A far-more-readable chronicle of the Faulkner life, then, and again a valuable source of raw material-but those who considered the Blotner an undistinguished study before are unlikely to have a different opinion of this shorter version. Using letters, inter-views, reminiscences, critical work, and other primary sources, Blotner creates a detailed and nuanced portrait of Faulkner from his birth to his death.
The more fundamental problem, however, remains: the absence of both a strong narrative shape and a cogent interpretive approach (biographical or literary). Blotner, a friend and one-time colleague of Faulkner's, brings a vivid, personalized tone to the biography, as well as a sense of masterful, comprehensive scholarship. Most of the excised material-documentary minutiae, lavish background descriptions, pedantic annotations of the fiction-will not be missed Blotner has done a sturdy job of rewriting to close the page-by-paga gaps, as well as providing updates from post-1974 scholarship. The first flaw, then, is dramatically addressed in this one-volume condensation, which dispenses with over 1000 pages' worth of facts and asides-starting with the Falkner (sic)family-history that occupied the 1974 version's first 50 pages or so. Blotner is best known as the biographer of two of Americas greatest writers, Warren and William Faulkner. At 1846 pages, exclusive of appendices, Blotner's two-volume Faulkner (1974) was widely lambasted for its unselective detailing-and for its worshipful, academic, un-probing approach.
0 kommentar(er)
