William Faulkner, página 3 de 14

&ldquoYou cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.&rdquo &mdashWilliam Faulkner These short works offer three different approaches to Faulkner, each representative of his work as a whole. Spotted Horses is a hilarious account of a horse auction, and pits the &ldquocold practicality&rdquo of women against the boyish folly of men. Old Man is something of an adventure story. When a flood ravages the countryside of the lower Mississippi, a convict finds himself adrift with a pregnant woman. And The Bear, perhaps his best known shorter work, is the story of a boy&rsquos coming to terms wit the adult world. By learning how to hunt, the boy is taught the real meaning of pride, humility, and courage.

The years 1942 to 1954 saw William Faulkner''s rise to literary celebrity - sought after by Hollywood, lionized by the critics, awarded a Nobel Prize in 1950 and the Pulitzer and National Book Award for 1954. But despite his success, he was plagued by depression and alcohol and haunted by a sense that he had more to achieve - and a finite amount of time and energy to achieve it. This volume - the third in The Library of America''s new, authoritative edition of Faulkner''s complete works - collects the novels written during this crucial and fascinating period in his career. The newly restored texts, based on Faulkner''s manuscripts, typescripts, and proof sheets, are free of the changes introduced by the original editors and are faithful to the author''s intentions. In the four works included here, Faulkner delved deeper into themes of race and religion, and furthered his experiments with fictional structure and narrative voice; defying the odds, he continued to break new ground in American fiction. Go Down, Moses (1942) is a haunting novel made up of seven related stories that explore the intertwined lives of black, white, and Indian inhabitants of Yoknapatawpha County. It includes "The Bear", one of the most famous works in all American fiction, with its evocation of "the wilderness, the big woods, bigger and older than any recorded document". Characters from Go Down, Moses reappear in Intruder in the Dust (1948). Part detective novel, part morality tale, it is a compassionate story of a black man on trial and the growing moral awareness of a southern white boy. Requiem for a Nun (1951) is a sequel to Sanctuary. With an unusual structure combining novel and play, it tells the fate of thepassionate, haunted Temple Drake and the murder case through which she achieves a tortured redemption. Prose interludes condense millennia of local history into a swirling counterpoint. In A Fable (1954), Faulkner''s recasting of the Christ story set during World War I, he wanted, he said, "to try to tell what I had found in my lifetime of truth in some important way before I had to put the pen down and die". The novel, which earned a Pulitzer Prize, is both an anguished spiritual parable and a drama of mutiny, betrayal, and violence in the barracks and on the battlefields. The librar

«Si la noche antes de tu cumpleaños te acuestas con el pie izquierdo y le das la vuelta a la almohada antes de dormirte, puede suceder cualquier cosa…» Eso fue exactamente lo que hizo Dulcie y cuando despertó el día de su cumpleaños, Maurice, un extraño chico pelirrojo, estaba al pie de su cama. Con él, Alice, su hermano Dicky y George emprenden un fantástico viaje en busca del árbol de los deseos. Cuando lo encuentran, sus deseos comienzan a cumplirse. Pero ¿qué ocurre cuando nuestros deseos son egoístas?

Un viaggio folle su un barroccio sgangherato, tra inondazioni e fienili in fiamme, sotto i cerchi sempre piu fitti degli avvoltoi che accompagnano speranzosi il grottesco funerale di Addie Bundren. Attorno alla bara, spinti dai segreti piu diversi, ingobbiti nei loro destini indicibili, il marito, la figlia e i quattro nipoti. Faulkner scrive questo suo quinto romanzo in sei settimane: e l''estate del 1929, ha trentadue anni, lavora di notte come operaio in una centrale elettrica e ha appena pubblicato "L''urlo e il furore". "Mentre morivo" ne rappresenta l''evoluzione tecnica, dove le voci monologanti si moltiplicano in una successione a spirale, fondendosi poi in una rara armonia di dissonanze.

Due storie narrate a capitoli alterni che mai s''intersecano: quella di due amanti che fuggono dalla societa per chiudersi nel loro rapporto esclusivo e che nel tentativo d''interrompere una gravidanza finiscono con l''autodistruggersi; e quella del detenuto che durante la grande inondazione del Mississippi viene mandato in cerca di una partoriente aggrappata a un albero semisommerso, la trova, fa nascere il bambino, porta entrambi in salvo e poi rientra nella monastica societa del penitenziario.

Nel gennaio del 1937, recensendo "Assalonne, Assalonne!" Borges scriveva: "Conosco due tipi di scrittore: l''uomo la cui prima occupazione sono i procedimenti verbali, e l''uomo la cui prima preoccupazione sono le passioni e le fatiche dell''uomo. Di solito si denigra il primo tacciandolo di "bizantinismo" o lo si esalta defininendolo "artista puro". L''altro, piu fortunato riceve gli epiteti elogiativi di "profondo", "umano", "profondamente umano" o il lusinghiero vituperio di "barbaro". Tra i grandi romanzieri Joseph Conrad e stato forse l''ultimo cui interessavano in egual misura le tecniche del romanzo e il carattere dei personaggi. A Faulkner piace esporre il romanzo attraverso i personaggi".

La historia de la familia Sutpen, antes de la Guerra de Secesión, durante ella y después de ella en el imaginario condado de Yoknapatawpha, en Mississippi. La historia es narrada por cuatro personajes, directa e indirectamente relacionados con los Sutpen