William Faulkner (William Faulkner, 1897-1962) is one of the most important modern American novelists.He was born in a declining manor family in the south.During World War I, he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force.After being demobilized, he went to college for a year, and later worked in various jobs, and at the same time engaged in writing in his spare time.His first two novels were works influenced by the popular literary trend at that time, and they did not have too many characteristics.It was not until the third novel "Sartoris" (1929) that he formed his own unique theme and style, that is, he continued to write about "the place the size of a postage stamp in his hometown"①, and finally "created a world of his own"② .This world is his fictional Yoknapatawpha County in northern Mississippi, the center of which is the town of Jefferson.All but a few of Faulkner's later works were set in this county and the town of Jefferson.Faulkner's "Yoknapata Law Lineage" consists of fifteen novels and dozens of short stories.The main line of the book is the rise and fall of several families.There are manor families like Compson, nouveau riche like Snopes, and poor white farmers like Bundren.In addition, there are all kinds of black, Indian and white businessmen, priests, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, women and so on.According to statistics, there are a total of 600 characters with names and surnames in Faulkner's works, of which more than 100 are relatively full and complete.These novels and short stories are independent, but they are more or less connected and associated with each other.The main characters also appear throughout the books.In this set of "lineage", Faulkner portrayed the southern society of the United States for two hundred years.The social changes in the south, the ups and downs of the social status of people of all classes and strata, and the changes in the mental outlook of various types of characters can all be reflected in Faulkner's works—of course, not necessarily a very objective reflection.

①②Faulkner language, see "Faulkner Commentary Collection" p. 274. (China Social Science Press, 1980.) But Faulkner is by no means just a local writer who portrays local colors.He is more concerned about the historical burden left by the sins of the ancestors to future generations, the destruction of human nature by machinery and money civilization, the alienation of people in modern Western society, and the alienation and difficulty in communication between modern Western people. , spiritual salvation and purification issues.His works are like a scalpel stabbing at the chronic illnesses in the South—not political and economic ones, but spiritual and psychological ones.He can be said to have the courage to "see red with a bayonet" when it comes to the most sensitive and taboo issues.The painful cries in his book arouse the tremor of people's souls and touch the heartstrings that people least want to touch.What Faulkner touches are the major problems faced by every sensitive intellectual in modern western society, and people cannot live with peace of mind without solving these problems.Some people think that his works have something in common with "Bible, Old Testament", ancient Greek tragedy and Shakespeare tragedy in terms of profundity and spiritual temperament.The author himself is in a period of capitalist decline, and his book describes the spiritual anguish of the wandering children of a plantation family in the south. is common.For this reason, Faulkner is considered an important writer who embodies the "spirit of the times".

In terms of artistic expression, Faulkner is also a bold experimenter.The world under his pen is not necessarily "similar" to the reality of life.What he pursues is the "resemblance" that reflects the spiritual essence and verve.He often intentionally distorts, distorts, exaggerates and highlights certain aspects of life, so that readers can see a horrifying square page of life they are accustomed to from a specific angle and under strong light.He also reaches new depths in "digging" into the inner lives of his characters.He tried various "multi-angle" techniques to increase the layering and realism of his works.He also uses artistic means such as "chronological reversal", "contrapuntal structure" and "symbolic metaphors" to make his works kaleidoscopically complex, chaotic and fascinating at the same time.His novels appear disorganized at the beginning, but leave a strangely vivid impression after reading. "Delay" is also a technique Faulkner loves to use. This technique forces the persevering and patient readers to follow the author to participate in the labor of artistic creation, so the impression obtained when covering the book is not just the one assigned to them by the author. , to a certain extent, it is also obtained after their own personal experience.In the use of language, Faulkner also intends to break through the routine to achieve special effects.Faulkner is a writer who has made great efforts and experiments in exploring new techniques.

Although Faulkner wrote most of his important works as early as the 1930s, he was not appreciated by readers in his country, and he often had to go to Hollywood to write movie scripts to make ends meet.But the French literary circles have always attached great importance to Faulkner.In the late 1940s, American critics gradually began to pay attention to him.The 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Faulkner. Faulkner's important works, besides, are "As I Lay Dying" (1930), "August Light" (1932), "Absalom, Absalom!" "(1936), "Go, Moses" (1942) and "The Village" (1940), "The Town" (1957), "The Big House" (1959) (the above three books are collectively referred to as the "Snopes Trilogy" ")Wait.

(1929) is Faulkner's first mature work, and it is also Faulkner's most painstaking effort and his favorite work.The title of the book comes from the famous line of Macbeth in Act V, Scene 5 of Shakespeare's tragedy "Macbeth": "Life is like a dream, full of sound and commotion, but meaningless." The story of the novel takes place in the Compson family in Jefferson Township.This was a once prominent family, whose ancestors had a governor and a general.There used to be a lot of fields in the family, and there were a lot of black slaves, but now there is only a dilapidated house, and the only black servants are the old woman Dilsey and her little grandson Luster.The head of the family, Mr. Compson, died of illness in 1912.He was considered a lawyer when he was alive, but he was never seen in contact with business. He was drunk all day long, nagging and sending out some cynical empty talk, and infecting his eldest son Quentin with pessimism and disappointment.Mrs. Compson is selfish and cruel, moaning without illness, always feeling that she is being blamed and disadvantaged, but in fact she is dragging down and torturing the whole family.She never forgot the identity of Runxiu, a great master in the south, so that she became only the embodiment of a "status", without the warmth that a mother and wife should have at all.No one in the family could get love and warmth from her.The daughter Katie can be said to be the center of the whole book. Although there is no separate chapter centered on her point of view, the actions of all the characters in the book are closely related to her.Things are always reversed, and there will be prodigal children from old families who are old-fashioned, arrogant and have many rules.In the words of one foreign critic: "Too much responsibility leads to irresponsibility." Katie rushed out of the "Lady of the South" statute, over the top, and became a frivolous woman.She had a tryst with a man, became pregnant, and had to marry another man.After marriage, her husband discovered the secret and abandoned her.She had to foster her illegitimate daughter (also called Quentin) at her mother's house and go to the big city by herself.The elder brother Quentin and Katie had a very good relationship when they were children. As the last generation representative of the declining manor class, a sense of decline has always followed Quentin.The widow of this "House of Hairpin Tassels" is extremely proud, extremely sensitive, but extremely weak (both mentally and physically).He just paid too much attention to his sister's chastity, linking it with the honor of his family and even his own life and death.Katie's encounter suddenly made him lose his mental balance.Just over a month after his sister got married, he committed suicide by throwing himself into a river.For Quentin, the "future" is invisible, the "present" is a blur, and only the "past" is real and clear.Quentin also wanted to "go to hell" with his sister, because only in this way can he be isolated from the world that despises and despises them.Since this was impossible, he had to resort to the method of ending his own life, lest he see things develop in a direction he did not like.On the surface he died for his sister, but in fact he died for the family's lack of future.In the final analysis, all the misfortunes of the Compson family are the evil results of the sins committed by the ancestors of the manor.While slavery harmed black slaves, it also sowed a curse on the slave-owning class and their descendants.

Jason is Katie's older brother.He is the opposite of Quentin. With the rise of money power in the South, he has followed the trend and become a materialist. Hatred and despair sometimes make him an irrational, unrealistic vengeful and sadist.Since he has neither capital nor talent, he can only work as a boy in a grocery store.Quentin's feeling for Katie is love, but Jason's feeling for her is only hatred.Because he thought that Katie's behavior had cost him his rightful position at the bank.He hated Katie, and he also hated her illegitimate daughter Quentin, and hated Dilsey, the black maid who cared about Katie's mother and daughter.In short, he hated everything around him, and every word that came out of his mouth seemed to contain acid, which made people feel that the attack was not worth it, and it was uncomfortable for a long time to bear it.He loves nothing but money.Even his own mistress is heavily guarded, and is only regarded as an opponent in business transactions.He has no heart, takes advantage of others everywhere, but always acts like a victim.He played a series of tricks, took the alimony sent by his sister over the years as his own, and sucked the joy of revenge from it.One of the most memorable details described in the book is the part where Katie rushed back from out of town on the day of Mr. Compson's funeral and wanted to see her own daughter.The scene of Katie chasing after the carriage carrying little Quentin is very powerful, and it makes people realize that Katie is still a good woman in spite of all her unsatisfactory behaviors.In contrast, Jason's image is getting more and more disgusting.In addition, he used free entertainment coupons to tease the black boy Lester, and the scuffle (not without pornographic motives) and "education" of his niece Quentin are also wonderful details that make the character stand out more.Jason is one of the most vivid and prominent images in Faulkner's works. As a typical villain, he is vivid and full, reaching the level of classic villains (such as Iago and Lady Macbeth) in Shakespeare's works.However, Jason's exposure is done through Jason's self-expression and self-justification.This is the expression of Faulkner's profound artistic skills.Jason, like Flem Snopes in the "Snopes" trilogy, is a product of the capitalistized "New South."If Faulkner expresses his despair of the old southern system through his description of the Compson family, then, through his caricatured portrayal of Jason, Faulkner clearly expresses his desperation for the "new order" abhorrence.Faulkner said, "Jason is, to me, the embodiment of pure evil. He is, in my opinion, the most evil of all the images my imagination has produced."

Benji is Katie's little brother, and he's a born idiot.In 1928, he was thirty-three years old, but his intellectual level was only equivalent to that of a three-year-old child.He has no thinking ability, only feelings and impressions in his mind, and he can't tell the sequence of them. The past and the present all emerge in his mind together.Through his stream of consciousness, we can understand: he lost his sister's care, very sad.Now the only person in the family who cares and takes care of him is Dilsey, the black maid.Although according to the title of the book, Bengui's chapter can be said to be "a story told by an idiot", in fact Faulkner consciously conveyed a series of messages he wanted to tell readers through this messy story: family Decadent atmosphere, characters, setting....According to the critic Collins Brooks, this chapter is "a fugue-like permutation and combination of sights, sounds, smells, and actions, many of which are meaningless in themselves, but Putting it together it becomes a sort of cross-stitch pattern."

Little Quentin is Katie's illegitimate daughter who is fostered at her mother's house.Mrs. Compson's indifference and Jason's cruelty (the cruelty of a sadist) make it impossible for Quentin to stay in this house any longer.On Easter Day 1928, the Compson family found out that Quentin Jr. had taken Jason's ill-gotten gains and eloped with a tramp.This naturally aroused Jason's "fury" (the original meaning of "turmoil" in the title of the book is fury).Jason drives after Quentin Jr. to get back the money he stole, and nearly kills him after causing trouble on the train.

According to the "Gospel of Luke" in the "Bible New Testament", on the day Jesus was resurrected, Peter went to the tomb of Jesus, "I saw the linen cloth there," and the body of Jesus had disappeared.Here, on Easter Day 1928, the Compson family found that little Quentin's bedroom was empty except for some messy clothes left by her hasty escape.In the Bible, Jesus is resurrected.But in , if there are resurrected people, it is not reflected in the descendants of the Compson family.Faulkner often uses symbolism in his works, here is the "reverse" symbolism.

In the novel, it is Dilsey who opposes Jason and embodies Faulkner's positive thinking.Faulkner said: "Dilsey is one of my favorite characters, because she is brave, bold, bold, gentle, and honest. She is much braver and bolder than myself." Compassion is never It flowed from her like a drain.She is not afraid of hostility from her master and discrimination from worldly concepts, and bravely protects the weak.She was the only bright spot in the whole gloomy picture; only her kitchen was warm in the whole grave-like cold house, and she was the only stable pillar in the whole crumbling world.Her loyalty, patience, perseverance and benevolence are in contrast to the sick characters of the previous three narrators.Through her, the author eulogizes the spiritual beauty existing in simple and ordinary people.The image of Dilsey embodies Faulkner's ideal of "the resurrection of humanity".It is no accident that Faulkner places this chapter with Dilsey as the protagonist on Easter.Of course, Dilsey is not equal to Christ, but it is not unfounded to say that Faulkner intends to lead readers to make such analogies and associations.

From it, we can see Faulkner's high understanding and generalization ability of life and history.Although his works appear to be confusing and sometimes like idiotic dreams, they actually present a side of the historical changes in the American South through the disintegration and death of an old family.We can see that the old South has indeed collapsed irretrievably. Its economic foundation has long since collapsed and its remaining superstructure is crumbling.Katie's fall means the bankruptcy of the moral code of the South.Bangui has well-developed limbs, but has no ability to think. Quentin has complicated thoughts, but he has lost the ability to act.Another brother, Jason, only sees money in his eyes, and he simply abandons the old value standard.But his new, that is, the value standard of the bourgeois, in the author's pen, does it have any new and upward colors?In connection with Faulkner's other works that more explicitly condemn "Snopesism" (that is, materialism), we have every reason to believe that "The Hurricane and the Fury" not only provides a picture of a southern landowner family (extensively speaking). The picture of the disintegration of the plantation economic system, to a certain extent, also contains a critique of the capitalist value standard. In addition, it can be seen from this work that Faulkner also has a clear distinction between likes and hates, and he has his own good and evil.In his gallery of characters he scourged and mocked Jason, Mrs. Ding, Quentin Jr. and Benji, and he sings passionately about Dilsey, the lowly black maid.Those who are familiar with Faulkner agree that Dilsey is based on Aunt Caroline Barr, the black maid in Faulkner's own family.After Aunt Barr enters her old age, instead of saying that she serves Faulkner, it is better to say that Faulkner takes care of her like an elder.In 1940, my aunt died of illness at the age of 100. Faulkner gave a speech at her grave and engraved the motto "loved by her white children" on her tombstone.In 1942, Faulkner published "Go, Moses", and dedicated this book to her.If we put it in general terms, what Faulkner hates and dislikes is related to slavery and materialism, and what he loves and respects are all related to labor and nature. In terms of artistic expression, Faulkner used some special techniques in his writing, so here is a brief introduction. First of all, Faulkner adopts a multi-angle narrative method.Traditional novelists usually narrate from the perspective of "omnipotence", that is, the perspective that the writer is omnipresent and omniscient, or narrate in the tone of the protagonist in the book.Developed to Henry James and Conrad, they thought that the "omnipotent perspective" was difficult to convince readers, so they used the eyes of a character other than the protagonist in the book to observe and narrate through his (or her) words or thoughts.Faulkner went a step further, using the perspectives of several people or even a dozen people (as in "As I Lay Dying"), and let each person tell his story in this regard.This is just like after an incident occurs, journalists do not report by themselves, but interview many parties and witnesses separately, and let them speak their own knowledge into the microphone.Generally speaking, doing so will appear more believable than the reporter's own account. In the novel, Faulkner asked the three brothers, Benji, Quentin, and Jason to tell their own stories, and then used the "omnipotent angle" to tell the rest of the story with Dilsey as the main line.Fifteen years after the novel was published, Faulkner wrote two appendices to the "Pocket Faulkner Collection" edited by Malcolm Cowley, adding some supplements to the story of the Compson family (for the Chinese translation, see this book appendix).Therefore, Faulkner often tells people that he wrote the story five times.Of course, these five parts are not repeated or identical, even if there are overlaps, they are intentional.These five parts are like five pieces of glass of different colors and sizes, put together in disorder, thus forming a gorgeous pattern composed of monochromatic and multi-colored. "Part of Bangui" took place on April 7, 1928.Through him, Faulkner played up the decadent atmosphere of the Compson family.On the other hand, through the impressions in Benji's mind, it reflects the childhood of those children in the Compson family. "Quentin's part" took place on June 2, 1910. On the one hand, this part explains what Quentin saw and heard that day and his activities, and at the same time, through his thought activities, writes about Katie's sinking and Quentin's own despair. "Jason's Part" took place on April 6, 1928. This part describes the situation of the Compson family after Jason took charge, and at the same time introduces Katie's offspring—Little Quentin.As for "Dilsey's Part", it took place on April 8, 1928 (Easter), and it purely wrote about current events: Little Quentin's departure, Jiezhu's rage and pursuit, and symbolic cleansing. Religion in the black church of sin and purification.From this point of view, the timing of the appearance of the narrators in the four parts is of course disordered. Quentin, who should appear first, did not speak first, but adopted the method of "CABD", but what they said followed the normal sequence. The timing, and the connection is quite tight.No wonder the American poet and novelist Conrad Aiken praised: "This novel has a solid four-movement symphony structure, and it may be the most beautifully crafted book among all Faulkner's works. James likes to call it an unmistakable masterpiece of creative art. Intricate and seamless, this is the novelist's go-to novel—a complete textbook in its own right of creative craft...." "Stream of consciousness" is another method adopted by Faulkner.The inner activities of characters are often described in traditional realistic novels. The difference between the stream of consciousness is that: 1. They seem to flow out of the characters’ minds and are directly recorded by the author, and they are not preceded by “he thinks” or “ He thought to himself" and other leading words, second, they can jump from one thought activity to another, and they don't have to be logical or sequential; third, in addition to normal thought activities, they also include subconscious, Conscious activities of the subconscious mind.In the book, the first three chapters use one consciousness after another to narrate the story and portray the characters.Jumping from thought to thought in the narrator's mind, sometimes the writer changes the font to remind the reader, sometimes the font stays the same.But if you read carefully, the reader can still discern it, because each paragraph contains some kind of clue.In addition, there are always some reasons for the change of thoughts, such as seeing something, hearing a sentence, smelling a fragrance, and so on.According to statistics, in "Quentin's Part", such "scene transfers" happened the most, more than 200 times; in "Bengui's Part", there were also more than 100 times.Traditional realistic art generally penetrates into the inner world of characters gradually through the description of appearance (society, environment, family, living room, furniture, clothing, etc.).Faulkner and some other writers have reversed the procedure.He first provides readers with irregular and logical activities in the chaotic inner world, and then gradually leads readers through layers of fog, and finally comes to the bright and clear objective world under the sun.At this time, readers may look back and have a deeper impression and understanding of the whole picture. In the translator's opinion, the reason why Faulkner frequently expresses the stream of consciousness is that apart from the fact that he thinks that the fragments of life directly provided to the readers can be closer to reality, there is another more important reason, which is: to obey the particularity of the characterization. character needs.The narrators of the first three chapters are all mentally unsound.Benji is an idiot. If his thinking is logical and rational, it is unreal and illogical.Quentin committed suicide on June 2nd.His mental state was in a state of extreme agitation.By the last paragraph of the chapter, his thoughts had come to the proverb of a patient with a high fever.Jason is also somewhat abnormal. He is a paranoid and a sadist, not to mention having headaches.Many of Faulkner's works are not much different from traditional realistic works in terms of technique.If his other works use stream of consciousness, there are always special reasons.Such as "Village" write I. O．Snopes' affection for a cow is due to this I. O．Snopes is a semi-idiot, and if the reader is a little patient, after the initial unaccustomed, he will gradually see through these unusual mental movements a series of rather sharp and full-bodied characters.We don't necessarily know what these figures look like (we don't know what Benji looks like until we read "Dilsey's Part"), but we can get a fairly accurate grasp of their mental states.This is true of the main characters in the book, and so are some of the secondary characters.For example, Herbert Hyde only appeared in Quentin's stream of consciousness a few times, but his vulgar and shameless face has already appeared on the paper.Others, such as Mrs. Gerrard and Uncle Maury, also have quite prominent images.Even with a Negro boy like Luster, it was not easy to get his mischievous and pathetic image out of our minds after we covered up. "Mythological mode" is another technique used by Faulkner in his creation.The so-called "mythological mode" means that when creating a literary work, the story, characters, and structure are consciously paralleled with a well-known mythical story.For example, Joyce applied the mythological model of Homer's epic "The Odyssey", while Eliot applied the model of searching for the Holy Grail in the legend of King Arthur.In the book, chapters three, one, and four are titled April 6-8, 1928, and these three days happen to be from Good Friday to Easter.And June 2, 1910 in the second chapter happened to be the eighth day of Corpus Christi in that year.Thus, these four days in the history of the Compson family are all associated with the four main days of the Passion of Christ.Not only that, but from the content of each chapter, one can vaguely find parallels with the encounters of Christ recorded in the "Bible New Testament".However, just as Joyce used Odysseus's heroic deeds to contrast Stephen Dedilus's weakness and incompetence, Faulkner also wanted to use the solemnity and holiness of Christ to make the descendants of the Compson family appear more trivial, while their selfishness, The lack of love, frustration, failure, and mutual hatred also shows that "modern man" violates the teaching of "you love one another" that Christ gave to his disciples before his death. Faulkner's use of such a mythological model not only adds a layer of irony to his works, but also makes his story break through from describing the daily trivialities of a family in the south, and become a fable that explores the fate of mankind.This question is far away from the topic, so I won't repeat it here. Finally, please allow me to say a few more words about the translation of this book. In 1979, at the request of the Institute of Foreign Literature, I compiled a collection of "Faulkner's Criticism".After editing, I wrote in the preface: "There are no more articles analyzing other important works in the anthology, of course it is because of the limited space of this book, and the main reason is that basically none of Faulkner's works have been translated. Into Chinese. If readers have not read the original work, please read too many relevant comments first, so as not to be ridiculed.” At that time, I made a wish to translate at least one or two representative works of Faulkner.Following the encouragement of Shanghai Translation Publishing House, I am determined to translate this book first.The translation started in February 1980, intermittently, and a lot of other work was inserted in it. It was not until June 1982 that the "Appendix" was also translated, and part of my wish was finally fulfilled.This is a book that American critics agree is difficult to understand. Although I have consulted many kinds of review works, manuals, reference books and other books, I still feel powerless.There must be a lot of inadequacies, welcome to criticize and correct.In the process of translation, I consulted Prof. DaineI Aaron and Mr. Qian Zhongshu, and also got advice from Prof. Micbael Millgate, H. R．With the help of Prof. H. R. Stoneback and Mr. Feng Yidai.After the translation was handed over to the publishing house, the editor comrades carefully reviewed it and corrected many mistakes.For their enthusiastic help, I express my most sincere gratitude here. Li Wenjun August 6, 1983