Go Down, Moses

Faulkner's novels are designed to be read twice. You don't know what you're reading early on. I mean, you usually think you do (there are exceptions!), but it's not until the end that the significance of the beginning, and everything it was doing, comes into place. I'm not yet reading his novels twice. 🙂 But I've been tempted a few times, and this one really left me feeling that need to.

The first surprise for me was that it's not really a novel. This is a collection of linked short stories. One, the longest, I've heard talked about a lot. This is The Bear, one of Faulkner's better known short stories. It's in here and it's the longest short story I have ever read. Not because of the page count, or the pace, but because it keeps show more switching what it's doing. It's a novel-long - a coming-of-age story becomes a kind of backhanded naturalist writing as our character slowly becomes one of the last truly expert woodsmen in the Mississippi delta. But this story becomes a ranting reflection on the south and race (not a comfortable reflection, especially from today's perspective). And this becomes a reflection of the disappearing woods and the vastly expanding human economic footprint - farming, logging etc.

But I didn't know that. What I knew coming in was that this was the story of a mixed-race black man trying to maintain his finances and dignity in this very racist south. This is Lucas Buchannon, the last male descendent of the 1st white farm owner of the farm he always lived on, and always worked on, but doesn't own. The farm inheritance went through the white lineage, through the wives' descendants. "through the distaff", as Faulkner, or his narrator, puts it. Lucas holds a literary weight our woodsman (named Ike McCaslin, also mixed race, but considered white) cannot hold. But his literary purpose is not simply himself, and maybe not himself at all. Faulkner is doing a lot with his own sort of pully system.

This was a rough read. Many times I felt completely lost. Who was talking? What were they saying? Do I need to care? Will they ever find a period? Ever? What does it mean if you start your paragraph with a lower-case letter, and mid-sentence? Especially if I didn't understand the previous paragraph.

But cumulatively this book is truly something. It worked on this reader. I would like to reread it.

2025
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Set in the Yoknapatowpha County, these seven stories mainly deal with the McCaslin family. I like how in so far every Faulkner novel I've read he focuses on an entire family, each fucked up in their own special way. The scandal in the McCaslins comes from Lucius Quintus Carothers McCaslin (the patriarch) who has illegitimate interracial children with his slaves and then knocks up his daughter. As a result, this novel deals heavily with questions of blood and race. Though Lucas is a more direct descendent of Lucius than the Edmonds he is kept down because of his race. Then there's Uncle Ike who should have inherited the plantation but gives it up to his cousin. Most of the stories focus on Isaac, especially "The Bear," which is the real show more heart and soul of this novel. Isaac searches to learn humility and pride through hunting, but learns a lot more. He is against the belief that man owns the land- 'on that instant when Ikkemotubbe realized that he could sell the land to Grandfather, it ceased to have been his." The white man's false notion of ownership causes nothing but problems and is kind of like a curse ie. how man ruined the seemingly perfect South with slavery and environmental destruction. And this is why Faulkner is so great- he really picks up on the paradox of this beautiful but cursed land. It's more than just some kind of supernatural curse though, but one that is a direct result of people's greedy and problematic behaviour. When will the curse every be lifted? Of course this curse transcends the South, which is why I like the title. It comes from the last story, when Mollie's grandson is killed and she laments that he was sold by the Pharaoh and is dead in Egypt. Connecting the Africans in America with the Jews in Egypt shows how far back in the past these issues of power and oppression have been affecting all parts of the Earth.

I like the use of the stories to give multiple perspectives from multiple points of time. It started off a little confusing because Faulkner just jumps into it, but once you start to know the McCaslins it clears up! I liked jumping through the generations of the family because you really feel how the past influences the future. The best two stories were the longer ones: "The Fire and the Hearth" because Lucas is a great character and kind of a badass and obviously "The Bear" for so many reasons. Much more than just a hunting story, thank God, though old Ben is a great opponent. Faulkner's writing here is just as great as usual- oh those lovely, hypnotic, winding sentences! show less

I would not presume to “review” William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses. What follow are merely impressions that remain upon having read the book, which some professional reviewers have deemed the best book that Faulkner wrote. I myself found it challenging to read for two reasons, only one of which relates to the author's writing style. More on this thought in a bit.

First, though, I hesitate to describe Go Down, Moses as a novel. As is well known, the chapters in the book originally appeared as separate short stories, all related more or less by theme and generally by characters. So is the book a novel or an anthology? Not that the definition is particularly significant, but it does affect a reader's perception of the book's show more structure.

Now then as to my reasons for describing the book as “challenging” to read, the first is simply my personal reaction to the characters and their culture. Faulkner does a marvelous job of molding readers' perceptions of a culture in which a single drop of Black blood makes a person, regardless of appearance or erudition a [insert what we now call the “n-word” here]. The reader follows two lines of descent from the same white male progenitor, but that progenitor begins those lines of descendants through two different females, one Black and the other white. The descendants know their relationship to one another, but “blood” determines which is superior.

However, Faulkner is not through muddying the waters, for another consideration complicates relationships. The otherwise superior white line descends through a maternal line while the Black traces its ancestry through its paternity—and paternity is far more significant than maternity. The characters, to say the least, are conflicted, and I find both causes, race and paternity, to be equally disgusting to 21st century sensibilities.

Also repulsive is the mark by which a youth is felt to become an adult in Faulkner's portrayal of the culture. The child must kill. And not just rabbits and squirrels, which are only practice for a young male human. He must slaughter a deer, and his passage into adulthood noted by having his face marked with the hot blood of the animal. Fortunately, in a chronologically later story, we do see that the deep woods and its creatures are retreating ever farther from human civilization and are less readily accessible to ritual sacrifice (though the retreat of the wilderness certainly has negative connotations as well).

Faulkner has tackled three large themes here: culturally-induced effects of miscegenation, perceived superiority of paternity over maternity, and change wrought by time. These themes are skillfully developed, yet the nature of the characters and the repulsive nature of what intelligent people now view as unacceptable racial and sexual prejudice and the ritual slaughter of wild creatures make the stories hard to read; one feels sullied by having been in the presence of such people—even vicariously.

My second reason for finding Go Down, Moses challenging to read is Faulkner's tendency to use what appears to be a sort of stream-of-consciousness writing style, which is to say that some of his word constructions defy definition as sentences and go on interminably. For example, pages 271 and 272 contain a word string of over 600 words without encountering a single period or paragraph break. After reading this morass three times, I still cannot condense it into anything meaningful. Another word string on pages 306 and 307 is almost as bad. Thankfully, not every story/chapter contains such obtuse verbiage, both cited examples occurring in “The Bear.”

Go Down, Moses paints a gory picture of the culture that characterized the U.S. “South” from the 19th well into the 20th century. The reader comes away with a pretty clear understanding of some revolting aspects of that culture, so in that sense the book is a total success. Still, just reading of such an environment leaves one feeling the need of a cleansing shower. I'll end these ruminations with the admonition that those who wish to consider themselves decently well read in American literature should read the book but with the warning that the act of reading may prove challenging and uncomfortable. (And I do wish that publishers would insert a family tree in the book so that we could keep the characters straight.) show less

When I'm away from Faulkner's works, I always think of them as "hard", "confusing", "over-the-top". You know, that sort of thing that only intellectuals read and pretend to understand and enjoy. But when I start to read them...

The first chapter is mysterious and deliberately obscure. The reader is placed in the middle of some strange goings-on and must try to decipher both the characters and their convoluted family relationshiips, and the elusive plotline.

But keep reading. No matter how much you feel like you're lost in some maze, or hurtling down the hill acquiring more and more mass like that mythical snowball from your youth, just keep on reading. The prose, which seems at first glance to be so complex and without identifiable form show more as to be impenetrable, will soon charm you and draw you into ints web; you'll forget all about grammar constructs as you tumble over ideas, people, and events.

This is a sad, sad story of men's pride, women's degradation, the corrupting abuse of power, and the equally corrupting influence of having no power when one man can be considered to "own" another. It's a moving exposition of the American South, worth reading either to better understand both black and white culture in that South, or simply to be carried off into another world by some astounding prose. show less

I'm sort of surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I expected it to be a struggle, like Little Women was -- which I gave up on and decided I honestly just don't care how those women turned out. This one I enjoyed.

I'm listing it as "History" because I think recently we've been trying to rewrite history ... "It wasn't THAT BAD! People are making more of the Civil War and slavery than it was!" ... and this book almost beats you about the face with the true reality of the time. Part of me wants to keep it for that reason. I can also foresee books like these -- that liberally use the "N-word" -- being collected and burned in order to better control what we remember about the past.

I think I will keep it.
Adrianne

Some beautiful and truly touching stories, and certainly some of Faulkner's best. Oddly enough, The Bear, which is often mentioned as Faulkner's best story, fell dead and completely flat after Ike's beautifully described encounter with Old Ben and the monstrous dog Lion, when the story becomes a tedious (and probably academically interesting) chronical of the family's next few decades, which moves more or less like notations in a wage book. This is historically intriguing, since apparently the ledger was copied almost word for word from an actually post-Civil War document. Still, THE BEAR is probably the biggest let down I've ever read, since the first 20 pages are among the best I've read anywhere. Thematically, the story's conclusion show more makes sense, since it deals with greed, land, bloodlines and family, but it just did not have the narrative thrust of the earlier sections.

Faulkner at his best makes you feel and understand and entire world, working in the background. His greatest stories grab you by the throat and never let go.

Faulkner at his worst becomes a sort of confusing historical chronicler, devoid of emotion or even tangible scenes.

Still,The Fire and the Hearth is brilliant (10/10), Pantaloon in Black is a truly weirdo depiction of mythbuilding and racial oppression (9/10), and the other pieces are all great in their own ways (WAS is a hilarious and disturbing story of race, love and a poker game).

Greatly recommended. show less

Go Down, Moses marks the end of William Faulkner's period of greatest creativity. The themes he addresses in this novel built out of interconnected stories connect with and overlap those addressed in other of his works of this period, notably The Hamlet. Throughout the book the presence of time - past, present and future - is connected by the blood; the bloodlines of the family.

"to the boy those old times would cease to be old times and would become a part of the boy's present, not only as if they had happened yesterday but as if they were still happening," (p. 165)

The blood of the fathers, their 'curse', becomes one of the themes in the first three stories: Was, The Fire and the Hearth, and Pantaloon in Black.

"Then one day the old show more curse of his fathers, the old haughty ancestral pride based not on any value but on an accident of geography, stemmed not from courage and honor but from wrong and shame, descended to him." (p. 107)

The relations between the races and the nature of the family are presented here by Faulkner. The hearth suggests connections with the Anglo-Irish culture from which the McCaslins originated. After all the McCaslin's heritage is one of tension and guilt. The initiation of the young into this culture is presented in The Old People when Ike becomes a man, and is repeated in The Bear. There is also the theme of man versus nature through the contrast of the natural man with the social man of civilization. I sensed resonance with a Rousseau-like view of the world in the emphasis on getting away from civilization in The Bear. This can also be read in the tradition of Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Ultimately, we see in Go Down, Moses Faulkner's mythic world of Yoknapatawpha County once more with its people, their land, and their ghosts. How they relate to our world today is up to the reader to decide. show less