Reviews
Helluva novel. The beginning reminded me of Twain, but the end was something new and I reckon something only Faulkner could do.
"An Odor of Verbena" is worth the entire book. Not the best Faulkner, clearly, but this is still great.
I try, try, try to love Faulkner - but I just can't go from like to love. One thing this story does that I have not seen much of, is explore how "freedom" for the slaves after the Civil War was really not much freedom at all. What the heck were they free to do? Where did they live? How did they live? What did they eat? The solutions were to steal from their former masters, or to return to them to work as share croppers or some other barely paid position. I found it very disconcerting to go from the ending of this book, where Baynard refuses to murder his father's murderer, but walks away into a new South ready to pick up the pieces and move forward and get over the war, right into the loving arms of Lewis Grizzard, to find that some of us southerners sure didn't move forward very far. (see Southern by the Grace of God)
