Besides the language, with its echoes of old-fashioned Southern oratory and sermons, Absalom showed me Faulkner's riveting descriptive power, as in his portrayal of Rosa Coldfield, the spinster 'who has been sitting 43 years in outrage. Her feet don't touch the floor. Rosa isn't someone you quickly forget. And his own vast interrelated novels comprise his human comedy. Not only do we continue to read his books, we read him through the authors he influenced, including Toni Morrison, Jorge Luis Borges, William Styron, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Cormac McCarthy, and Scott Momaday.
Writers pass in and out of fashion.
But Faulkner is as close to a timeless writer as America has produced. During spring semester, Matthews will teach a course in Faulkner's novels to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.