"It takes an awful lot of character to quit anything when you are losing."
This quote has rifled through my headspace all week. Following the "river ride" analogy from the previous installment, the re-reading leads to seeing the connections and the bends in the river ahead. It is as if Faulkner's "flowing" river of words can distract you from the visions of the sun on high, clouds dangling below it in the sky, and the balance of nature from the nearby sandbar on one side and the darkened cove inviting you to the other.
Each pass at the first two chapters reveals a part that feels like it was never there. Before, we were mesmerized by his beautiful phraseology and confounded by sentence lengths that if read aloud, could have you reaching for an oxygen tank. However, now after numerous visitations, the imagery is cool and crisp. A striking example from Chapter One is two mentions of Ellen Coldfield being "born to be a widow." Both restatements appear to flag and compare, even as Miss Rosa Coldfield appeals to Quentin's ego, and Quentin immediately and internally posits an ulterior motive ("It's because she wants it to be told.")
Faulkner has Miss Rosa Coldfield point out that Ellen marrying the barbarian Thomas Sutpen was no way to civilize him ("No, not even a gentleman. Marrying Ellen or marrying ten thousand Ellens could not have made him one.") Then Rosa characterizes life there (and life in general) as "a holocaust." For all of its ongoing contradictions, Faulkner makes it abundantly clear that this life was not as glamorous as Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind." None of the women here are, to borrow from Mitchell, wearing crinolines cinched so tight that they cannot breathe. While at Sutpen's Hundred, neither Coldfield can breathe comfortably for years.
Is this the reality of hindsight in 1936 versus 2024? Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind" has drifted into the ephemeral cloud of dated yet popular books that dangerously look back and oversimplify. Whereas Faulkner's work is and always has been a repudiation of the horrible decisions made in pursuit of a better way of life. The sting has not diminished at all, even if Faulkner could obscure his feelings in metaphor. (In interviews, he repudiated even further calling it "intolerable.")
Even forty-three years afterward from the fever which had cured the disease, waking from the fever without even knowing that it had been the fever itself which they had fought against and not the sickness, looking with stubborn recalcitrance backward beyond the fever and into the disease and not even aware that the freedom was that of impotence.
If you are not seeing the connection, please remember - that is ok. The paragraph chosen above uses the ongoing emphasis of "fever" to explain a veiled line of reasoning that must dawn on you as the reader. To be explicit here, would more than likely lead to being misunderstood. Instead, Faulkner is weaving his words and thoughts together to arouse emotion and force you to think.
Furthermore, Faulkner seems to be calling out all memories as biased. It is one thing that Miss Rosa Coldfield was there as a first-hand observer of the carnage at Sutpen's Hundred. It is entirely a different thing that she was there at the behest and to support her sister. Since that bond of blood between those two runs deeper than any river, it is Faulkner as narrator who brands Rosa "Cassandralike" and Ellen as "Niobe without tears." Mythic creatures, yes, but damned to predict the future and not be believed, as well as bring forth the beast that would destroy it all.
Keep reading. We promise it will become clearer.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
J MASCIS - What Do We Do Now [LP/CD](SubPop) • There is a theory that the Modern Rock crossovers of the late Eighties (R.E.M., The Cure, and U2) laid the path for Alternative to break through in the early Nineties. So the September 1991 release of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was just a question of right place, right time. Nirvana was just another former Hardcore band that found its way to melody as AmerIndie fell under the growing aegis of Alternative. It could have just as easily occurred To J.Mascis' major-label signed Dinosaur Jr. in 1990 (“The Wagon”) or 1992 (“Start Choppin’”) With this period firmly in mind, Mascis today has stumbled into another breakthrough. The guitar god turned down and pushed the ever-present acoustic strum higher in the mix on his fourth solo album. “What Do We Do Now” sounds like “Green Mind” transferred through the melodicism of Ty Segall (“Right Behind You”) and the wan moodiness of Kurt Vile (“Can’t Believe We’re Here.”) The response to the latter song has even yielded Mascis his first Top 20 AAA hit. Back in the “Alternative” charts some 30 years later.
VERA SOLA - Peacemaker [LP/CD](Spectrasonic/ City Slang/Redeye) • Without naming names, Vera Sola could have taken the easy route to musical discovery and success. Listening to the haunted atmospherics on cuts like "Circles" or the reverb that underpins "Virgil's Flowers," Vera Sola wants to be a bit like a female Lee Hazlewood with same intensity of the more reverent moments of The Jesus & Mary Chain. With its late Sixties haze and propensity for different sounds (that organ on "Small Minds") and rhythms ("The Colony,") we hear promise in her bold move to emulate Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave.
HANNAH WICKLUND - The Tower [PINK LP/CD] (Strawberry Moon) • MADDIE ZAHM - Now That I’ve Been Honest [LP/CD](Dollgirl/AWAL) • BRITTI - Hello I’m Britti [LP/CD](Easy Eye/Concord) • In the days of female singer/songwriter dominance, as a new artist you have two paths to take. Are you a powerful singer with pipes that can even make the fortune cookie’s wisdom sound fresh? 26-year-old South Carolinian Wicklund sings like she has been overlooked and underplayed for her career. In truth, she has. A longtime opening act, the bluesy guitarist/vocalist is striving to be the next Bonnie Raitt. Unfortunately, she shows very little change in her range leaving even her best rafter-raising lost in the shuffle of her album.
American Idol contest Maddie Zahm is already playing her songwriting to her advantage on her latest. Her devil-may-care Billie Eilish-ish singing benefits from her more personal writing. “Step on Me” is her anthemic slap in the face of all the nonbelievers. Unlike Wicklund, Zahm knows how to build her songs to her choruses as tension releases (let's dare to call it Swift-ian, even though it likely originated from Emo.) Her most clever song is the confessional “Thanks For Coming Out” which squeezes its emotion from her understated verse, a pre-chorus that slowly reaches for her vocal peak, and one hell of a pause.
New Orleans’ cooing Britti benefits from her discovery by Dan Auerbach who gives her the background of a Seventies Country/Pop singer. “Lullaby” is a dreamy slow burner that allows the consistency of the dream backing band (former players with Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty, Lucinda Williams, and countless others) to best display her simple vocal style minus all the melismatic frills. “Keep Running” reaches for some Dolly-ish highs even as the verse simmers. The wiseness is likely on Auerbach who sculpts the promising singer into the opposite of his belter Yola, even giving her a modern R&B song or two.
FABIANO DO NASCIMENTO AND SAM GENDEL - The Room [LP/CD](RealWorld/AMPED) • With an almost effortless blending Brazilian-born seven-string guitarist Nascimento and soprano saxophonist Gendel create songs that are as much Brasilero as Seventies-era Paul Winter. Nascimento's flashes of brilliance ("Capricho") are never muted by Gendel's exotic runs. While Gendel always seems to have a near vocal-ready melody up his sleeve ("Cores.")
