Writing on the Wall

One of the many five-star reviewers of a Faulkner book on Amazon entitled his review, “Faulkner Being Faulkner,” and went on to say, “You don’t read Faulkner as much as you work your way through Faulkner.” – And that primer was the first clarity I had been given as to why I’ve never been able to finish a Faulkner book. If I were to take all the books off my shelves and organize them into piles by author, my Faulkner pile might be the tallest of them all. I’ve started many, but I’ve never finished any. Upon reading other reviewers, I find I am not alone.

I know I’ve started As I Lay Dying at least twice, and made it about halfway through each time, because my bookmarks are still in the book. It’s a small book, less than 200 pages, one he wrote in only six weeks; it should be possible to finish the book by willpower alone if not pleasure – but each time I put it down it is hard to pick up again. Like magnets set the wrong way, the book repels me when I reach for it.

Maybe I’m just not to be a Faulkner reader. But that doesn’t keep me from visiting any author’s home even if it’s about 1,000 miles from my own . . . Rowan Oak – that is the name Faulkner gave to his stately, white-columned home in Oxford, Mississippi. He named it after the rowan tree, a symbol of security and peace.

His book, which I arrived home motivated to read, is called A Fable, one for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. It chronicles a sort of mutiny among World War I soldiers living in the trenches during the seven days of Holy Week. Being a thematic kind of reader, I thought it might be fun to read the book, knock it out so to say, before Easter time in late April this year. But what really impressed me was the way he sketched out the idea for the novel on the walls of his study – in storyboard technique – beginning with Monday, outlining all that would happen on that day, and continuing around the room till he reached the end of the week which he called Tomorrow – and having to write that on the backside of the door because he’d already run out of wall space for that seventh day.

I was alone in that room, Faulkner’s writing room – the unassuming desk, the typewriter his mother gave him and which he used his entire life, the Adirondack chair where he sat . . . I looked around to the writing on the walls, too overwhelmed just then to read all the scrawly, scratchy handwriting under each day of the week, but rather clicking pictures so I could read it later – preferring my time to be used for absorbing the place.

I stood transfixed in the center of that universe where a writer’s work had its genesis – like standing in the chaos of a swirling world before earth and sun and sky had been formed – but this time, in the mind of a man most likely kept hostage by the Tennessee sippin’ whiskey he loved so well to boost his enthusiasm for a project. There I stood, only the man and his graphite and grease pencils no longer there – the energy still was. Empty whiskey bottles stood in a glass case out in the hallway, relics of the day.

I’ll bet there was noise going on the day he came up with that idea – an “other language” kind of mumbling that came from that room as the words formed out of darkness and into the light of day. There were loud scratching sounds as he wrote on the walls . . . and his patient wife Estelle went about her chores, probably delivering freshly laundered clothes to a back bedroom . . . what now?. . . she must have thought wildly, always at loose ends with herself as another bottle of whiskey fell to the floor. I’m making all this up of course. I don’t know how it happened that day. I do know her own bedroom is full of books on spiritual matters.  An easel is propped near her bed and the walls are lined with the still lifes she painted . . .

Faulkner hated air conditioning, it is said – and that is noteworthy given the Mississippi summers. That’s one thing I remember clearly about As I Lay Dying – the oppressive heat he describes as the old woman watches her coffin being built outside the bedroom window. I know he experienced that kind of heat, knew it well. Nothing at Rowan Oak explains why he hated air conditioning, but I surmise it was the sound – that droning, grating sound that interferes with what the muses have to say. I could understand his sentiments as I walked through the yard space of Rowan Oak – an embracing kind of breeze that wound through plentiful oak trees hosting birds that had nested there for generations before and after Faulkner's death, their songs unabated. The peacefulness of Rowan Oak, like so many things about Faulkner, is of an “other world” quality.

Nevertheless, his wife installed air conditioning the day after Faulkner died – not buried yet – and he would rest in state in the parlor with the AC burring and humming and churning non-stop on those July Mississippi days. The drone of the AC would eventually drive his spirit away – but it was the thing Estelle felt compelled to do for the benefit of the living on that first day of the ten remaining years she would have without him.

 The feeling of that room – the days of the week written on the walls – that is what made me want to give the man one more chance at reading him – much as Estelle must have given him one more chance at living with him each time he came off a binge and produced a thing of beauty – one day at a time.

Going to Graceland!

High Pony

Twice this week I’ve been stationed at a red light behind young women drivers with thick, long hair who required more time than one red light could give them in order to gather up all the hair atop their heads for a handsome ponytail . . .

Doing so, but not happy with the results, they would pull the band out of their hair in one damaging yank, start all over – gathering up, swooping, pushing it higher, tightening, smoothing the top of the head, the sides, cinching . . . the first time I viewed this, when I was in a hurry, I beeped the horn softly when the light had turned green – and she shot me a look in the rear view mirror that made me feel intrusive and overbearing and “way too old.” The second time, only a day or two later, and no one in back of me, I decided to let the pony show go . . .

The high pony is a hairstyle that has traversed generations. Little did those young women in their cars realize that I too, long ago, groomed one high pony – or two, if we’re talking pigtails, which are not so in fashion anymore. 

When I became a mother and lost my high pony, I began to style it for my daughters instead. They would come running down the stairs just as the school bus could be heard making its first stop in the neighborhood – “My pony! My high pony!” they would yell. Under pressure, I’d swoop a mane upward, gather it in one hand while cajoling it higher and smoother with the brush in another hand, upward, upward she goes – higher . . . higher – till approval was met and the band twisted on. That is the hard part – twisting – for there is always some slippage while putting on the band, and ridges seem to appear out of nowhere once the band is in place. Ridges on the top or sides of the head, or even underneath the pony itself, are sloppy and unacceptable.  I’ve been criticized for low ponies, loose ponies, ridged ponies, off-center ponies, and ponies that couldn't hold till lunchtime.

The perfect high pony is combed smooth and tight on all areas of the head, propped high and snug at the crown of the head – and forced at its base to hike up teasingly just like the tail of a Lipizzaner Stallion.  The length is left to cascade for as far as it can go. Better yet, it should curl at the end to make a hook.

There is importance in getting the pony to swish back and forth like a metronome while walking – maybe to hypnotize young men, I don’t know – for there is nothing duller than a straight held pony that won’t move. The first footsteps are crucial – the girl must tilt her body slightly but not noticeably, left to right, left to right – back and forth five or six times – to get the pony to work like a pendulum. After that, momentum takes hold and she can walk regular – the pony takes care of itself.

The girls on our local high school track team have mastered the skill of the swishing high pony – they run down our street after school in great herds – and all ponies, excepting one or two stragglers, are a-swishing in tandem.

Monday morning I looked at the newspaper to see the photos of all those movie stars who had won an Oscar or been voted “the best” at some spectacle of appearance. Reese Witherspoon was voted “Best Tressed,” and the caption beneath her profile read: “Her glamorous high ponytail stood out in a sea of up-dos, bouncy waves and bed heads.”   

Barbie photo credit: www.astrocrack.com/.../2009/02/barbie209.jpg