowledge you, but if you—if I do openly and you stay here, you will wreck what I have devoted my life to and so take my love and go," I think Bon would have done, but this old man was afraid to do that. And Bon tempted him, to hold him over the coals in partly—in revenge on his treatment of his—Bon's mother, until Bon got involved too deeply. No, Bon knew that he was a Negro, but until he found it was important to Sutpen, that wasn't important to him, that he was a—a gentleman, had been well bred, cultured, much better bred and cultured than Henry himself was.
Did Bon love Judith, or was he using her? (8 May 1958; 0:20)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Did Bon love Judith [or was he just using her?] [...]?
William Faulkner: I think he loved her. I think that he loved her. He knew that—that if she knew that he was part Negro, with her training and background, it would have destroyed her too.
Is Sutpen a villain? (13 April 1957; 1:07)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Is Sutpen meant to be a completely depraved character, something like Claggart in Billy Budd or Iago in Othello, or is he meant to be pitied?
William Faulkner: To me, he is to be pitied. He was not—depraved. He was—was amoral. He was ruthless, completely self-centered. To me he is to be pitied, as anyone who ignores man is to be pitied, who does not believe that he belongs as a member of—of a human family, of the human family, is to be pitied. Sutpen didn't believe that. He was Sutpen. He was going to take what he wanted because he was big enough and strong enough, and I think that people like that are destroyed sooner or later, because one has got to belong to the human family, and to take a responsible part in the human family.
What is the significance of Sutpen wrestling his “Negro servants”? (13 April 1957; 1:06)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: In Absalom, Absalom!, what was the significance of Sutpen pitting himself against his Negro servants, the wild Negro servants, and especially in that scene where Ellen happened in when he had brought the children there to watch it? Was that another example of the decadence of the South?
William Faulkner: No, not—not by intent. That was—was another instance of Sutpen's ruthlessness, of his will, his implacable will to create a dynasty and fill it with sons, and I—I thought of—of rather these, which seemed to me dramatic or—or amusing or tragic incidents, invented themselves as props for Sutpen's will, implacable will, to get the son.
Does the novel’s “racial situation” parallel that of the South? (27 April 1957; 0:50)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: How far do you think the relationship between Charles Bon and Sutpen parallels what you consider the general racial situation in the South?
William Faulkner: It was a—a manifestation of a general racial system in the South, which was condensed and concentrated as the writer has got to do with any incident or any character he takes, for the reason that he hasn't got sixty years. He has got to do his job in—between the covers of a book, but that is—epitomized a—a constant, general condition in the South, yes.
Why is Wash Jones the one who kills Sutpen? (13 April 1957; 0:53)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, what was the particular significance of having—of having Wash Jones, a very humble man, be the instrument through which Sutpen met his death? Is that to relate back to the social stratum from which Sutpen himself came and have there a sort of ironic effect? Just what was the idea of that?
William Faulkner: In a sense. In another sense, Wash Jones represented the man who survived the Civil War. The—the aristocrat in the columned house was ruined, but Wash Jones survived it unchanged. He had been Wash Jones before 1861, and after 1865 he was still Wash Jones, and Sutpen finally collided with him.
Why did Mr. Coldfield retreat into his attic? (8 May 1958; 1:21)
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner—
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Mr. Coldfield, in Absalom, Absalom!, retreats into the attic when the war between the states starts. Now, why did he do that? Was it because he was sort of a conscientious objector, or was he all or part coward?
William Faulkner: No, he—he was probably by religious scruples a conscientious objector. Also, he was very likely a Unionist, that he hated that threat to the dissolution of the Union. That he hadn't enough courage to do anything about it except to hide his head in the sand. But I—I think that he was probably a Unionist. He probably came from—from eastern Tennessee, where the people were Unionists at that time. His background was a—a tradition of—of fidelity to the United States, as it was. He had no agrarian tradition behind him in which slavery was—was an important part of it.
What kind of poetry does Miss Rosa write? (12 May 1958; 0:32)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: You tell us in Absalom that Miss Rosa writes poetry, and I've always been curious about what kind of poetry Miss Rosa [...]. [audience laughter
William Faulkner: It would probably have been gothic love poetry, fourth-rate. [audience laughter]