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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Significant Contribution to American Literature, Jun 20 2002
The Unvanquished, the realistic account of the tight-knit Sartoris family's struggle to survive during the Reconstruction era in Jefferson County, MS, really made an impression on me. Their plantation burned down, and Colonel John Sartoris, the paterfamilias, absent, traveling across the nation to fight for the Confederacy in battles like Vicksburg and Antitetum, Bayard Sartoris, John's son, narrates the novel from home base in beautiful and straightforward prose which is able to convey the complexities of life and its inherent victories and routs. Bayard, externally reticent but internally quite perceptive, is a great choice to narrate the novel, as he describes the day-to-day hardships and tribulations of life at the Sartoris plantation, its idyllic antebellum existence and then ensuing Reconstruction inferno. And what I truly admired was the comic relief throughout the novel, providing breathers from the very tense action-filled dramatic passages. And no one will ever forget the matriarch Grandma Rosa or her will and sacrifice to save her family under such horrible circumstances.The Sartoris extended family, mainly the African American slaves, play a substantial part in the novel: Ringo, Bayard's closest friend and confidante, is precocious, lovable, and rambunctious, whom I found to be one of the more endearing characters in modern American literature. Looch, who abandons the Sartoris plantation after the War to "cross the River Jordan," is ambiguous and self-spoken, for Faulkner's purposes representing the African Americans' longing for freedom and a better life. Louvinia and Joby are fully imagined characters in their own right. A significant contribution to American literature, purely as historical account it has tremendous value, although I expect some scholars have objected to Faulkner's portrait of African-Americans as "better off" in the Antebellum south. I am pretty sure you can find some articles written by literary historians on the validity of Faulkner's historical interpretations contained in the Unvanquished, whether they are more fact or fiction. But regardless, The Unvanquished is an excellent read for those who want to learn a little about the civil war but don't have time to read all those massive monographs in bookstores. The Unvanquished is an excellent introduction to Faulkner, his other works like The Sound and the Fury or The Hamlet a little tough to read for Faulkner first-timers. To be honest, before I read the Unvanquished I was like, "Why in god's name is Faulkner's literary canon so highly regarded? Even to the extent of condemning the adulation as simply hype. But now, an eager convert, I have been enlightened as to why Oxford's favorite son is mentioned in the same breath as Papa and Fitzgerald. Faulkner's perennial, provincial and deeply personal mythology is essential to not only the effectiveness of the Unvanquished but also to Faulkner's entire literary canon. The nefarious Snopes, who are taken up in The Hamlet (the basis for the classic film The Long Hot Summer); the eccentric and endearing Compsons, whose kinfolk (Benjy, Quentin, and Caddy among them) will be immortalized in The Sound and the Fury; and the enigmatic Sutpens whose prior generation are profiled in Absalom, Absalom, (a novel which I am very much anticipating to read) all make appearances on Faulkner's fabulous stage in The Unvanquished. The Compson family member whom Faulkner seems interested in most (all the others make in essence "cameos") is Cousin Drusilla Compson, a tomboy who dons the gray and becomes a soldier in Colonel John Sartoris' cavalry. Uncle Buck McCaslin-he, Bayard, and Ringo will eventually form a posse to find those responsible for the novel's heinous and unforgettable crime-is also a very interesting character. The editor of the corrected text, Noel Polk, a professor of American Literature at the University of Southern Mississippi, who most recently edited a new edition of All the King's Men, deserves ample credit. Having abandoned All the King's Men initially, I am very excited about using his new edition as a new start. Polk does such good work, taking on the very arduous task of cleaning and touching up Faulkner's text and supplying very helpful notes at the end of the book as well.
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