Audio Clips

Did you originally think of the novel as part of a trilogy? (27 April 1957; 1:08)

William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.

Unidentified participant: When you write a—a series of books or two or three concerning the same characters, like The Hamlet and then a number of years later write The Town, when you finish The Hamlet, do you say yourself, "Well, I'm through with these people, there they are"? And you leave them with no intention of going on later and picking them up again, and then they become active in your mind again, and you've got to do something else with them, or did you have an idea of writing a trilogy when you started The Hamlet?

William Faulkner: That was a complete, intact idea. When I thought of Flem Snopes, I saw like a flash of lightening the whole story, from Frenchmen's Bend on through Jefferson to his death. When I began to write it, I saw that it couldn't be—I thought at first it could be done in one volume. I found out it couldn't, and when I'd written about a hundred thousand words, I knew I had to quit. Nobody would read more than that, so it would [audience laughter] have to be another volume. But the story was—was intact as soon as I thought of Flem Snopes.

Is Eula a larger-than-life character? (7 March 1957; 0:47)

Joseph Blotner: Mr. Faulkner—

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Joseph Blotner: Eula Varner seems to be the sort of character who would in some way seems almost larger than life, seems to be invested with a—a meaning that's almost symbolic. When you conceived this character, did she seem to represent, let us say, some of the best aspects of the—the Varners?

William Faulkner: Oh, you're quite right. She was larger than life, that she was—was an anachronism. She had no place there, that that little—little hamlet couldn't have held her, and when she moved on to Jefferson, that couldn't hold her either, but then that'll be in the next book, the one that'll be out next month. [audience laughter] You're quite right. She was larger than life. She was too big for this world.

What is Ike Snopes supposed to be? (8 May 1957; 1:28)

Unidentified participant: Then could I ask you what Ike Snopes is supposed to be in—in The Hamlet? What were you creating then? Is he someone like whom—like someone whom you knew or what? I—

William Faulkner: No, no. No writer is satisfied with—with the folks that God creates. He's convinced that he can do much better than that. [audience laughter] To me, Ike Snopes was simply an interesting human being with—with man's natural, normal failings, his—the baseness which man fights against, the—the honor which he hopes that he can always match. The honesty, the courage which he hopes that he can always match. And at times he fails. And then he is—he is pitiable. But he's still human, and he still believes that man can be better than he is, and that is what the writer is—is trying to do, is interested in, to—to show man as he is in conflict with his problems, with his nature, with his own heart, with his fellows, and with his environment. That's all I—in my opinion, any book or story is about. Of course it has mutations. The problems fall into the categories of money or sex or death. But the—the basic story is man in conflict with his own heart, with his fellows, or with his environment.

Are Flem Snopes and Thomas Sutpen similar characters? (27 April 1957; 1:16)

Frederick Gwynn: Sir, are you conscious of any similarity between Thomas Sutpen and Flem Snopes? They are—I don't suppose there's any comedy in Absalom anywhere, and there's a great deal, of course, in The Hamlet and The Town, but both of them are—have a grand design and are unscrupulous about getting it—and they use people.

William Faulkner: Well, only Sutpen had a grand design. Snopes's design was pretty base. He just wanted to—to get rich. He didn't care how. Sutpen wanted to get rich only incidentally. He wanted to take revenge for all the—the redneck people against the—the aristocrat who told him to go around to the back door. He wanted to show that he could establish a dynasty, too. He could make himself a king and raise a—a—a line of princes.

Frederick Gwynn: It seems as if Flem had something of the same thing in mind. He wants respectability even more than money, doesn't he?

William Faulkner: No, no, he only found out when he thought it was almost too late that he'd have to have respectability. He didn't want it until he found out he had to have it. He would have done without it if he could, [audience laughter] but he suddenly had to have it.

Is Snopesism what will prevail? (7 March 1957; 2:44)

Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, you said before that it was your belief that man would prevail. Well, in the light of this book The Hamlet and several others that we've discussed recently, what type of man do you think will prevail? What kind? A scoundrel?

William Faulkner: No, no. The scoundrel in time is seduced away by the desire to be respectable, so he's finished. There's a—what quality in man that prevails, it's—it's difficult to be specific about, but somehow man does prevail. There's always someone that will—will never stop trying to cope with Snopes, that will never stop trying to get rid of Snopes.

Unidentified participant: [ . . . ] [A sort of the lunatic fringe or something?]

William Faulkner: What?

[A remnant]?

William Faulkner: No, the—the impulse to eradicate Snopes is—is, in my opinion, so strong that it—it selects its champions when the crisis comes. When the battle comes, it always produces a Roland. It doesn't mean that they will get rid of Snopes or the impulse which produces Snopes, but always there's something in man that—that don't like Snopes and objects to Snopes and, if necessary, will step in to keep Snopes from doing some irreparable harm. There's whatever it is that—that keeps us still trying to paint the pictures, to make the music, to write the books. There's a great deal of pressure not to do that because certainly the artist has no place in—in nature, and almost no place at all in our American culture and economy, but yet people still try to write books, still try to paint pictures. They still go to a lot of trouble to—to produce the music, and a few people will always go to hear the music, which still has nothing to do with—with the number of people that will produce the Cadillac cars or the economy which will give everybody a chance to buy a Cadillac car on the installment plan or the deep freezers. That is, all that's advertised. It has to be advertised, in order to keep you [buying it,] but the books, the music, that's not advertised, yet still there're people that will pay for it and buy the pictures. It's a slow process, but yet it apparently goes on, that we will even outlast the atom and hydrogen bombs. I don't know right now how we will do it, but my bet is we will.

What do the spotted horses symbolize? (13 March 1957; 1:07)

William Faulkner: Yes, sir.

Unidentified participant: Sir, what are the spotted horses symbolic of, if anything?

William Faulkner: As spotted horses, I don't know. I—that—that may be symbolical, but as horses, that was—was—they—they symbolized the—the hope, the aspiration of—of the masculine part of society, that is capable of—of doing, of—of committing puerile folly for some gewgaw that—that has drawn him, as juxtaposed to the cold practicality of—of the women, whose spokesman Mrs. Littlejohn was when she said "Them men!" or "What fools men are!" That the man even in a society where there's a constant pressure to conform can still be taken off by the chance to buy a horse for three dollars. Which to me is a good sign, I think. I hope that man can always be [tolled] off that way, to—to buy a horse for three dollars.

Faulkner's own spotted pony. (7 March 1957; 2:35)

Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, have you ever such an auction taking place?

William Faulkner: Yes'm. I bought one of these horses once. [audience laughter] They appeared in our country. Every summer somebody would come in with another batch of them. They were western range-bred ponies, pintos. Had never had a bridle on them. Had never seen shell corn before. And they'd brought—be brought into our town and auctioned off for prices from three or four dollars up to six or seven, and I bought this one for four dollars and seventy-five cents. I was—[audience laughter] oh, I reckon ten years old. My father at that time ran a livery stable, and there was a—a big man. He was six feet and a half tall. He weighed two hundred pounds, but mentally he was about ten years old, too. And I wanted one of those horses. My father said, "Well, if you and Buster can buy one for what money you've saved, you can have it." And so we went to the auction, and we bought one for four dollars and seventy-five cents. We got it home. We were going to gentle it. We had a two-wheel cart made out of the front axle of a buggy with shafts on it, and we fooled with that [creature]. It was—was a wild animal. It was a wild beast. [audience laughter] It wasn't a domestic animal at all, and finally Buster said that it was about ready, so we had the cart in a shed. Estelle probably remembers this. We put a croaker sack over the horse's head and backed it into the cart with two niggers to—to fasten it in, to buckle traces and toggles and things, and me and Buster got in the seat, and Buster said, "All right boys, let him go." [audience laughter] And they snatched the—the sack off the horse's head, and it went across the lot. There was a big gate. The lane had turned at a sharp angle. It hung the inside wheel on the gatepost as it turned. We were down on one hub then. Then about that time, Buster caught me by the back of the neck and threw me, just like that, and then he jumped off. [audience laughter] And the cart was scattered up that lane, and we found the horse a—a mile away run into a dead-end street. All he had left on him was just the hames, the harness was gone. [audience laughter] [But] that was a [pleasant] experience. But we kept that horse and gentled him to where I finally rode him. But I loved that horse because that was my own horse. I bought that with my own money. [audience laughter]

Faulkner on dating the story. (7 March 1957; 1:02)

William Faulkner: Well, when you go to the trouble to invent a—a private domain of your own, then you're the master of time, too. [audience laughter] I have the right, I think, to shift these things around wherever it sounds best, [audience laughter] and I can move them about in time and, if necessary, change their names. This would be 1906 or '07 this happened. That is, the more you write, the more you've got to compromise with such facts as time and place, and so I've got to—to agree with Mr.Gwynn and establish this somewhere in time, so it's about 1907. [audience laughter]