The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1951-12-18


Novelist William aulkner is ;
great mani ulator of English
prose and any criticism Of either
his style or the reality and force.
/ fuiness of his characters is trying
10 carve your Initials with pr
on stone statue of George
WASHINGTON.
But this reviewer in order tc
survive to review again had to
hurry on to an edition OF New
/ Yorker, a radio shot of Tanulah
Bankhead. and a contemplation
Of the Dadaist philosophy which
purportedly recognizes how fun
nv is the madhouse Of humanity.
These were survival measures
and it seems the characters in
/ the book would have been a
happier lot il they had tried
1 them.
! While maPnificently portray
ed. the characters leave behind
them none of the noble uplift of
the figures moving in the ira
gedies OF ancient Greece. Simply,
the plot shows a Neero prosti-
tute, Nancy, hired as nursemaid,
SmotherIng baby to save it
from its mother. The mother is
white woman with inherently,
if not in performance, the same
inclinations as the Ne ~ess. The
book delves into the Pc of these
two women, and of two men
who are involved in the life of
the white woman. and more in
directly in Nancy's.
Faulkner tells his stark humor-
less story in combined dra-
matte and novel form. The first
forty eight pages is a bulk of
semi-eoloned narrative prose
telling the history of the court
house of the town in Mississi pi
where the trial of the Negress
for child murder is to take place
An iron lock is highlighted in
the chronicle as well as certain
Chickasaw Indians and frontier
characters who emerge in the
towns beginnings. There is in
the descriptions, all the melan-
choly and sic transit gloria mum
di of humanity as it passes, and
the inanimate things which re-
main.
The book then turns to the
dramatic form. The trial of the
Negroes and other scenes show
ing the white woman, Temple
Drake Stevens, in relation to her
husband, the defense attorney,
and the governor of the state,
are described in play dialogue
interlarded with parenthetical
statements stimulating stage d.
rections. This form is continued
excepting for two more hulks of
narrative prose on the past of
the golden dome of the state
house in Jackson. and the jail
in the smaller town of Jefferson
where Nancy, the murderess
is kept awaiting her execution.
And frankly, youth have to
ask Mr.. Faulkner about his title,
Requiem for a Nun"
(Best American Short Stories,
1851, edited by Martha Foley,
Houghton Mifflin Publishing
Company. Boston, Collection of
Short Stories. 1853 pages.)
Sometimes a critics OBJECTIVE
ty is put TO a strain. One of the
reviewers stories, which appear
ed first in the Quarterly Review
of Literature, is honorably men
toned in the back of this vo-
hume, but it wasn't one of the
twenty eight published in the
book itself
That means the reviewer gave
sS ardent a stpdys e. her own
rfasAr spelled wrong 1nfartun-
4asel SsSisfsssfheSssthlee haIfzcolg lynn
lines devoted to her in the back
Of the book as she did to any of
the stories in the text itself. And
she also gloated delightedly that
such names as Kay Boyle, James
Farrell, William Faulkner. Mar
tina Gellhorn, John Hersey, Car
son McCullerS, William Saroyan.
Wilbur Daniel Steele, Jesse Stu
art James Thurber and Mark
Van Doren were on the same list
of those honorably mentioned.
And having an eye to putting her
best literary foot forward it is
sacrifice on the altar of honest
reviewing to add that some one
hundred other m d era tie Y
known or unknown writers were
also tossed an honorable men
ton. and are also gloating over
their own names in the attics and
fringes of American life.
So this reviewer looks upon
all twenty eight of the stories
actually published in the book
! with a iaundiced eye, adding
mentally the fine line in Editor
Martha Foley's discrimination
which lies between those in the
/ front and those in the back
Some Of the stories printed in