This book is a piece of history, but that's all it is. This was when Faulkner was hanging out in New Orleans with Sherwood Anderson, and Anderson told Faulkner if he wrote a book, he would get his publisher to print it. This and Mosquitoes are the result. They are both terrible, and it takes longer to read them than it took Faulkner to write them.

The interesting thing here is Faulkner's obsession with the war hero and the tragedy of war cliche's. Remember also, that Faulkner was walking around in a pilot's uniform that he made himself after failing to join the air force. This book is very much the same thing, and for that point, it's interesting. It's amazing that such a dolt became one of the true voices of wisdom for the century. The upside of this book is that it lets you know you have plenty of time to develop. If you love the guy, you'll read this anyway, but you can save your time and skip Soldier's Pay and Mosquitoes. Save them for when you've already developed an obsession.

This early novel by William Faulkner is interesting as an example of where his style and focus were as a very young writer, before both had settled into the predicatable Faulkner voice of his later and better known books. I enjoyed the book more when I first read it, I think, than I do now. But one thing has still not changed. I can remember having to read certain passages over and over and still not being sure what they were about. I still don't know. There are those who think this deliberate ambiguity is a plus but I prefer to be able to follow the plot of a book. I don't even mind working at it, as one must with a number of writers. But it is frustrating to come up against an impenetrable hedge of words that crowds out meaning, and this happens a lot with Faulkner.

I have read almost all of Faulkner's books and enjoyed many, if not most, of them. Frequently moving and always interesting, these books deserve a special place on the bookshelf of American literature. But admit it, often Faulkner - even in his later books - uses words the same way that Jackson Pollock used paint. He sprays, splatters and dribbles them into a squiqqly mess that might, like a good Pollock, be pleasing or meaningful in an 'abstract expressionist' way, but simply doesn't make sense on a purely cognative and narrative level. There is less of that in Soldier's Pay than one gets later, but you can sure see it coming.

Many people who review this book give it a bad rating because they have read Faulkner before and expect his writing to be of a certain style and intellectual caliber. Perhaps this book is not quite up to the level that people are expecting, but when you compare it with much of the other literature available dramatizing this time period (just after World War I) in a fictional manner, this book stands out as being a simply extraordinary peice of literature. While it lacks much of Faulkner's later literary intuitiveness, this book still demonstrates true Faulknerian style with its soap-opera-ish manner of storytelling and robust character development. Even this, one of Faulkner's least talked about and least admired novels, is better than the work of 99.9% of the authors writing today. What people consider "bad" as a Faulkner book is still leaps and bounds ahead of what other writers are able to produce. I found this book to be an excellent stepping-stone into Faulkner's style and literary skill from less "deep" books. I would definitely recommend reading this book first before reading other Faulkner novels. Once you finish this one, THEN try another book directly after this one - his style will be much easier to follow and understand.

Overall, a wonderful book for discussion and reflection!

I realize that an American tradition is mocking great writers and painters, but this is ridiculous. Why don't all these idiots go and write their own books? What did Faulkner do to deserve such a FATE? And this brings up a question: WHAT kind of PERSON would WASTE their time reading "faux" Faulkner? The only answer to that QUESTION is No one. No one who has read Faulkner would EVEN BOTHER to imitate him. The only people left to read this book are bored old ladies sipping tea in the south and amusing themselves with a little LITE SOUTHERN "LITERATURE."

A splended collection of Faux Faulkner. Having lived in Oxford and passed the time of day with him in Krogers (he would always stop us to talk to our little boy)...i.e. when we had not mixed him up with Brother John...I can tell you how much he enjoyed this Faux stuff...I suggest that anyone who has grown as a result of sharing his world try their hand at faux...and read the old Oxford Eagle...If Mr. Bill puts your soul on warp speed, order this book right now.

Well lets start with the things I liked about this book, I thought that Faulkner really caught the amount of emotional stress of someone dying, and he cleverly allows you to see all the aspects of how this death affects everyone in the family. On the other hand it was hard to follow, the dead character has a "speaking" part, and there are several occurrences of deus ex machina.

When the character Vardaman is introduced he has just caught a large fish and is instructed to clean it before entering the house. While he is busy doing this a major character dies and this image/act is stick in his head. Several times throughout the rest book Vardaman mentions the fish. The title and one sentence composing an entire chapter is him saying "My _____ is a fish."

The entire Book is comprised of chapter entitled only with a characters name. That chapter will follow that characters thoughts and conversations. This allows the reader to understand what each character is feeling and why they do what they do and it also makes the book a little easier to follow because you know who's mind you are in.

While this aspect makes it a little easier to understand the book some events are a little hard to follow especially the ending. At the beginning of the book Anse, who is the father of the family, gives up a set of false teeth he has been looking forward to getting, then at the end after he leaves for a short period, Anse returns with a new set of false teeth and an unexpected guest.

As I mentioned before a character dies early on but about half way through the book there is a chapter where you get into their mind and can see their thoughts. This reveals a scandalous secret, and a lot about their life.

One thing I several was disappointed with was the way the author would put the family in precarious situations then just allow then an easy way out. Much like the deus ex machina of the Greek story tellers. On such occurrence is an incident in which the family try to cross high flood water and even though the rapids are strong enough to carry away the mule's the family manages to catch the coffin and pull it to shore. This happens a couple more times in the text of the novel.

Over all I'm glad I tried a novel by Faulkner but in speaking now with the voice of experience I would rather eat mud than do it again.

I thought Thomas Sutpen was just a man who was trying to survive and gain respect, rather than the villain with the wild Niggers that they made him out to be.

The Unvanquished is an excellent book, which depicts life in the South during and after the Civil War. The title means "the undefeated or the unconquered," and Faulkner expounds on this topic. One by one, the characters are defeated by either disillusionment, selfishness, or vainity ,and only one character withstands the terrible effects of the war: Bayard. Faulker does a remarkable job depicting the emotions of Southerners during this time and uses great imagery.

This book is a good source for high school reference libraries. It gives a accurate progression of the works produced by William Faulkner.

Faulkner has always been interested in the perspective of children. The Sound and the Fury and several of his short stories ("That Evening Sun", "Uncle Willy", and "That Will be Fine" come to mind) have delved into the psyche of children as they observe the adult world. However, this curious book, written in 1927 for his future step-daughter, is written expressly for a child. As would be expected, Faulkner's foray into children's literature is a marked departure from tradional books for children. In this book, a sort of cross between Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz, the reader meets not only the child protagonist and her childhood friends, but an ageing Confederate veteran, a Black nanny and her disreputable husband. Not only do the children pursue the elusive wishing tree, but get to witness marital strife and the delusional ranting from an old man. I doubt seriously if this book, replete with sexual and racial stereotypes, would ever find its way into a present day children's reading room.

To be fair to Faulkner, this was written with no idea for publication, as a present to an eight year old girl on her birthday. Regardless of its literary merit, it has come to the light of day as well as to the mention of critics, and through them, has taken on a more serious aspect, something the author could never have forecast while writing it.

This story is both complex and well written through the use of perspective, but its complexities do not make it a good story. Personally, I feel it is a story that does not even need to be told. The characters are backward and hard to understand. Initially you feel as if all of the facts and details that are included will lead to an interesting end, but it is not an ending at all just a weird closure. Basically it is a story of a bunch of hicks that carry their dead mother around in a coffin and learn of their mental incapasity to deal with it.

Yoknawpatawpha County must have been a sorry place tolive. God's Country? I hope not. Faulkner has some good books, butthis isn't one of them. Somebody hit these people with the stupid stick. In the sequel, Dewey Dell's works in the local cathouse and wonders why she's got ten kids. Cash has more concrete in his head than on his leg. Vardaman is still dumb as dirt. Addie is still dead and stinking up the county. And teachers make you read this stuff?

Graham Swift's Booker prize winning novel is an unashamedly disguised version of Faulkner's brilliant novel. It has some of his finest passages in it including the famous one-line chapter of mothers being a fish

This collection of short prose pieces was originally published in the _New Orleans Time Picayune_ in 1925; however, I'm not sure that Faulkner would be entirely pleased that they have been re-exposed to the light of day. The writing is rough, even amateurish, and the story lines of the pieces are often trite and stock. But in spite of the general weakness of the writings, there are thematic elements and character types in the pieces that would reappear in Faulkner's mature writings. What is absolutely amazing is that just two years after the publication of these mediocre writings, Faulkner had published two novels and was deeply involved in the creation of his masterpiece, _The Sound and the Fury_.

Prof. Singal has an interesting thesis here, one well worth exploring, but his book needs more focus. Singal wanders from psychobiography (including some ill-fitting speculation into Faulkner's neurological problems!) to literary analysis to critiques of other Faulkner critics. Singal ends his study when it reaches the midpoint of Faulkner's career, essentially saying that Faulkner did not write anything interesting after 1942 or so--and while this well may be a valid opinion, asserting it without substantiating it is a cop-out. At times I felt I was reading the work of a talented undergrad rather than that of a tenured professor.

Readers interested in more rigorous studies of Faulkner's life and works should stick with Blotner's *Faulkner: A Biography*, Brooks's *WF: The Yoknapatawpha Country*, and Frederick Karl's relatively recent *WF: American Writer*.