Mississippi Library Association

Faulkner’s Inheritance: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 2005

Urgo, Joseph R. and Ann J. Abadie, eds. Faulkner’s Inheritance: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 2005.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
178 pp. $50.00 (hardcover)

This book is a collection of nine essays presented by William Faulkner scholars at the Thirty-second Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference in 2005. Editor Joseph Urgo, former English department chair at the University of Mississippi, in his introduction defines the inheritance theme. He reminds readers that Faulkner inherited little financially, but much from his Mississippi culture. He took this inheritance and, with his genius, gave it voice for successive generations to analyze, criticize, and contemplate. Some of his bequest is examined in this collection by looking at the influences on his fiction. These influences are family history, Jim Crow laws, contemporary fashion, popular culture, and literature.
These essays are written in a scholarly style, and sometimes the reading is tedious. However, serious students of Faulkner’s fiction may discover new insight into Brother Bill’s world. Biographical information, such as the importance of his relationship with his alcoholic wife Estelle and with his religious caretaker Mammy Callie, is absorbing. An outstanding essay “Faulkner’s Blues Understanding” contains biographical information as well as Faulkner’s understanding of the blues as the medium of communication between blacks and whites.
Race and its power of alienation resulting in violence is a familiar Faulkner subject. In several essays, this theme is analyzed through the character Joe Christmas from Light in August. By examining this disinherited man caught between the black and white worlds, these essays evoke feel- ings of compassion, confusion, and anger. This power of race segregation, described as the “Veil” in W.E.B. Dubois’s The Souls of Black Folks, is suggested as an influence on how Faulkner created Joe Christmas.
In the concluding essay, Faulkner biographer Jay Parini encourages the fascinated reader who often struggles with the novelist’s fiction. He writes, “Faulkner had a great tolerance for inconsistency, and it has driven many a scholar to his or her grave – those scholars who wish for an ideal order that is.” This view, also shared by contributor Noel Polk, author of Reading Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury, makes reading this collection worthwhile for the layman. Illustrations, photographs, and an index also render this collection more readable. I highly recommend Faulkner’s Inheritance for academic libraries and public libraries with a strong Faulkner collection.

Diane Moore Elliott
Librarian (retired)
Cleveland High School

Entry Filed under: Book Reviews
Posted on: October 1st, 2008