Flags in the Dust

I finally (finally) got around to reading the last of Faulkner's Yaknapatawpha novels that I hadn't read before - which also happened to be the first of them. I recall considering reading "Sartoris" some twenty-plus years ago, but never did get to it. The full version of his third novel was released as "Flags in the Dust" in 1973. I grabbed a copy off of Amazon once I realized that I never got to it and, shortly after, dove right in.

Flags in the Dust Cover

I have trouble summarizing Faulkner books because, in part, I feel like a portion of them tends to escape me. I think that's certainly true. This novel told the tale of a young and of an older Bayard Sartoris and their family. A Sartoris, the reader learns, is a bit stubborn and arbitrary of a person; at one point in the story, Miss Jenny, a sister of old Bayard, remarks that she doesn't know of a Sartoris that died of natural causes. Their lives, too, though, share a complicated dance between will and necessity that lends itself to a forcefulness that seems simple on the surface but is actually quite complex.

The book was originally dismissed, though I'm not sure if it was by an editor or by the publisher or some combinations of both, as being plotless and having too many untied loose ends. Although I don't agree that it didn't have a plot - its plot is simply submerged in environmental narrative and doesn't function like a linear plot line that one can follow like a trail. Additionally, loose ends aren't unique to this work of Faulkner's....I would argue that all of his works have that element to them. It is one of the things that make them so compelling, though - it isn't a weakness. Life, too, has an abundance of loose ends and doesn't have clean beginnings or endings to events. It is one of the characteristics of Faulkner's writing that makes it so easy to identify with and that helps it to resonate with readers.

The young Bayard spends much of the novel driving recklessly in his car about town. He wrecks his car a couple of times; once getting several (or most of?) his ribs broken after plunging off of a bridge and flipping the car. Having broken some ribs almost exactly two years ago at this point, it was interesting to read about young Bayard's experience. I couldn't help but wonder if Faulkner himself had broken some during his lifetime.

As young Bayard heals, he develops a relationship with Narcissa, a young lady who he later marries. She and Bayard had, much to Miss Jenny's consternation, been mutually oblivious of one another previously, despite their similarity in age and despite crossing paths frequently. They later have a child who young Bayard, sadly, doesn't meet as he is taken away, or, rather, as he removes himself from his old life in an effort to cope with the traumatizing misfortune of his father's passing. Before he left, he visited some of his family that he hadn't seen before then in years. That, too, was a treat to read as he ultimately never tells them what had happened....he just couldn't. He was leaving. It begs the question about why he went there, but part of him must have wanted to share it but not been able to speak of it. He seemed to hope, while he was there, that they would find out on their own. They didn't, though, and he left promising to return soon but knowing he never would. It's a powerful scene.

One additional element that contributes to young Bayard's overall behavior throughout the novel was the untimely death of his brother in combat. They were both pilots and his brother, Johnny, passed away, or at least seemed to pass away, during a battle they fought in together. I say 'seemed to' in that the body was never found and, indeed, young Bayard had lost track of it while it was falling from the wrecked plane. That lack of closure, though, is something that makes the separation even more haunting than it already was for him. Later, there are semi-frequent comparisons Bayard and others make between himself and his brother Johnny, the latter of which was easier going and likeable.

The characters are deep, and they carry themselves naturally through the book's scenes guided by Faulkner's stunning skill as a writer and storyteller. I couldn't help but wonder periodically just how he did it. I'll leave you with a quote from the book, which is reminiscent of both the tone and the beauty of his voice in this novel: "The meaning of peace; one of those instants in a man's life, a neap tide in his affairs, when, as though with a premonition of disaster, the moment takes on a sort of fixed clarity in which his actions and desires stand boldly forth unshadowed and rhythmic one with another like two steeds drawing a single chariot along a smooth, empty road, and during which the I in him stands like a tranquil deciduated tree above the sere and ludicrous disasters of his days."