A Fable

Last updated
A Fable
Fable.jpg
First edition cover
Author William Faulkner
Cover artistRiki Levinson [1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Published1954 (Random House)
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Preceded by Requiem for a Nun  
Followed by The Town  

A Fable is a 1954 novel written by the American author William Faulkner. He spent more than a decade and tremendous effort on it, and aspired for it to be "the best work of my life and maybe of my time". [2] It won the Pulitzer Prize [3] and the National Book Award. [4] Historically, it can be seen as a precursor to Joseph Heller's Catch-22 .

Contents

Synopsis

The book takes place in France during World War I and stretches through the course of one week in 1918. Corporal Stefan, who represents the reincarnation of Jesus, orders 3,000 troops to disobey orders to attack in the brutally repetitive trench warfare. In return, the Germans do not attack, and the war stops when soldiers realize that it takes two sides to fight a war. The Generalissimo, who represents leaders who use war to gain power, invites his German counterpart to discuss how to restart the war. He then arrests and executes Stefan. Before Stefan's execution, the Generalissimo tries to convince the corporal that war can never be stopped because it is the essence of human nature.

Following the execution of the Corporal, his body is returned to his wife and his sisters, and he is buried in Vienne-la-pucelle. However, after the conflict has resumed, the Corporal's grave is destroyed in a barrage of artillery. The spirit of the Corporal has transferred to a British message runner, who eventually confronts the old Generalissimo.

Critical analysis

In his contemporary review of A Fable, Philip Blair Rice noted that the novel returned Faulkner in subject matter to the one general subject that engaged him besides Mississippi: the First World War. [5] Dayton Kohler, in his contemporary analysis of the novel, discusses an approach to the novel through myth. [6] Ernest Sandeen has elaborated in detail on the parallels between the corporal and Jesus Christ. [7] Julian Smith has noted similarities between A Fable and Humphrey Cobb's novel Paths of Glory . [8] Frank Turaj has examined opposing images and themes in terms of the dialectic in the novel. [9] Thomas E Connolly has discussed the relationship of the three main plots of the novel to each other. [10]

Richard H. King has interpreted A Fable as the one major attempt by Faulkner to depict political action in his novels, and has characterized the novel as "Faulkner's failed political novel". [11] Robert W Hutten noted Faulkner's reworking of material originally from the story "Notes on a Horse Thief" into A Fable. [12] William J Sowder has analyzed in detail the character of the Generalissimo. [13]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Erdrich</span> American author (born 1954)

Karen Louise Erdrich is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize</span> Award for achievements in journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States

The Pulitzer Prize is an award administered by Columbia University for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher. Prizes are awarded annually in twenty-two categories. In twenty one of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Faulkner</span> American writer (1897–1962)

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life. A Nobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and often is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Fiction</span> American award for distinguished novels

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Roth</span> American novelist (1933–2018)

Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "sensual, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of American identity. He first gained attention with the 1959 short story collection Goodbye, Columbus, which won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Ten years later, he published the bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's literary alter ego, narrates several of his books. A fictionalized Philip Roth narrates some of his others, such as the alternate history The Plot Against America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Ford</span> American author

Richard Ford is an American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank With You, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories. Ford received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996 for Independence Day. Ford's novel Wildlife was adapted into a 2018 film of the same name. He won the 2018 Park Kyong-ni Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American literature</span> Literature written or related to the United States

American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yoknapatawpha County</span> Fictional Mississippi county created by William Faulkner

Yoknapatawpha County is a fictional Mississippi county created by the American author William Faulkner, largely based upon and inspired by Lafayette County, Mississippi, and its county seat of Oxford. Faulkner often referred to Yoknapatawpha County as "my apocryphal county".

<i>As I Lay Dying</i> Novel by William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying is a 1930 Southern Gothic novel by American author William Faulkner. Faulkner's fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th-century literature. The title is derived from William Marris's 1925 translation of Homer's Odyssey, referencing the similar themes of both works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles R. Johnson</span> American writer

Charles Richard Johnson is a scholar and the author of novels, short stories, screen-and-teleplays, and essays, most often with a philosophical orientation. Johnson has directly addressed the issues of black life in America in novels such as Dreamer and Middle Passage. Johnson was born in 1948 in Evanston, Illinois, and spent most of his career at the University of Washington in Seattle.

<i>Intruder in the Dust</i>

Intruder in the Dust is a 1948 crime novel written by American author William Faulkner. Taking place in Mississippi, it revolves around an African American farmer accused of murdering a Caucasian man.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rowan Oak</span> Historic house in Mississippi, United States

Rowan Oak was the home of author William Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi. It is a primitive Greek Revival house built in the 1840s by Colonel Robert Sheegog, an Irish immigrant planter from Tennessee. Faulkner purchased the house when it was in disrepair in 1930 and did many of the renovations himself. Other renovations were done in the 1950s. One of its more famous features is the outline of Faulkner's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel A Fable, penciled in graphite and red on the plaster walls of his office. It is now owned and operated by the University of Mississippi as a museum, and is open to visitors year-round.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rabih Alameddine</span> American painter and writer

Rabih Alameddine is an American painter and writer. His 2021 novel The Wrong End of the Telescope won the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Yarbrough (writer)</span> American author and academic

Steve Yarbrough is an American author and academic, who teaches at Emerson College.

<i>The Hamlet</i> William Faulkners first part of the Snopes trilogy

The Hamlet is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, published in 1940, about the fictional Snopes family of Mississippi. Originally a standalone novel, it was later followed by The Town (1957) and The Mansion (1959), forming the Snopes trilogy.

Milton Lott was an author of western novels. He grew up in the Snake River Valley, in Idaho and attended University of California, Berkeley. While there he started writing his first published novel, The Last Hunt. He worked on the novel while attending an English class taught by George R. Stewart, himself a well published author. Lott received a citation from the National Institute of Letters and Arts for The Last Hunt, and was granted a Literacy Fellowship Award by Houghton Mifflin to finish the book. The Last Hunt was selected by the Pulitzer fiction jury for the 1955 Pulitzer Prize, but John Hohenberg convinced the Pulitzer board that William Faulkner was long overdue for the award, despite his submitted novel A Fable being a lesser work of his, and the board overrode the jury's selection, much to the disgust of its members. The Last Hunt was made into a 1957 movie.

<i>The Floating Opera</i> Novel by John Barth

The Floating Opera is a novel by American writer John Barth, first published in 1956 and significantly revised in 1967. Barth's first published work, the existentialist and nihilist story is a first-person account of a day when protagonist Todd Andrews contemplates suicide.

Popeye is a character in William Faulkner's 1931 novel Sanctuary. He is a Memphis, Tennessee-based criminal who rapes Temple Drake and introduces her into a criminal world which corrupts her.

Kingsley Widmer (1925–2009) was an American literary critic.

References

  1. Modern first editions - a set on Flickr
  2. Blotner, Joseph, Faulkner: A Biography (one volume edition). University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, Mississippi, USA), ISBN   1-57806-732-4, p 576 (2005).
  3. 1 2 "Fiction". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  4. 1 2 "National Book Awards – 1955". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-31. (With acceptance speech by Faulkner and essays by Neil Baldwin and Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 50- and 60-year anniversary publications.)
  5. Rice, Philip Blair (Autumn 1954). "Review: Faulkner's Crucifixion". The Kenyon Review. 16 (4): 661–664, 666–670. JSTOR   4333535.
  6. Kohler, Dayton (May 1955). "A Fable: The Novel as Myth". The English Journal. 44 (5): 253–260. doi:10.2307/809492. JSTOR   809492.
  7. Sandeen, Ernest (January 1956). "William Faulkner: His Legend and His Fable". The Review of Politics. 18 (1): 47–68. doi:10.1017/s0034670500023573. JSTOR   1404940.
  8. Smith, Julian (November 1968). "A Source for Faulkner's A Fable". American Literature. 40 (3): 394–397. JSTOR   2923777.
  9. Turaj, Frank (Spring 1966). "The Dialectic in Faulkner's A Fable". Texas Studies in Literature and Language. 8 (1): 93–102. JSTOR   40753888.
  10. Connolly, Thomas E (July 1960). "The Three Plots of A Fable". Twentieth Century Literature. 6 (2): 70–75. doi:10.2307/440699. JSTOR   440699.
  11. King, Richard H (Spring 1985). "A Fable: Faulkner's Political Novel?". The Southern Literary Journal. 17 (2): 3–17. JSTOR   20077762.
  12. Hutten, Robert W (May 1973). "A Major Revision in Faulkner's A Fable". American Literature. 45 (2): 297–299. doi:10.2307/2924456. JSTOR   2924456.
  13. Sowder, William J (Spring–Summer 1963). "Faulkner and Existentialism: A Note on the Generalissimo". Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature. 4 (2): 163–171. doi:10.2307/1207153. JSTOR   1207153.
Awards
Preceded by National Book Award for Fiction
1955
Succeeded by