Thursday, April 29, 2021

Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury

I mentioned in an earlier posting that we are taking a course on William Faulkner, sponsored by Swarthmore College. It meets on Zoom Wednesday evenings. We are currently reading Light in August, - our first session on that was last night. The first three sessions were devoted to The Sound and the Fury. That is one of Faulkner's most challenging works to read, comparable to James Joyce's Ulysses. This is because much of it is written in stream of consciousness style: an onrush of words with no apparent syntax, no punctuation, going on for pages, and on top of that a constant shift in time reference, signaled to the reader only by a change in typeface from Roman to Italic. But there are more than just two time frames - there are primarily three, with maybe a few more thrown in. So, basically, you just don't know what's going on. However, our excellent prof. Phil Weinstein, has helped us immensely in making sense of it, and now that we "get it," we have become fans of Faulkner and can see why he is regarded as a great writer. Not all his work is like The Sound and the Fury. Light in August reads a bit more like a traditional novel. It has an "omniscient narrator, " and is sort of linear, with many shifts and flashbacks, but more chapter by chapter, not phrase by phrase. I recommend it as a good place to dip your toe into Faulkner. His work is, of course, all set in Mississippi, and is all about Southern culture and race, and the pathologies deeply imbedded in all of that - very relevant to what is going on today. 

The Sound and the Fury has four chapters, and each is the inner life of a specific character: Benjy Compson, Quentin Compson, Jason Compson (all siblings), and lastly, Dilsey, a Negro servant in the Compson family. Benjy is an "idiot" (see below) - he is mentally disabled, unable to speak, able only to utter sounds: moans, cries, bellering, etc. But he has an inner mental life, albeit a chaotic one. Quentin is a young man, thoughtful and sensitive and troubled,  a freshman at Harvard and preparing to take his own life. Jason is a ruthless character, devoted only to power and money. Dilsey is the only sane one, and holds the family together. A sister, "Caddy," and the mother of all of them, Caroline, a neurotic hypochondriac, play a huge role in the consciousness of the three brothers. Each chapter ostensibly takes place on a specific day, but mentally there are numerous shards of memory that interrupt that day, as mentioned above. It's complicated and very lurid. 

(Cf. "idiot" - the novel is based on the well-known quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.")

We ordered a copy of The Sound and the Fury through Amazon from a third-party seller, but it never arrived. It seems to have disappeared in Baltimore somewhere. So we resorted to an inter-library loan copy from the Putney Library, and that proved to be interesting. It was published by The Franklin Mint, and was a limited edition, with buckram binding and gold leaf. It was illustrated by artist Allan Mardon. He was a commercial illustrator for much of his life, but in 1988 he moved to Tucson, AZ and totally changed his style, became an historian and interpreter of Native American culture, took up painting in vivid colors, and essentially re-invented himself. Born in October of 1931, he died just a little over a year ago in January, 2020. 

The Franklin Mint edition of The Sound and the Fury 

Benjy Compson

Quentin Compson

Jason Compson

Dilsey

These portraits by artist Allan Mardon stand at the head of each chapter. 



Allan Mardon at work


Mardon's most famous work from his post-1988 period, titled The Battle of Greasy Grass, a large mural (c. 11' x 6') which is housed in the Whitney Gallery in Cody,  WY. It is an interpretation of the battle often referred to as "Custer's Last Stand."

One of Mardon's later works, titled Aspens which I happen to like

Mardon's Celebration of the Horse, which recently sold for $5000. It is very typical of his 
"Southwest style."




Friday, April 23, 2021

Guests

 Another milestone: we hosted Jim and Mary Tolles as overnight guests yesterday and today! All vaccinated. It was great to see them and with the exception of a Scrabble game last evening, we spent the entire time talking - there was a lot to catch up on. We heard about their UU Church in Rockland which is interviewing a prospective new pastor on Zoom this week. We heard all about their life after Mary's retirement from her work at the Hope, ME Town Office (though her replacement didn't work out well and she's back part-time to help out!), all about her adopted son, DJ; all about Jim's work doing music for their church, etc. And of course we had some nice meals, thanks to Ellen, including yummy Shepherd's Pie last night. And wouldn't you know it - I never thought to take a picture! Too busy talking!

But Tuesday, we had lunch at the Grafton Market with Robin Davis and her 93-year-old dad, Paul Yaezel, who has now moved to Valley Cares in Townshend. It was outside and VERY blustery - the wind literally blew our sandwiches off the table! But we rescued them and had a good time getting acquainted. I got a photo of them, and of a sheep farm on the way back with lots of lambs. That was quite a sight!

Paul Yaezel and Robin

The sheep farm


Tuesday, April 20, 2021

A lot of catching up to do

It's been over a week since my last post - I apologize to my faithful readers! I hope you are still faithful! Before I go over the last week, let me explain why I haven't been posting very often. It's mainly because posting a blog has become logistically difficult, and it takes longer and thus harder to fit in. Two main problems, well, three, actually. (1) I cannot up-load photos from my phone to the blog from home. For some reason, when I try, I get an error message. So I have to go to the Dummerston Church. But that is also now difficult. (2) For some reason, I  can no longer upload photos from my iPhone to my MacBook Air laptop. When I plug the phone into the USB on the laptop, it starts dinging every second. That is a fairly new phenomenon. So I have to upload photos to my older laptop, my MacBook Pro. (3) The MacBook Pro cannot access WiFi at the church. When I try, it says This Server is Blocked. So I have to either go to the Putney Library, or find a way to transfer photos to the MacBook Air. Today, Ellen dropped me at the church. I can't get to the Putney Library and I forgot to bring the flash drive to transfer photos from one laptop to the other.  I think I'll have to email photos to gmail.com and get them off there from the MacAir computer. Cumbersome!

Later: I just emailed photos from the phone to this laptop. It wasn't too time consuming.  I realize now that I could do that at home before coming to the church. So now to catch up. 

April 11th: Monday, April 12th was John's birthday - 60 years old. Quite a milestone!  So the day before, we met at the Dummerston Church for a short and small celebration - what we all felt up for. Cynthia made a gluten-free carrot cake and we had cake and tea.  We'll do something "bigger" later. The day John was born, April 12, 1961, was the day the Soviets put Yuri Gagarin into orbit around the earth - the first human in space! John's birthday was also the 60th anniversary of that event (which, by the way, I saw little notice of in the media that day. I guess if the Russians do it, it doesn't count). So my card to John featured this photo of Yuri, with him saying, "Happy 60th Birthday, John!" 

Yuri Gagarin

Monday-Wednesday: Most of last week, I was working on taxes. Technically, they weren't due until May, but in the past certain Vermont forms have had to be in by April 15th regardless (they changed that this year but I didn't know that until I'd done all the work). So I just did them all, Federal and State. Wednesday, there was a Chicago Theological Seminary Zoom session at 1 pm and the Swarthmore course on William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury in the evening, but otherwise, pretty open days. I pretty much stayed at home. 

Last Friday: We had about six inches of snow. Up here on the mountain, it stuck to the ground. It was far less at the bottom of our driveway and at the bottom of the East-West road it was practically nothing. Elevation makes a difference! 

Snow last Friday

Ditto

I'm not sure what we did on Saturday, but of course Sunday was Virtual church at Guilford, followed by Torah study on Leviticus, followed by Brattleboro Concert Choir practicing in sections on a work titled Tell Me, Where Is Fancy Bred? (1865)  by Mrs. Mounsey-Bartholomew (words by Shakespeare). If we feel up to it, we can record ourselves singing our part and submit those recordings by next Sunday. Sunday evening was a Piffaro Concert  featuring young recorder players who had participated in a recorder festival/competition sponsored by Piffaro. Very nice! 

Yesterday: We went to Northampton to see Tamar! Getting out into the world! We went to a favorite restaurant near her old charter school and had Mac 'n Cheese, and enjoyed thoroughly the beautiful spring flowers, trees and shrubs. Tamar showed us a self-portrait she had drawn in charcoal in her remote high school art class! Very impressive!

The "Burgey" outdoor restaurant

Tamar's self-portrait

Beautiful trees!

And more . . . 


...and tulips

Today we had lunch with Robin Davis and her 93-year-old dad, Paul Yaezel. More on that later! 


Sunday, April 11, 2021

A quick trip

We made a quick tip to Maine, to Ogunquit, on Friday. It was great! The sun was strong and the beach was  popular but not crowded. We got in a short walk on the beach.  Then we stopped at When Pigs Fly (for bread) and Bob's Clam Hut  both in Kittery, ME, on our way back, both places we always go to when we are in Maine.  

Saturday, we met Julie and Jerry at Amherst Cinema - they had rented a theater for the four of us to see Minari, a Korean film - excellent. That is the new system - you rent a theater at a modest cost and bring your family. On the way home it was wonderful to see spring flowers - a couple of weeks ahead of us where we live on the north side of a mountain.


The shadows were strong in the bright sunlight

Ahh! The ocean!

Low tide in Ogunquit

Spring flowers

The magnolia trees were in full bloom in Amherst!


Thursday, April 8, 2021

What's happening?

What's happening in this post-Easter season? 

Well, we are both now fully vaccinated. Spring is upon us in fine fettle - and we are enjoying sitting in the sun on the deck! We are on the north side of the mountain, but even there, crocuses are blooming in our back yard. We are finally able to open the window and get fresh air at night and not be too cold. 

Tuesday we had a Zoom River Singers session with Kathy Bullock as guest leader - and she was full of joy and energy as usual. We sang Even Me, I've Got a Robe, and I Still Have Joy - great fun, even on Zoom.

Last night we started a Swarthmore course on William Faulkner. Fascinating, with Philip Weinstein as the teacher. We will study three novels in nine sessions, and started with The Sound and the Fury. The style of writing is "stream-of-consciousness" - the thoughts, feelings and sensations of Benjy, a 33-year-old "idiot," (inspired by Shakespeare's "life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing"). Once you get the hang of it, it is not confusing at all. 

Next Tuesday will be John's 60th birthday. We hope to visit briefly but are putting off a celebration until he feels better and is also fully vaccinated.  

I'm sure some little trips will be in the offing. 


William Faulkner

Kathy Bullock

Philip Weinstein, Prof. Emeritus at Swarthmore


Sunday, April 4, 2021

Happy Easter!

 We started our Easter celebration with a sunrise service at the Dummerston Church -  an actual in-person service on the steps of the church, at 6:30a.m. About 16 of us. We were masked and distanced, but it was nice to actually be with people. Shawn had a portable player and while Cat Stevens was singing Morning Has Broken, the sun peeked over the hill. I brought ski poles to have something to lean on but they had a chair available. 


A little blurry,  but there I am in the foreground.

We went home and had a bite to eat, and participated in the Guilford Zoom service at 10a.m. Unfortunately, the live stream link was faulty and kept freezing up and skipping.  We'll be able to watch it later, but were glad we had had the early morning experience.

After Guilford, I had Torah Study - that was very interesting. The portion was Leviticus 9-11, which includes the story of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Elihu, who are killed by God on the spot when they do something in  the priestly ritual they weren't told to do. This seems unnecessarily cruel, and to add insult to injury, God forbids their father, Aaron, to grieve. Needless to say, this led to a lot of discussion. Rabbi Ahuvah deals with these difficulties very well - she offers many perspectives to consider, but doesn't 'preach."

After Torah Study, we hopped in the car and zipped down to Katie and Savanna's. We had snacks sitting in the sun on the deck - very pleasant - and then came in for dinner - ham, scalloped potatoes and asparagus. We're all vaccinated except Brendon but we stayed distant. Here'sthe set-up:

Ellen and I ate in the foreground, K, S & B in the distance. 

A good Easter Day!