Soldiers' Pay

This work is Faulkner's very first novel, published in 1926. The war of 14-18 hangs over the whole story, not evoked directly, but by the influence, it may have had on the fate and the inner world of the characters, whether it was those who made it or others, civilians or young people just a little too young. An aviator disfigured by a terrible scar at the book's center, Donald Mahon becomes blind and gradually moves towards inevitable death. Around him were three women who somehow attached themselves to him. And then a whole series of portraits of inhabitants of a small American town, former soldiers demobilized, relatives of the disappeared. It is a book of great richness, complex situations, and endearing characters; the writing is undoubtedly more straightforward than in later works. Nevertheless, I had the impression of something not quite accomplished, of a draft genius; I could not help but imagine what the Faulkner of maturity could have done with these themes and characters.

This is the story of life, death, love, and fate. <br />This the story of tears, fears, and bloods, fleeing aimlessly from the heaviness of loss.<br />This is the story of a wounded, helpless, and dying officer returning home to his father in Georgia.<br />This is the story of soldiers’ pay. Soldiers who never came back from the Great War. Part of them died forever in the mud and dust and gas. Part of them rest forever in the Flanders flickering-out Fields, doomed to be lost forever in the smoky trenches.<br /><br /><b>Soldier’s Pay</b> is the first novel of William Faulkner and my first book from him. I have to admit that the Faulkner’s prose bewitched me.<br />Every line foreshadows a deep personal sorrow. In the beautiful rhythm of his prose, a warm breeze of the South hissingly crawls beneath the lakes and grass. <b>S</b>outh, <b>S</b>orrow, <b>S</b>ilence, <b>S</b>alvation at la<b>s</b>t.

This is an early piece from Faulkner, the first one he ever published in fact thanks to his friend Sherwood Anderson (author of the extremely influential Winesburg, OH), and one of the rare ones about the war and not taking place in his own southern middle earth, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. For fans of Metallica, it is similar to the story of One but featuring a WWI aviator who returns to his native Georgia, mute and blind. There is, naturally, a tragic love story wrapped around this return. It is not his greatest work, but one sees the unique Faulknerian style develop and bloom.<br /><br />The story is surprisingly complex and interesting and I saw a bit of what would come later in Faulkner's more mature stream of consciousness style. It was a bit shocking to see several rather banal mentions of the KKK and I felt there was some ambiguity of the race of the female protagonist because she is sometimes referred to as "black" and sometimes "black-haired" because if she was black, it wouldn't make much sense in the plot because of her multiple relations with white men. But, this was an initial novel and things are definitely less ambiguous later on in the Faulkner canon. I really enjoyed the dialogs and the evolving relationships.

The most interesting thing about this book for me is that I bought it at the house (now bookstore) where Faulkner lived while he was writing it: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://faulknerhouse.net/">http://faulknerhouse.net/</a><br /><br />That mundane fact is even more interesting to me than spotting some of the elements Faulkner would use later to much greater effect: the ticking of clocks; a section of dialogue set out as if the characters are in a play; words inside parentheses to indicate thought, including that belonging to a collective society.<br /><br />While some of its descriptive writing is beautiful, I’m not sure of the book’s point (the question of who will marry the damaged Donald isn’t compelling); and all that jumped out at me is its misogyny. (Yes, there’s a horrible male character who I think is supposed to be comic, but that doesn’t take away from the misogyny.)<br /><br />I was so frustrated by this book that I set it aside for a long while, and I’m not sure why I finished it. Oh, right, because it’s Faulkner.

Sfolgorante esordio di un grande scrittore. Stati Uniti, Georgia, 1919, i reduci della Prima Guerra Mondiale tornano a casa. Quelli fortunati. Una societa' indolente e benpensante li accoglie nuovamente. Partiti come giovani leoni, tornano indietro a pezzi, talvolta letteralmente, o nella migliore delle ipotesi, disillusi e ferocemente critici. Uno di loro, il tenente Mahon, gravemente ferito, dato inizialmente per morto, torna alla casa paterna. Una primavera colorata e profumata lo circonda, in una atmosfera tanto sensuale e disinibita quanto ipocrita e perbenista. Scrittura ricca, elaborata, non sempre semplice e lineare, ma appagante e sorprendentemente moderna a quasi un secolo di distanza.

It'd be easy to deride this, Falky's first novel, as mere prologue to later genius and dismiss it out of hand, as many seem to. Fact is, this is so much better than most first efforts or, let's face it, 90% of fiction out there today, that it hardly seems to matter that it is Falky's most juvenile work. It has all the hallmarks of his greatness (the wit, the poetics) and is actually refreshing since it doesn't feel weighted down with intense, Attican symbolism and southern woes, whether black or white. It's a simple straightforward story about a WWI veteran, horribly disfigured who comes home to Georgia to die. Oh, yes, and the people who gather about him as he dies. It's about them, too.

I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who adores powerful and poetic imagery. The plot of the story is a little bland, it's almost soap operaish, but the characters who drive the narrative are anything but your typical soap stars. They are real and engaging individuals and you find yourself amazed at how their plights tug at your heart. The skillful way in which Faulkner uses language to tell this story will impress even the least literary individual. If you are to read only one book this winter this should be it.

<br />Faulkner pretendeu fazer um retrato psicológico de um grupo de indivíduos americanos que (sobre)vivem após a IGG e esse aspeto foi bem conseguido. No entanto, esta primeira obra do escritor parece-me que tem algumas falhas na sua concepção. <br />Mahon, o soldado moribundo, Margaret , uma viúva da guerra e Gilligan , o soldado amável, conhecem-se numa viagem de comboio. É a condição física do primeiro que irá determinar o modo como as pessoas se relacionam com ele e entre si. Ainda assim, considero que Faulkner falhou no modo como coloca este trio a conviver debaixo do mesmo teto. Não me tendo convencido de todo, este aspeto perturbou desde sempre a minha adesão à história. Por outro lado, Mahon, o personagem principal desaparece do radar do leitor ao longo de muitas páginas. Se estivesse a representar , Mahon apareceria no primeiro ato para se eclipsar, sem aviso, no segundo e terceiro. Voltaria a surgir esporadicamente no ato seguinte e teria todos os holofotes virados para ele no último ato. Seria substituído por personagens que giram ao seu redor como a caprichosa e superficial Cecily, a fiel e resignada Emmy ou Jones , o <i>stalker</i> desta história. Não percebo porque teve Mahon que desaparecer por completo. <br />Gostei das descrições, em particular aquelas que marcam a passagem do tempo e as que se detêm nos vestidos da mulheres. Nelas apercebemo-nos que estamos perante um escritor talentoso. (<i>...viu Cecily delicadamente vestida num vestido prateado, frágil como vidro fundido. Tinha um leque de penas verdes e o seu corpo esguio , animado e torneado...</i> . Conseguiria desenhar um vestido festivo à anos 20 apenas com esta breve descrição. <br /><br /> O tema desta obra foi exposto magnificamente por Hemingway ou Fitzgerald . Faulkner escreveu uma obra mediana.

<i>Soldier’s Pay</i> is the title of William Faulkner’s debut novel, first published in the year 1926.<br /><br />Wounded WWI veteran Donald Mahon returns home after suffering serious wounds that left him blind and disfigured. He is accompanied by a widow and two other soldiers, whereas back home he is awaited by his closest relatives, his fiancee and a former lover, all of whom previously thought him dead. What he doesn’t know, however, is that in the meantime – while he was away – the dynamics in his hometown have radically changed.<br /><br />I loved the concept, the idea of the novel but I was disappointed by its execution. It seemed to me that the author focused more on all the secondary characters rather than on the main character. And although this was quite a straightforward story, I found the descriptions and dialogues to be confusing and obfuscated, which hindered me from enjoying it and, eventually, completely losing interest toward the end of the novel.

William Faulkner's novels have long been a serious reading gap for me, one I intended to fill as I worked my way through Time Magazine's list of the greatest 100 English-language novels published since 1923. Faulkner is represented twice on that list (<i>The Sound and the Fury</i> and <i>Light in August</i>), but of course, Faulkner comes with a reputation of being "difficult" and "intimidating." I figured it might be constructive if I just started at the beginning, with Faulkner's first novel, and work my way through his ouevre that way, so I might be better equipped to handle his meatier books.<br /><br />This raises a strategic question, however: When reading and reflecting on <i>Soldiers' Pay</i>, am I supposed to take into consideration Faulkner's future work, which I haven't read, or do I take this novel on its own terms? Going through a lot of the 1- and 2-star reviews here, it seems most people are indeed holding this book up against his later novels (and inevitably falling short), but since I cannot do that, I can only judge this one as if it were Faulkner's only work, possibly revisiting it later as I move through his catalog. And I have to say, I enjoyed it quite a bit, even with its flaws.<br /><br />(First, I should say how heartening it is that even someone widely considered to be America's greatest novelist stumbled out of the gate trying to find a unique voice and narrative style. It should give the rest of us poor schmucks hope.)<br /><br />Let's just say that Faulkner's Nobel prize was not awarded to him because of <i>Soldiers' Pay</i>, which feels like a patchwork of ideas and genres sewn together. There's a bit of Southern gothic, a pulpy love story, often tangential war commentary, and a whole lot of religious imagery all put in the blender. You can see Faulkner try stuff out in real time, seeing what works, abandoning what doesn't. A couple times he stops the narrative to go around the world he's created and see what each character is thinking, as if in stage direction. Most successfully, he also throws in parenthetical asides to tell us what a character is really thinking as he's speaking. And there's a healthy dosage of humor sprinkled in, something else I'm not sure Faulkner is known for, so that was a pleasant surprise.<br /><br />I guess my biggest gripe is that the central story (who will marry Donald Mahon, the dying soldier the entire narrative hinges upon) isn't always that compelling, and there are a couple characters whose presence is never fully explained (none more so than Januarius Jones).<br /><br />But it works. Yes, this book feels overwritten, and there's a good chance it would have been entirely lost to time if William Faulkner's name wasn't on it. But if you want to get a taste of Faulkner without having to put in the heavy work that his future novels demand, <i>Soldiers' Pay</i> may be worth your time.<br /><br />On to <i>Mosquitoes</i>!