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Faulkner
Dahl Studies American Author
BY VAN THOMASON
Twelve years have passed since the death of
American author William Faulkner; yet, ac
cording to James Dahl, assistant professor of
English. Faulkner’s books continue to hold the
interest of many students and teachers.
Dahl has spent many years studying William
Faulkner, and this summer he was given a grant
by the college to revisit the Mississippi town
where the novelist lived.
The assistant professor said that he became
interested in the works of William Faulkner at
the age of 14. By the time he entered the
University of Minnesota in 1951, he had already
read ten of the famous author’s books.
The Ohio native said that while at the
university he became associated with a
professor who was in the process of writing a
book about Faulkner. Finding something in
common, they became close friends. It was the
professor who encouraged Dahl to transfer to the
University of Mississippi, in Oxford, the birth
place of Faulkner, and the setting for many of his
novels.
While in the Mississippi town. Dahl had the
opportunity to speak with the mother of
Faulkner, which started a friendship that lasted
until her death in 1960 Dahl calls the Faulkner
family "extremely private people According to
his interview with Maud Faulkner, the tiny
framed mother of the author, in the summer of
1953, she had no use for “nosy, busybody
reporters.” Dahl said that it was some time
before he could convince her that he wasn’t there
to exploit the family name.
Dahl explained that the Faulkners were an old
family, steeped in southern tradition, and very
proud of the family name. It is this very tradition
that much of Faulkner’s work is based on. The
writer used Oxford and the people that he knew
while growing up as the basis for most of his
novels.
Doxey's Ancestor
1849 Falkner Slaying Reawakens
The scene might have been
something like this; It is a hot
spring day in a small northern
Mississippi town. A man
emerges from one of the board
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Though Dahl met William Faulkner only
briefly in an Oxford drugstore, he still has the
letters written to him by the author’s mother.
Although Faulkner died in a clinic for
alcoholics in 1968. at Byhalia, Miss., Dahl said
that he doubts that Faulkner was an alcoholic.
Dahl said that Faulkner was more of a “binge
drinker,” who went out occasionally and tied one
on.
William Faulkner never finished school, in
stead he took flight training with the R.C.A.F.
Later he enrolled in the University of
Mississippi, but only temporarily, Dahl said. He
also said that in his hard years as a struggling
writer. Faulkner would work at menial jobs like
painting buildings and firing furnaces to earn a
living for him and his wife.
One job that Faulkner hated later in life was
writing for Hollywood. Faulkner disliked
California and would work there only long
Continued On Page 9
w BiWIH
JAMES DAHL AND FRIEND.
front shops that line the main
street of the town and begins to
walk down the raised wooden
sidewalk. A horse-drawn wagon
laden with vegetables passes
him, the animals’ hooves
kicking up a thick cloud of dark
red dust.
As the man prepares to cross
the street, another, slightly
taller, man rushes angrily up to
him. They argue for a moment,
and their heated words soon
change to a clumsy scuffling
match. The second man, the
taller one, finally breaks away
from his opponent and pulls a
small pistol from his coat
pocket. He takes aim and pulls
the trigger, but the pistol
misfires. He tries to shoot
again, but the weapon misfires
a second time. The shorter man
lunges forward at his pistol
wielding enemy, there is a flash
of metal in the bright southern
sun, and seconds later the man
with the unreliable pistol lies
dead with a dagger sticking
awkwardly from his chest.
The date was May 8,1849; the
town Ripley, Miss.; the sur
vivor of the fight William C.
“Old Colonel” Falkner, great
grandfather to writer William
Faulkner; and the dead man
Robert Hindman, ancestor of
Associate Professor of English
William S. Doxey.
According to Dr. Doxey,
Robert Hindman could
probably best be described as a
“distant ’ relative of his. The
associate professor said that
both the Doxey and Hindman
families were native to northern
Mississippi, and that
somewhere along the
geneological line a Doxey and a
Hindman had married.
In fact, in a Ripley graveyard
Robert Hindman lies buried
next to a woman named Francis
Doxey. The inscription on
Continued On Page 12
David Willingham
F
While recently pursuing my second favorite indoor sport,
television watching, I was treated to a rather interesting ad
vertisement or a movie called “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”
The ad. in full color, of course, showed a rather deranged gen
tleman wielding a huge saw and chasing a number of half
clad young ladies and terrified men.
The buzzing of the saw rose to heroic proportions to drown out the
shrieks of the hapless victims, and the camera mercifully cut away
before the chain saw artist could begin his own peculiar brand of
Thanksgiving carving. That ad was the greatest thing since I
received my 8 x 10 glossies of the Dresden victims from the Niota
Nazi Novelty Nook. “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” appears to be
great family fare if your last name happens to be Borgia or de
Sade.
Somewhat later in the week, immediately after the late-late
show, I was privileged to see an ad for a movie called “Teen-age
Hitchhikers.” and its companion piece, “Teen-age Tramps.” This
ad consisted of a number of close up shots of waggling female
thumbs, seductive navels, and tires screeching to a halt on the hot
asphalt. All this occurred while a gravely-throated announcer
biaringly described backseat encounters, cheap motels, and the
passion of youth. It promised to be grand entertainment for
flashers, popcorn trickers, and other prominent members of the
midnight matinee crowd.
Intrigued by these movie ads, I snatched up a copy of the Atlanta
newspaper and thumbed feverishly to the theatre pages. There,
before my trembling eyes, were ads for such outstanding cinematic
achievements as “Black Hooker,” “Savage Sisters,” “Love-In
Maid,” and of course the modern American classic, “Truck Stop
Women.” And you thought art was dead, didn’t you?
Slightly dazed by this wide offering of celluloid compost, I pulled
on a coat and wandered out into the streets. Strangely enough, I
found myself drawn downtown, toward where the movie theatres
stood. I soon came to the middle of this neon light district and
allowed the atmosphere of the place to engulf my mind. As I stood
transfixed in the glow of seemingly a thousand marquees, a short
dirty figure wearing an oversized raincoat approached.
“Hey mister,” he mumbled, and moved his hand toward a
menacing bulge in the pocket of his coat, “you looking for trouble?”
“No-no,” I stammered.
“I think maybe you’re a &$!! + ! mugger,” he said. “I think
maybe I need to get you off the streets.”
“No, really I’m not a mugger.”
“Then maybe you’re a $+?&! rapist. Or killer. Us vigilantes
don’t like your kind of trash.” He moved toward me, and I could
clearly discern the outline of a gun in his pocket.
“Honestly! ” I cried, “I’m just a poor English major and...”
“English major! That’s the worst of them a11.,” He pulled the
pistol from his pocket and leveled it at my thoroughly frightened
nose. “Now you’re gonna get yours...” he said, and pulled back the
gun’s hammer. At that time, though, three boys on bicycles rode
by, accidentally spattering mud on an old woman.
“Why those dirty...’” my assailant said, and turned to chase the
boys, firing as he went. Above my head, the movie marquee
proclaimed “Charles Bronson Death Wish.”
As my vigilante friend left me, a huge, fat hulk of a man in a
garish purple suit approached.
“You like sex movies?” he said. “I show the best just around
the corner.”
“No thanks,” I said, and tried to pull out of range of his breath.
“This one’s great,” he drooled. “Called ‘Teenage Farm Girls.’
It’s got everything...”
“Maybe later,” I said, and shielded my face from his drool.
“Don’t you like leather?” he was now slobbering uncontrollably,
“Or animals? Or Massey -Ferguson roto-tiller tricks?...”
Luckily, I finally escaped from my putrid purveyor of porn.
As I stayed in the movie district, I was accosted by “Deep
Throat” understudies, rejects from “Shaft,” and sundry other fans
of the film. As I started to leave, I noted a short man in trench coat
and 1940’s style rain hat standing alone.
“Hey kid,” he said, “this is something, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” I noticed that under his low slung hat his face was hard
and his eyes were sad. One corner of his lip was curled in a
peculiarly handsome deformity. “They’ve ruined it.”
“I know,” he said, “but it’s easy to see that our problems don’t
amount to a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed-up world.”
“I know it,” I agreed. “They’ve got no class.”
He took a whiskey flask from his pocket and brought it slowly to
his mouth, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”
I took the proffered flash and drank deep. “They just don’t make
movies like they used to.’
“Maybe not,” he said sadly.
I handed back the flask as a flash of neon illuminated my com
panion’s face. I had seen the face before, the voice I never forgot.
“Sir,” I said reverently, “you’ve got class.”
A small, slightly crooked smile crossed his face. He placed his
hand lightly on my shoulder, and we turned to walk off into the
f °g- shrouded night. “Kid,” he said, “I think tjiis js the ginning
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THE WHT GEORGIAN NOVIM6H 11. 1674
Malignant
Movies
7