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A review by spenkevich
The Wild Palms by William Faulkner
3.0
'Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.'
So check it out, this book includes an escaped convict having to wrestle an alligator to survive. Which is pretty wild. The Wild Palms however, is not a reference to his hands choking out that alligator but a psalm from which the novel took it's original title If I forget thee, Jerusalem. The psalm, which reads 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy' is about the Jewish people exiled to Babylon and having to process their freedom, or lack of it. Which, in effect, is the heartbeat that drives both stories that rotate between the covers here. Faulkner being Faulkner, this is a dark meditation on how the search for freedom often results in its lack with a robust prose and plenty of Biblical allusions abound that, ultimately, shows how memory is the one freedom that can remain.
'Love doesn't die; the men and women do.'
Honestly, I much prefered the Old Man story to the Wild Palms half, the former covering a convict who escapes during the flooding from a hurricane and teams up with a pregnant woman to survive together while the latter is an illicit relationship between a married woman and a young doctor hiding out in Mississippi. The two stories are a decade apart, yet there is a binding theme between them. Both sets of characters find that the routes to freedom often become the very things that confine them. The juxtapositions between the stories help each narrative become an abstract commentary on the other, with many foils between the two. For instance, a baby leads to imprisonment for both men but in very different ways.
This is classic Faulkner, though I think I prefer him best when he is mythmaking out of daily lives in rural towns than his affair plot here. It's a worthwhile read from what I remember, and I stumbled upon my old copy today and poured through the extensive notes I took on it when I read it in college for fun. A pretty solid story about memory as a means to endure even when freedom seems impossible.
3.5/5
'when she became not then half of memory became not and if I become not then all of remembering will cease to be.—Yes, he thought, between grief and nothing I will take grief.'
So check it out, this book includes an escaped convict having to wrestle an alligator to survive. Which is pretty wild. The Wild Palms however, is not a reference to his hands choking out that alligator but a psalm from which the novel took it's original title If I forget thee, Jerusalem. The psalm, which reads 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy' is about the Jewish people exiled to Babylon and having to process their freedom, or lack of it. Which, in effect, is the heartbeat that drives both stories that rotate between the covers here. Faulkner being Faulkner, this is a dark meditation on how the search for freedom often results in its lack with a robust prose and plenty of Biblical allusions abound that, ultimately, shows how memory is the one freedom that can remain.
'Love doesn't die; the men and women do.'
Honestly, I much prefered the Old Man story to the Wild Palms half, the former covering a convict who escapes during the flooding from a hurricane and teams up with a pregnant woman to survive together while the latter is an illicit relationship between a married woman and a young doctor hiding out in Mississippi. The two stories are a decade apart, yet there is a binding theme between them. Both sets of characters find that the routes to freedom often become the very things that confine them. The juxtapositions between the stories help each narrative become an abstract commentary on the other, with many foils between the two. For instance, a baby leads to imprisonment for both men but in very different ways.
This is classic Faulkner, though I think I prefer him best when he is mythmaking out of daily lives in rural towns than his affair plot here. It's a worthwhile read from what I remember, and I stumbled upon my old copy today and poured through the extensive notes I took on it when I read it in college for fun. A pretty solid story about memory as a means to endure even when freedom seems impossible.
3.5/5
'when she became not then half of memory became not and if I become not then all of remembering will cease to be.—Yes, he thought, between grief and nothing I will take grief.'