Ragged, Unkempt, Strange: On William Faulkner

[sofa king]

4. My old man has some funny stories about him.

For a couple of years, Faulkner lived on the campus of UVa, or at least had an office next door to my father's fraternity. According to the old man, he would duck in to the house occasionally (for a nip, perhaps?), and watched the frat boys living their hedonistic lives with an unusual fascination. He always had a little white terrier in tow. It would appear that on some occasions, he hid out in the frat house to avoid the people who would never suspect him of hiding in such a place. He loved watching football and he and his terrier could be seen along the sidelines of any game, scheduled or pick-up.

I'll have to ask Dad if Faulkner's dog ever mixed it up with Seal II, the unofficial successor to the famous drunken mascot dog who was known nationwide for peeing on the visiting team's megaphones at halftime. The two sort-of celebrity dogs were there at just about the same time.

Faulkner would sit down with the boys and read selections from his novels. If you'd like to try to read Faulkner the way he supposedly read it out loud, Dad taught me: bluster through each paragraph quickly and almost without pause between sentences, "stream of consciousness" style, breaking only between paragraphs.

Yet for all that, I never really sat down and read any of his work purely for pleasure. Maybe I will.