by Stephen B. Oates—an (atrocious)nexercise in what its author described asn”pure biography,” making use of “psychologicalninsights” in order “to shapenthe whole of Faulkner’s life so as tonsuggest its essence.” Especially byncomparison with Oates’s vulgarly pretentiousnaim, Professor Karl’s agendanmay strike the sympathetic reader as anrefreshingly straightforward alternativento Professor Blotner’s old-fashionedn(impure?) biographical approach. Innthis frame of mind, it is possible to passnuncritically over Professor Karl’s subsequentnwords, when he says, “Thisnstudy is in the deepest [!] sense anbiography: not only a presentation ofnthe relevant facts of the subject’s life,nbut an effort to understand and interpretnthat life psychologically, emotionally,nand literally.” The word “biography,”napparently, has been purifyingnand deepening itself lately, to the pointnwhere—like the word “democracy”n— it has become susceptible ofnpersonal definition. (Or perhaps it isnsimpler than that. “Well, how long wasnthe Mauretania?” “790 feet.” “ThenAcquitania?” “901 feet.” “Well, let’snmake this one a thousand feet and seenwhat happens.” This from The QueennMary by Neil Potter and Jack Frost.)nIt is possible, I think, without signingnaway one’s life to the New Criticism, tonagree with M.E. Bradford that a profoundnmystery exists between the lifenof the artist and the life of his art, thenintegrity of which needs to be respectednfor reasons going even beyond itsninscrutability. That, on the theoreticalnlevel, is my primary complaint againstnWilliam Faulkner: American Writer;non the practical level, there is thenfurther problem that Professor Kari’snmethod of demonstrating the biographicalnwellsprings of literature re-nFor Immediate ServicenChroniclesnSUBSCRIBERSnTOLL FREE NUMBERn1-800-435-0715nILLINOIS RESIDENTSn1-800-892-0753n38/CHRONICLESnquires that he recapitulate the storynline, and reintroduce the principalncharacters, of even the most minor ofnFaulkner’s works. To a reader no morenthan moderately familiar with thenFaulkner corpus, the procedure is tediousnin the extreme, and grows morenso as the stack of turned pages mountsnsteadily beneath his passive left hand.nWilliam Faulkner himself explained hisnfailure to read Gone With the Wind byninsisting that no story requires a thousandnpages for its telling; and though innrefutation of his argument we havenWar and Peace, the simple fact is thatnTolstoy—^unlike Karl, who is a careless,nimprecise, and often confusingnwriter—for the most part wrote goodnsentences. Even if we grant that thenship should be as long as it must be, thenstipulation that the plates be cleanlynriveted and that the lines draw the eyenstill obtains.nThere are other problems with WilliamnFaulkner: American Writer, almostnall of them subsumable undernwhat has to be seen as the overarchingnone, which is Professor Karl’s completelynuncritical enthusiasm for thatnartistic movement known as Modernism,nitself the subject of an earlier andnmost interesting work (Modem andnModernism: The Sovereignty of thenArtist 1885-192S, 1985) by the samenauthor. While it is beyond questionnthat the innovative, fundamentally subjectiventechniques of literary Modernismnhave produced what are — particularlynby comparison with so much ofnthe literary production of Postmodernism—nmasterpieces, it is certainlyngoing too far to see in Modernism thenscientifically certified apex of severalnmillennia of literary evolution. EvelynnWaugh, for example, who set out quitendeliberately in the opposite, “retrograde”ndirection, had artistically soundnreasons for doing so, as GeorgenMcCartney has demonstrated. Givennhis aesthetic formulation, Waugh wasnby no means philistine in regardingnJames Joyce—the Joyce who wrotenUlysses anyway—as “barmy”; nor isnThe Sound and the Fury at any level annovel superior to Waugh’s masterpiece,nA Handful of Dust. As a booknshould be as long as it needs to be, sonshould it be written in the style itsnsubject, material, and author require,nthe Modernist being simply onenamong many possible lying to hand.nnnProfessor Karl, however, does not see itnthis way: for him. Modernism is thenshining way, not capable ofnsupercession until something still moreninnovative comes along. Thus he insistsnon regarding Faulkner as probablynthe greatest American novelist of then20th century (as probably he was)nbecause he adapted the techniques ofnEuropean Modernism both to his nativensoil and his native talent. When,nafter Absalom, Absalom! (1936),nFaulkner by and large ceased to employnthose innovations—and certainly tonextend them — he entered upon whatnKarl can only see as a long period ofngradual creative decline. That the laternnovels may in fact represent a fallingoffnof Faulkner’s talent is not the point;nwhat is crucial is that Karl sees progressiveninnovation as a touchstone of greatnart, without seeming to consider thatninnovation may be unsuited to variousnliterary subjects and materials, and tonthe voices that these generate. Whennafter Absalom! Faulkner became,nroughly speaking, a vadic poet of sorts,nthe voices and techniques that hadnbeen suitable to The Sound and thenFury became simply inapplicable to thenwork at hand. Whether or not theninnovator in Faulkner was aware of thatnfact, the artist surely was.nThe question of William Faulkner’snreligious belief—or the want thereofn— is a vexed one. Professor Karl is atnpains to stress the “spiritual” aspect ofnFaulkner’s writing — Old Ben, ThenWilderness, the paramount virtue ofnendurance—while at the same timendownplaying his avoidance of doctrine,nchurch, and formalized belief. Karl’snemphasis is consonant with his idea ofn”the sovereignty of the artist,” whonbecomes thereby a kind of priest, withholdingnto himself and kindred sophisticatesnthe artistic vision that so oftennfunctions as the Modernist equivalentnof the religious one. Here, however,nKarl misreads his subject. Addressing anclass at the University of Virginia inn1957, Faulkner remarked, “Why thenChristian religion has never harmednme. I hope I have never harmed it. Inhave the sort of provincial Christiannbackground which one takes for grantednwithout thinking too much about it,nprobably. That I’m probably—withinnmy own rights I’m a good Christian —nwhether it would please anybody else’snstandard or not I don’t know.” Con-n