Unlocked Faulkner

The creator of the American epic is unpopular among most readers (1997)

Archival project "Radio Liberty this week 20 years ago." The most interesting and significant from the Archive of the Radio Freedom of twenty years ago. Incomplete story. Still living hopes. Could Russia go the other way?

The classics of American and world literature are told by Stephen Di Madio - professor -literary critic, Lev Losev - poet and professor of Dartmut College, Alexander Genis - writer, I.J. Marchall - actor. Author and presenter Marina Efimova. For the first time on the air of September 25, 1997.

Marina Efimova : Writer William Folkner, as you know, changed the map of the American South, adding a non -existent County of Yoknapatof with the main city of Jefferson to the state of Mississippi. It was in this typical, unremarkable, absolutely orderly place of William Folkner that the American epic, comparable in power with Greek tragedies. Most American literary critics admit that William Faulkner, Laureate of the Nobel, Pulitzer, National and many other literary awards, is one of the greatest, if not the greatest American novelist of the 20th century. But the same literary critics, and without any exception, consider Faulkner the most difficult to read, and, possibly, rarely read by American classic. Here is what the professor of American literature Steven Di Madio said when I asked him, can Faulkner call the writer popular in America?

Stephen Di Madio : Faulkner can be called a writer extremely popular in a narrow circle of serious readers. For a mass audience, not only the language of Faulkner, but in general, his presentation style is too complicated. In such novels as "noise and rage" or "Avsal, Avsal!" It is even difficult for an inexperienced reader to monitor the plot that develops bizarre and not necessarily in chronological sequence. Therefore, the school curriculum, for example, includes only the stories of Faulkner, even for the first courses of the work of Faulkner, you have to supply solid explanatory comments. In a word, he never had a wide reader audience.

Marina Efimova : The period of non -recognition and rejection of Folkner, even the literary world, was so long that his fate can be compared only with the fate of Joyce. Only the fourth novel “Noise and Fury”, written in 1929, was already a 32-year writer, was highly appreciated by critics. Unfortunately, their assessment did not convince readers at all - the novel was not bought in the same way as the earlier books of the writer. This is not to say that in other areas of life the young Faulkner has achieved a lot. This is what his biographer Frederick Karl writes.

Announcer : “He threw school after grade 10, and the university after the first year. He tried to work in the newspaper, then at the post office, but was monumentally unusable for regular work. In 1918, William Folkner tried to go to the army, but he was not accepted due to thinness and small height - 162 centimeters. Then he went to Canada and became military and became military and became military True, the pilot is only nominally, because the war ended and did not have time to make a single sortie, he began to travel, changed places, friends, classes and remained faithful to only one case, which does not bring money or fame. ”

Joknapatof map drawn by a folkner for the book "The Portable Faulkner" (1946)

Marina Efimova : Faulkner came to the country of Yoknapatof and his inhabitants in his third novel Sartoris. And, it seems, his older friend, an extravagant man, the exquisite prose writer Sherwood Anderson, became his literary Virgil. Faulkner recalls.

Announcer : "Sherwood once said:" If you do not choose your way, you will never write anything sensible. It is necessary that there is where to start. You are a village guy, all you know is a tiny piece of earth in Mississippi, where you come from. But this is enough, it is also America. Let the farthest and most unknown corner, but pull it like a brick from the wall, and the wall will fall apart. "

Marina Efimova : And since 1928, Colonel Sartoris, Compsons, McCatons, Snowpsy - characters who became the same living people as Bolkonskoye, Bezukhov, Karamazov and Bobchinsky with Dobchinsky settled in Yokanapatof. However, according to American literary scholars, his style, his tongue, stood between Falkner and the reader.

"... Colonel Sartoris, Komns, McCaters, Snoups - characters who have become the same living people as Bolkonsky, Bezukhov, Karamazov and Bobchinsky settled in Yokanapatofer.

Stephen Di Madio : every time a new phrase appears, it should be explained by the next phrase, and that, in turn, is new. To understand one story, you must learn and understand many stories inextricably linked to the first.

Marina Efimova : This is what Professor Dartmut College Lev Losev adds about the language of Faulkner.

Lev Losev : This is the case when there was no happiness, but misfortune helped. This is what we read Faulkner in translation. So, we read it not only in another language, but also outside its national cultural context. And now the Americans, with a few exceptions, perceive Faulkner inevitably as a regional writer, as a yuzhanin writer. First of all, because of the language of Faulkner, which is replete with dialectisms. The first reaction is very often when you start talking as a Russian reader about your love for a folkner, a little skeptical - they say, and how can you read Faulkner at all when it is completely unequering? And he immediately in the minds of the Americans becomes on a certain shelf of the Great, but regional literature, which is still somewhat tarnished in the minds of modern Americans with some political incorrectness. Of course, everyone knows that Faulkner was a humanist and in no case is a racist, but still the means of the expression that he used is the language of the southerner and his generation, a language in which a modern, very sensitive reader can catch some shades of racial high technology, and so on.

Marina Efimova : Thus, the value of Faulkner is somehow reduced in comparison with our perception?

Lev Losev : I think it is reduced. As I said, for the Americans, he is still one among the very many outstanding writers. For us, Faulkner, of course, was a writer of the first magnitude. But, probably, not only for us, because they often quote Jean-Paul Sartre. When asked how he evaluates Faulkner, Sartre, who was generally not so inclined to enthusiastic estimates, said: "Faulkner is God!"

Marina Efimova : If Faulkner’s style scares a wide reader, then he attracts readers of elite, critics, writers. Including our colleague Alexander Genis.

Alexander Genis : The South on the Literary Card of the United States undoubtedly prevails over the north or West of literature. The southerners took revenge for the civil war. Therefore, not with the northerner Hemingway, as they thought in Russia, but with the southern Folkner, the idea of truly American literature is connected. His heroes will never be confused with the characters of Jack London, O'Genry or the same Hemingway, but they are close to the founder of all American literature Mark Twain. The combination of the terrible and funny here is created by that sudden effect, an ethical shift, which is characteristic of the entire culture of the southerners. Here, even meat is eaten with sugary seasoning. Faulkner always talks about terrible, but he must have elements of purely American black humor. It turns out that a superficial look, noticing only unimportant details of everyday life, masks a tragedy that unfolds implicitly. The text here is built at the premonition of the double bottom. Faulkner artificially worsens tension, accumulates him with small strokes, until, finally, something terrible will collapse on the heroes. But just at the time of this climax, the writer addresses the humor awkward in such a situation. The conflict is built on the mismatch of the style of content. Due to this contradiction, Faulkner achieves a special effect - the text is parted outside the plot, violating the logic of the narrative, it brings the elements of the absurd that has turned the children's book about Hecelberry Finn into a great novel.

Marina Efimova : I want to give as an example the story “Full turn around” so beloved by my generation, where, throughout the good half of the story, Faulkner only hints with the help of small details that young English officers, always drunk in one of the port cities in the very height of the Second World War, are not just rich loafers and life -burners. That something is wrong here. And only at the very end it becomes clear that these boys go to high -speed torpedo boats in suicidal raids against German military vessels.

Alexander Genis : The life that Faulkner portrayed never seems banal, ordinary, because the abyss is hidden around the flow of philistine existence. Faulkner does not have small characters, all of them are human hyperbola, just those that we are used to meeting in Hollywood western. Faulkner did not come up with his heroes, but wrote off from his ancestors who came to these lands to become the patriarchs of the new world. A tall person full of Protestant commandments and whiskey. The absurd shift that changes signs in places helps Falkner to depict the complexity of the human personality, in which the most extreme, wildest extremes are at the same time. He does not claim - a person is kind or a man of evil, he says: a person is endless, inexhaustible, unpredictable.

"Faulkner did not come up with his heroes, but wrote off from his ancestors who came to these lands to become the patriarchs of the new world. A tall man full of Protestant commandments and whiskey"

Marina Efimova : By the way, I recall the story "Bear". The hunter Buna is ashamed in front of his dog named Leo. Leo is the only hound in the entire district who is not afraid to drive the old Ben, the mother and, as it is believed, the immortal bear. But finally, the lion overtakes the bear and fearlessly rushes at him. Bun shoots and misses. With ten steps. And he cannot ask himself this. Bun at all shoots badly. As the narrator explains not without humor, he once from four steps could not get into the Negro - he missed and shot a black woman standing at a distance. Therefore, when the dog overtakes a bear for a second time and clings to him again, Booons, so as not to bring the dog, rushes on a giant beast with only a hunting knife and kills it.

Alexander Genis : Of course, Dostoevsky immediately comes to memory, without which both Faulkner and the entire southern school would be impossible. Remember, in the "Karamazov brothers"? - "Two abysses, two abysses, gentlemen, at the same moment- without that our existence is incomplete." However, Dostoevsky’s abyss at Faulkner open in the souls of completely different heroes. I would say this: Dostoevsky’s problems are solved in application to the characters of Mark Twain. In his stories, you will never find the hero-ideologist who are full of Dostoevsky’s novels, there are no famous philosophical and religious dialogues. Faulkner purely in the American focused on the ideological word to the word-jest, to the act, to special literary plastic. Accordingly, his heroes are not able to articulately express their innermost thought. These are ordinary people. Only, as the reader finds out, there is nothing simple in them - the same horror of being is hidden behind the facade of everyday existence.

William Folkner

Marina Efimova : The abysses opened under the feet of Faulkner himself. The story of his marriage seems to have left the pages of his own novels. In his youth, he lost his beloved girl to Estell Old more persistent groom only to marry her 11 years later, after her divorce, when it was already an alcoholic, completely broken by life, with a child in her arms. During a honey meat with a folkner, Estell tried to drown. Life with her was not only not happy, complete quarrels, enmity and opening of veins, but also ruin, although Faulkner earned quite a bit in Hollywood, where he wrote dialogs for other people's scenarios. At some point, it came to the point that he published an announcement in the local newspaper, which said that he refuses to bear any financial responsibility for his wife and pay her bills. Books were almost not sold, including the novel "Noise and Rage", which is now considered the best in American literary criticism. And Faulkner, desperate, wrote the "Sanctuary".

Stephen Di Madio : The Roman "Sanctuary" was the only really popular work of Faulkner. In this novel, a girl from a good family, a college student, begins to prostrate after a rogue named Papai raping her and suppresses her will. Critics wrote about the book with contempt and called Faulkner almost the author of the Boulevard's reading. This scandal of about fifteen years ruined the Falkner of a literary reputation. In the middle of the 40s, the novel "Sanctuary" was the only work of Faulkner that was reprinted.

Marina Efimova : In 1946, the literary critic Malcolm Kalvi composed a series of mono -volumes of the best modern writers and included a collection of Faulkner in the plan. The publishers crossed this volume. Recall that by this time, Faulkner wrote “noise and rage”, “the day when I was dying”, “Light in August”, “Avssalus, Avssalus!”, “Get out, Moses”, “Drill” and three collections of stories, not counting those published in 1940 and 1941. Kalvi convinced the publishers, insisted on turning on Faulkner and carefully selected those things that the average reader could master. He called the collection "Portable Folkner", that is, "portable", "compact" Faulkner. The anthology of 1946 became the most famous publication of Faulkner, because the glory of the writer actually began with it. At the 50th year of life, in the 20th year of creative activity. Three years later, William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize.

You are listening to the report of Rai Weil from the celebration of the century on the birthday of Faulkner on September 25, 1897.

Raya Vile : I am in the foyer of the old and, perhaps, the most elegant Hotel of New York "Algonquin". It is no coincidence that it is here in the famous oak room that the anniversary of Faulkner is celebrated. Each time, coming to New York, Faulkner stayed only in this hotel, he wrote his Nobel speech here, he worked on the novels "Noise and Rage" and "The Day when I died." In the center of the hall, a calculated person for two hundred and completely clogged, although tickets cost $ 60, actors are sitting in a circle. The performance consists of reading Faulkner's prose, his letters of his mother and questions to him, to which the famous theater and film actor I. Dzhi.

“I.J. Marshall is always good, but just incomparable in the role of Faulkner,” the young man from the public told me in the intermission. “He absolutely conveys to speak to the manner of talking, his soft southern accent.”

The two-hour performance ended among the emerging from the Hall-I.J. Marshall. The audience surrounded him with a dense ring, continuing to ask questions, as if in front of them, William Faulkner was indeed before them. I asked. What is the meaning of such a evening? After all, you can read Faulkner at home. I.J. Marshal smiled and already without the Folkner southern accent said:

I. DZHI. MARSHALL : I think some letters of Faulkner and some questions of students will help to better understand what he wrote, why. Faulkner always said that he was not interested in ideas, he was only interested in people. And this is what we wanted to identify in today's performance.

Raya Vile : Well, what do the audience say? Austin Pedltown, physicist.

Austin Pedltown : Faulkner is my favorite writer, and this is not true that he is difficult to read. It is necessary to plunge entirely in it, do not try to analyze, then re -read, and then answers to questions will appear. To re -read again, and you will understand that you have never read anything better.

Raya Vile : My interlocutor, 26-year-old pianist Alex Soyber was one of the students who asked Faulkner, what poetry is.

Alex Soyber : I came because in America there is still no attitude to the Folkner that he deserves. Today, thousands of fans of Faulkner were supposed to come here, and not one and a half hundred spectators who gathered in this hall. After all, Faulkner is our Shakespeare.

William Folkner, 1950

Marina Efimova : As we already said, the fame of Faulkner began with the collection "The Portable Folkner". The word "portable" means not only "portable" in English, this word has another, outdated meaning-"transferred", one that can be taken out, mastered, withstand. I remembered this when I talked with Professor Lev Losev about the difference in Faulkner's perception by Russian and American readers.

Lev Losev : For a long time, I had one student here here, in America, perfectly, completely incomparably mastering the Russian language and with considerable literary inclinations, a very capable person. And somehow he began to admire the Russian conversational expression - "Hold on!" How sometimes we use it just when goodbye: "Well, hold on!" And we began to say how to translate it into English, and found out that the closest word English will be “Endure”, that, as he immediately recalled, the favorite verb of Faulkner is generally “to withstand”, “withstand”. This was terribly laughing, because he imagined how the Americans would be so goodbye or in a simple conversational situation to each other to say to each other: "Endure!" In English, it does not sound at all.

"...он представил себе как американцы будут так на прощание или в простой разговорной ситуации друг другу говорить: "Endure!""

И это, по-моему, один из ключиков к разности восприятия Фолкнера русскими и американцами. Сама по себе американская действительность нашего времени отделена просто пропастью от эпохи Фолкнера, вот этого патетического совершенно отношения к действительности, в которой надо выстоять, выдержать. Этой пропасти между 1920-30 годами и концом века в русском сознании, в русской цивилизации, в русской истории нет. Для русских читателей моего поколения, 60-х годов, когда и начали знакомиться с Фолкнером в России, Фолкнер именно пришел в такой ауре экзистенциалистской философии, философии личности, предоставленной самой себе, брошенной в бездну отчаяния, когда единственным принципом становится вот это – выстоять, выдержать. Недаром Фолкнер был одним из любимых писателей Иосифа Бродского, который очень знаменательно эпиграфом к своей книге "Остановка в пустыне" выбрал как раз слова Короля Лира – "человек должен выстоять".

Марина Ефимова : В своей нобелевской речи в 1950 году, в разгар холодной войны, Фолкнер сказал.

Диктор : "Трагедия нашего времени - животный страх. Из всех вопросов человеческого духа остался один – когда нас уничтожат? Поэтому современные молодые писатели забыли о борьбе человеческого сердца с самим собой, а лишь она порождает настоящую литературу. Я верю, что человек бессмертен, и я верю, что человек не просто выстоит, но восторжествует, потому что по своей природе он способен на сострадание, самопожертвование и непреклонность. Долг писателя – помочь человеку выстоять".

Марина Ефимова : Некоторые критики, и даже биографы Фолкнера морщатся на его нобелевскую речь. Английский литературовед Мартин Симур Смит пишет.

Диктор : «Его нобелевская речь - не более, чем дань долгу, набор клише, напоминающих, скорее, речь политика, нежели талантливого писателя. Морализирование - не его сфера. В своих лучших вещах Фолкнер слишком глубоко входит в души своих персонажей, как победивших, так и проигравших, чтобы с уверенностью говорить о том, что человек восторжествует".

Марина Ефимова : Мы говорили о том, что неискушенному, неподготовленному читателю трудно воспринимать сложный стиль и язык Фолкнера. Но есть кое-что другое у этого писателя, что с трудом воспринимают как раз эстеты. Фолкнер писал о Шервуде Андерсоне: "Он так стремился довести до совершенства свой стиль, что у него и остался один стиль". Возможно, когда Фолкнер прямо, а не образно говорит о духовной и нравственной сути литературы, он делает это для того, чтобы его не интерпретировали и не переиначивали, подгоняя под интеллектуальную моду.

Диктор : "Каждого человека может спасти не масса человеческая, не система, не общество, а только он сам, наделенный способностью и желанием отличать добро от зла. Только он сам, не допустивший, чтобы его страхом, обманом или подачками заставили отказаться от права и от долга отличать справедливость от несправедливости, мужество от трусости, жертвенность от алчности, сострадание о эгоизма. Если вы не будете бояться замечать эти различия и делать свой выбор, тогда вы измените мир".