Scan barcode
spenkevich's review
4.0
‘Man is man, enduring and immortal; enduring not because he is immortal but immortal because he endures.’
A Fable, or as I like to call it, World War Jesus, is William Faulkner’s re-telling of the Passion of Christ set in the trenches of the first World War. Winner of both the 1955 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, this book is rather opaque and obfuscating, even for Faulkner, while written in his signature, robust style of lengthy sentences constructed with dense prose and frequent use of the word ‘irascible’. Yet it is a worthwhile journey that examines humans as flawed yet enduring beings capable of war and horrors but also love and grace. This anti-war novel, inspired in part by the false armistice of 1918, delivers a testament to humanity as a reimagined Jesus demonstrates the power of one’s voice against the mechanism of power and war and how immortality as a myth or fable allows our message to live on.
‘All you can kill is man's meat. You can't kill his voice.’
Faulkner’s anti-war parable reconstructs the bones of the Easter story from the Bible and reconfigures it with a French corporal named Stefan as he and his twelve followers orders 3,000 troops to refuse to participate in a charge from the trenches. The German army, realizing it takes two sides to fight a war, also cease firing and the war grinds to a halt. While Faulkner shows the human spirit in an act of peace, he also looks at those who profit and retain power through violence, and a side-story threaded through the novel follows a young pilot escorting a German general behind Allied lines in order to meet about getting the war up and running again.
This is not Faulkner’s first foray into an Easter novel, with [b:The Sound and the Fury|10975|The Sound and the Fury|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1433089995l/10975._SY75_.jpg|1168289] full of Easter influences, but here it is much more overt and intended as a re-telling. We have Polchek, who betrays the soldier Jesus and commits suicide from guilt, two different Marys, Marthe and Marya, who figure into the story along with the pretty blatant 12 apostles in the trenches. There is an interesting angle with the General being the God figure of the novel, allowing war to occur because it is his duty. ‘It wasn’t we who invented war…It was war which created us,’ Faulkner writes, showing how the act of soldiering and having war as a vocation perpetuates war. Since war must go on we see Stefan become the martyr, with an execution between two criminals and a mysterious disappearance from his burial. In a late scene involving a tomb of the Unknown Soldier after the death of the General, we are treated to another layer of the Jesus, Son of God idea.
The General argues that humans will endure because and in spite of folly and pride, that people will make war, survive and carry on to make another. That it is the way of things. This parallels Faulkner’s own Nobel Prize speech in 1949, though in it Faulkner reveals his true beliefs that people endure because of compassion and sacrifice:
Several aspects of the Prize speech make it into the novel, which is interesting to see Faulkner comment upon it. It is also interesting to read Faulkner set outside the usual stomping grounds of Yoknapatawpha, though we do find descendants of familiar family names appear as American soldiers in the final scene of the novel.
‘War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy. ’
While not his strongest (though highly awarded), and arguably one of his more difficult to follow with the intentionally obfuscating plot, A Fable is still a fantastic read from good ole Bill Faulkner.
3.75/5
‘War is an episode, a crisis, a fever the purpose of which is to rid the body of fever. So the purpose of a war is to end the war.’
A Fable, or as I like to call it, World War Jesus, is William Faulkner’s re-telling of the Passion of Christ set in the trenches of the first World War. Winner of both the 1955 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, this book is rather opaque and obfuscating, even for Faulkner, while written in his signature, robust style of lengthy sentences constructed with dense prose and frequent use of the word ‘irascible’. Yet it is a worthwhile journey that examines humans as flawed yet enduring beings capable of war and horrors but also love and grace. This anti-war novel, inspired in part by the false armistice of 1918, delivers a testament to humanity as a reimagined Jesus demonstrates the power of one’s voice against the mechanism of power and war and how immortality as a myth or fable allows our message to live on.
‘All you can kill is man's meat. You can't kill his voice.’
Faulkner’s anti-war parable reconstructs the bones of the Easter story from the Bible and reconfigures it with a French corporal named Stefan as he and his twelve followers orders 3,000 troops to refuse to participate in a charge from the trenches. The German army, realizing it takes two sides to fight a war, also cease firing and the war grinds to a halt. While Faulkner shows the human spirit in an act of peace, he also looks at those who profit and retain power through violence, and a side-story threaded through the novel follows a young pilot escorting a German general behind Allied lines in order to meet about getting the war up and running again.
This is not Faulkner’s first foray into an Easter novel, with [b:The Sound and the Fury|10975|The Sound and the Fury|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1433089995l/10975._SY75_.jpg|1168289] full of Easter influences, but here it is much more overt and intended as a re-telling. We have Polchek, who betrays the soldier Jesus and commits suicide from guilt, two different Marys, Marthe and Marya, who figure into the story along with the pretty blatant 12 apostles in the trenches. There is an interesting angle with the General being the God figure of the novel, allowing war to occur because it is his duty. ‘It wasn’t we who invented war…It was war which created us,’ Faulkner writes, showing how the act of soldiering and having war as a vocation perpetuates war. Since war must go on we see Stefan become the martyr, with an execution between two criminals and a mysterious disappearance from his burial. In a late scene involving a tomb of the Unknown Soldier after the death of the General, we are treated to another layer of the Jesus, Son of God idea.
The General argues that humans will endure because and in spite of folly and pride, that people will make war, survive and carry on to make another. That it is the way of things. This parallels Faulkner’s own Nobel Prize speech in 1949, though in it Faulkner reveals his true beliefs that people endure because of compassion and sacrifice:
’I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. … The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.’
Several aspects of the Prize speech make it into the novel, which is interesting to see Faulkner comment upon it. It is also interesting to read Faulkner set outside the usual stomping grounds of Yoknapatawpha, though we do find descendants of familiar family names appear as American soldiers in the final scene of the novel.
‘War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy. ’
While not his strongest (though highly awarded), and arguably one of his more difficult to follow with the intentionally obfuscating plot, A Fable is still a fantastic read from good ole Bill Faulkner.
3.75/5
‘War is an episode, a crisis, a fever the purpose of which is to rid the body of fever. So the purpose of a war is to end the war.’
kathrynlillie's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
schellenbergk's review
Mixup on which book was needed for – but it’s just as well as I really was not enjoying this particular book
amber_03's review
3.0
I feel bad about giving Faulkner 3 stars, and I really liked the idea behind the book (parallels between the novel and the New Testament, the fact that stopping the war may be in the hands of soldiers rather than generals, etc.), but felt like the way the story was told was too confusing for me and it was hard to distinguish who the author was talking about at a specific moment.
snutedute's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
jdintr's review
5.0
"Who might have been in the tomb of the Unknown Soldier? And if that had been, if Christ had appeared again in 1814-15, he would have been crucified again" William Faulkner, 1956
Like war itself, A Fable is overly ambitious, unbounded, careless in places. An anti-war novel to the extreme, it re-stages Passion Week by setting it midway between the madness of Verdun (1916) and the end of World War I.
Peace has broken out throughout the front lines, and something has to be done. A full regiment of 3,000 men refused to leave their trenches on orders to make yet another feckless charge through No Man's Land. Thirteen ringleaders have been rounded up, including a foreign corporal who might be at the center of it all.
Faulkner follows the Passion Week narrative in a creative, secular way. Mary and Martha show up, as does "Magda" who claims to be the wife of the corporal. (In the true structure of fable-writing, Faulkner gives few names to the characters in AF, which can make things quite confusing when the reader gets a page and a half into a Faulknerian sentence and cannot remember who 'he' or 'they' refers to.)
Though the mutiny takes place on Monday, and the three thousand are jailed on Wednesday. Many of the known elements of Passion Week are here. There is a Last Supper of sorts, and a discourse with Pilate on a mountain overlooking the city. One of the twelve betrays the corporal, another denies even knowing him. Confusion--the desire to save good people amidst mankind's irresistible lust for war--reigns, however.
While miracles are referred to--and an extended detour introduces us to a John the Baptizer in the Mississippi Valley--this is a secular book. The corporal is a Christ figure, but he is no literal stand-in for Christ. Christians won't find much Easter to celebrate, unless you count the eternal life of the Unknown Soldier's grave in Paris.
Faulkner's prose can be intimidating--and this book isn't for the faint of heart or mind. But his ideas are vivid, heartbreaking, outrageous even. The idea that this book was written in 1955--a brief lull in the wars of America's 20th Century between the Korean War and Vietnam--is rather striking.
stjernesvarme's review
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
weyburn13's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
drewmoody321's review
2.0
Read my full review here: http://thepulitzerblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/entry-24-a-fable-by-william-faulkner-1955/
habeasopus's review
3.0
This one was tough. First the subject matter is bleak and brutal with no humor to speak of and not much in the way of human kindness or decency to lighten the cruelty and deception that runs through this whole novel. Yes there is seriously dense and impressive prose and more irony than you can truly digest, but Faulkner by this point was pretty self-indulgent and what editor was really going to rein him in?
He pretty much said to the reader, “Hey, I’m taking you for a ride. Strap in, and if you can’t keep up, I don’t care.” Half the time I had go back up five or six pages to figure out who was talking or which of 256,349 possibilities “he” was referring to. Faulkner never really known for being easy to follow or signposting his pronouns, but particularly tough in this book.
All that said it was quite powerful in a super sad way and I found myself falling into and looking for signs of the allegory.
He pretty much said to the reader, “Hey, I’m taking you for a ride. Strap in, and if you can’t keep up, I don’t care.” Half the time I had go back up five or six pages to figure out who was talking or which of 256,349 possibilities “he” was referring to. Faulkner never really known for being easy to follow or signposting his pronouns, but particularly tough in this book.
All that said it was quite powerful in a super sad way and I found myself falling into and looking for signs of the allegory.