William Faulkner (1897

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"Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech" — December 10, 1950

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Biography

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. Winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature, often considered the greatest writer of Southern literature and regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.

Timeline

The story of William Faulkner, told in moments.

1897 Birth

Born William Cuthbert Falkner in New Albany, Mississippi. His great-grandfather was a Civil War colonel, railroad builder, and novelist. The family moves to Oxford, Mississippi, when he's five. He'll set almost everything he writes there.

Did your great-grandfather the colonel, railroad builder, and novelist cast too long a shadow? Was Oxford, Mississippi, always going to be your entire world? Did the Civil War legacy shape everything you wrote?

1918 Life

Rejected by the U.S. Army for being too short (5 foot 5). He joins the Royal Air Force in Canada, faking a British accent and adding a "u" to his last name. The war ends before he finishes training. He returns to Oxford, never having flown in combat, and keeps the "u."

Why fake a British accent to join the RAF? Was adding the 'u' to Falkner vanity or reinvention? Did missing combat leave you with something to prove?

1929 Event

Publishes The Sound and the Fury. Four narrators. One is a person with an intellectual disability. One is suicidal. The timeline jumps across three decades. His publisher expects it to sell about 3,000 copies. It does.

How do you write four narrators, one of whom has an intellectual disability, and make it cohere? Did selling 3,000 copies feel like failure? Was The Sound and the Fury written for yourself or for readers?

1936 Event

Takes a screenwriting job in Hollywood out of desperation. He works on scripts for Howard Hawks, contributes to The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. He hates Los Angeles. He drinks heavily. He keeps flying back to Oxford between drafts.

Was Hollywood purgatory or just a paycheck? Did hating Los Angeles make you a better writer or a harder drinker? What was it like contributing to The Big Sleep?

1949 Event

Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. He almost doesn't go to Stockholm. His daughter convinces him. His acceptance speech, delivered in a barely audible voice, declares: "I decline to accept the end of man." He donates the prize money to establish a scholarship fund in Oxford.

Did your daughter literally save the Nobel Prize by convincing you to go? Was 'I decline to accept the end of man' what you always believed? Why donate the prize money to a scholarship in Oxford?

1962 Death

Dies of a heart attack in Byhalia, Mississippi. He's 64. He'd fallen from a horse weeks earlier and was self-medicating with bourbon and painkillers. He left behind 19 novels and over 100 short stories, nearly all set in his invented Yoknapatawpha County.

Was the bourbon self-medication or self-destruction? Does Yoknapatawpha County contain everything you needed to say? Would nineteen novels have been enough without the short stories?

In Their Own Words (20)

Well, between Scotch and nothin', I suppose I'd take Scotch. It's the nearest thing to good moonshine I can find.

As quoted in the National Observer (February 3, 1964), 1964

Why that's a hundred miles away. That's a long way to go just to eat.

On declining invitation to White House dinner honoring Nobel laureates, as quoted in Life magazine (January 20, 1962), 1962

There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need'''.

As quoted in Elliot Chaze, "Visit to Two-Finger Typist", LIFE magazine (July 14, 1961), 1961

Be scared. You can't help that. But don't be afraid. Ain't nothing in the woods going to hurt you unless you corner it, or it smells that you are afraid. A bear or a deer, too, has got to be scared of a coward the same as a brave man has got to be.

"The Bear" in The Saturday Evening Post (May 9, 1942), 1942

You are my brother.No I'm not. I'm the nigger that's going to sleep with your sister. Unless you stop me, Henry.

Chapter 8 (dialogue between Henry Sutpen and Charles Bon), 1936