By: William Faulkner Publisher: Vintage Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Vintage Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 262 Publication Date: October 29, 1991 Release Date: October 29, 1991
Product Description: Set in Mississippi during the Civil War and Reconstruction, THE UNVANQUISHED focuses on the Sartoris family, who, with their code of personal responsibility and courage, stand for the best of the Old South's traditions.
Approachable Faulkner A local English professor's answer to a radio call-in question, "What's a good place to start reading Faulkner?" sent me looking for "The Unvanquished." This short novel of the Civil War and Reconstruction was created out of a series of magazine stories written by Faulkner in the 1930s, with one previously unpublished story added. Faulkner maintains his famous stream-of-consciousness style, but manages to remain approachable, perhaps because his narrator is a young boy, around whom (and his slave/friend) the stories revolve. The narrative is a little disjointed on a chapter-to-chapter basis, as each was written to stand alone. Apparently Faulkner didn't add much to enhance continuity in the novel format.
Like "Cold Mountain", the story focuses on the homefront during the Civil War. Rather than spouses, children and older people are the lead characters. Their ingenuity during the hard times of war is impressive, as is the general chaos surround organizing a war effort.
The book's last chapter "An Odor of Verbena" focuses on the Reconstruction period. Our current politics can't compete with this era for danger and intrigue, depicted at the local level in this story.
Some of my forays into Faulkner have foundered on his infamously difficult style--dense language, paragraph-long sentences and chapter-long paragraphs. "The Unvanquished" lowers this hurdle while retaining the sense that you are inside the character's minds while they deal with the challenge and tragedy that is the Civil War.
Recommended for all adult readers and even teenage readers with an interest in literary fiction or the Civil War.
The Unvanquished - book This book was so hard to find locally, and was needed for a class. The price and delivery were amazing - thanks so much!!
Faulkner for beginners If you've never read a Faulkner novel, this is the perfect place to get your feet wet. I did exactly the opposite, starting with THE SOUND AND THE FURY, AS I LAY DYING and ABSALOM, ABSALOM! Had I read this first, I might have been more accustomed to Faulkner's difficulties (i.e. using pronouns to keep the reader guessing, frequent repetition of key phrases, his habitual use of images and symbols, frequent allusions to the Bible, occasional use of obscure vocabulary, the provision of minimal context to action -- especially early on, lengthy sentences and italic text to indicate a character's interior monologue) and not had to struggle so much when reading his masterpieces.
The characters and stories here (and please, read THE UNVANQUISHED as a collection of short stories told chronologically, rather than as a novel) are more simple and fun than his novels. And perhaps that's because he was taking a break from his most serious and difficult work and needed money and a vacation from ABSALOM, ABSALOM! The stories here progress in Faulknerian difficulty, the amount of Southern Gothic tragedy they depict, and the complexity and intricacy of the plots as the book goes along. By the time you're finished reading it, you're ready for SANCTUARY, THE WILD PALMS or LIGHT IN AUGUST.
But to dismiss THE UNVANQUISHED as a lesser work somehow, because the stories are more accessable, is to make a big mistake. The stories are teeming with beautiful prose and haunting storytelling, and they have a great deal to reveal about what the South endured during and immediately after the Civil War and about the mindset of Southerners at the time and for a long time afterward.
Splendid social history This novel is the first Faulkner I read. I liked it. I think it gives a fair image of the South after the Civil war, although I am Dutch.
Though Faulkner has been compared to very difficult writers as Proust, and his style and works often have been called hard to understand, I thought it excellent written. The use of metaphor and symbols in this book is very stunning. E.g. When father Sartoris comes home from a lost battle, the first thing to do is build a fence. Yes a fence to keep northern influences away.
The book gives some good examples of the change in relations between black and white people. It helps to understand politics and society in Southern states.
Sartoris Redux Although published in 1938, the initial appearance of this novel can be traced to September 1934. Pressed for cash, Faullkner sent off the first of a series of short stories, dealing with the adolescent adventures of two boys during the Civil War, to the Saturday Evening Post and Scribners Magazine. The idea of collecting these stories into a "novel" was first proposed to his publisher in late 1936 although it is obvious that Faulklner was interested in a quick sale rather than in the creation of another serious work of literature. He did not put a lot of work into the revision and editing of these stories for the novel and consequently the "chapters" of the novel are pretty much identical to the stories that appeared in the two magazines from 1934-36. Interestingly, he was not able to sale the most powerful of the stories, An Odor of Verbena, to the magazines and thus this "chapter" represents the only unique part of the novel. (For those readers who are interested in the original form of the stories that make up this novel, they can be found in The Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner).
Faulkner had already written of the Sartoris family in an earlier novel, Flags in the Dust, but he set that novel during the era of post-World War I disillusionment and in it dealt with the descendants of Bayard - one of the two boys of The Unvanquised - and the condition of the South some sixty years after the Civil War. It is by far the superior work. Perhaps because The Unvanquished was serialized over a period of two years and went through scant editing for re-publication, it is much too episodic and fairly soaks in sentimentality, incongruity, and disbelief - all key ingredients for stories published in the mass circulated periodicals of the day such as the Saturday Evening Post. If the Yankees of the novel were as stupid as Ringo and Granny Rosa made them out to be, we (I guess my Southern upbringing is showing through) would have been marching on the White House in the summer of 1862.
But with even the weakest Faulkner novel there are places in which his brilliance shows through. The description of the flow of recently freed slaves - having no concept of what freedom represented - following the retreating Union army is mesmerizing and the characterization of Ringo and Granny Rosa is among his best. Ringo is elevated from the stereotyped pickaninny, whose sole purpose was to serve and entertain his masters, to an intelligent and cunning boy who is not only the intellectual superior of his white playmate and master, Bayard, but is equal to Granny Rosa in her business dealings with the Yankees. The scene in the church where Ringo is forced to sit in the balcony with his fellow slaves although holding the ledger that could save or destroy the lives of his white "superiors" is brilliant and the irony is not lost even on the most casual reader. By the end of last story, "An Odor of Verbena," it appears that Bayard has made a significant movement away from the nebulous but clinging heritage of the South with all its manifestations of honor and codes of chivalry, to a more aware state of mind. However, to readers of Flags in the Dust, set in the 1920s, this same Bayard is shown as an old man unable to sever himself from the traditions of the Old South, and still rides to town in a horse drawn carriage driven by his family's old slave, Simon.
Many reviewers have suggested that this novel is the place to begin for readers new to Faulkner. It is most decidedly not. Start with Light in August, Sanctuary, or even Flags in the Dust - all three very approachable and far superior to The Unvanquished.
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