Synopses & Reviews
In this highly acclaimed biography, David Minter draws upon a wealth of material, including the novelist's essays, interviews, published and unpublished letters, as well as his poems, stories, and novels, to illuminate the close relationship between the flawed life and the artistic achievement of one of twentieth-century America's most complex literary figures. In the process, he reveals a Faulkner who is powerful, vulnerable, real--every bit as fascinating as the characters he created. Anyone who has ever tarried in Yoknapatawpha County will find this a sensitive and readable account of the novelist's struggles in art and life. In his new preface, Minter locates his biography in relation to the changes in the literary critical landscape during the 1980s and discusses its departures from New Critical tenets about the relationship between authors' lives and their works.
Review
"David Minter is careful to say, in his preface to 'The Writing of a Life,' that he does not 'present this book either as a compilation of new data on Faulkner's life or as a series of new readings of his novels.' He is trying, he says, 'to subordinate critical discussions of Faulkner's writings to the task of sketching the 'mysterious armature' (to borrow Mallarmé's phrase) that binds Faulkner's life and art together. My claim to the reader's attention,' he insists, 'is specific then; and it stems from the story I try to tell—of deep reciprocities, of relations and revisions, between Faulkner's flawed life and his great art.' This uneven yoking of Faulkner's life and art is not very satisfactory. The prose in which the book is written is even less so: sentimental, turgid, weakly and emotionally speculative, repetitive (it would be hard to count the number of times he makes use of that phrase from Absalom, Absalom!, 'old tales and talking'). Another repetition, which is perhaps the major weakness as well as the keynote of the book, is that of 'the reciprocities between Faulkner's great art and his flawed life.' This tandem pairing does not work out well." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
A widely acclaimed biography presents a Faulkner who is powerful, vulnerable, real--every bit as fascinating as the characters he created.
In this highly acclaimed biography, David Minter draws upon a wealth of material, including the novelist's essays, interviews, published and unpublished letters, as well as his poems, stories, and novels, to illuminate the close relationship between the flawed life and the artistic achievement of one of twentieth-century America's most complex literary figures. In the process, he reveals a Faulkner who is powerful, vulnerable, real--every bit as fascinating as the characters he created. Anyone who has ever tarried in Yoknapatawpha County will find this a sensitive and readable account of the novelist's struggles in art and life. In his new preface, Minter locates his biography in relation to the changes in the literary critical landscape during the 1980s and discusses its departures from New Critical tenets about the relationship between authors' lives and their works.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-265) and index.