So I'm rereading Faulkner's Sound and the Fury for school. I read this novel in high school (10th grade) and I'm remembering why I loved it then. Since, I've decided that Absalom! Absalom! and As I Lay Dying are better novels but I don't believe that anymore. I remember why I loved Faulkner so much in the first place.

I have always said that one of the reasons I loved Brand New despite the fact that they aren't as talented as I would like to believe is because I feel like their lyrics could quite possibly stem from my own brain cells. In a weird way, I feel the same way about Faulkner. Now, I realize I have committed a few drastic sins here: a) by comparing Brand New to William Faulkner, and b) measuring myself against Faulkner's unbelievable genius. By no means am I stating that I could possibly measure up to the brilliance and talent that is William Faulkner. On the contrary, after I read his work I understand my own thoughts, own ideas, in a clearer light. I mean, I love this man. I love him via his writings and via his ideas and I feel a connection there--and that is one of Faulkner's strongest points, establishing a connection with his reader. I am surely not the first one to feel that Faulkner and I have a connection that surpasses all time and logic, and I won't be the last. But none-the-less, regardless of how un-exclusive and un-recriprocated our relationship may be, I love this man.

I think that if there is one book that everyone should HAVE to read, it is NOT a Faulkner book. Faulkner is NOT the prescription for the entire human race. As I have stated before, my prescription for the entire human race would be The Great Gatsby. But Faulkner is for women, thinking, intelligent, women who recognize themselves in Caddy, in Quentin, in Judith Sutpen. Anyone who calls Faulkner a misogynist does not realize how ACCURATE he is. Sure, his novels are inherently patriarchal, but fuck, so is the world we live in (to a certain degree), and if we deny the structure then what is the point? Caddy's struggles--I have felt them. As a sexually matured woman, I HAVE BEEN THERE. When she cries, when she washes off the perfume and sits in the branch, I know. It's a wink&nod between an author and his readers. We say "Yes, Faulkner. Yes, that is the condition of young women in America, specifically young women in the South. Amen."

A little on virginity: Faulkner NAILS the virgin's perspective of non-virginity. I think anyone who reads Sound and the Fury as a virgin should have to read it after they have had sex. It's amazing the different perspectives Faulkner manages to perfectly capture in his prose. As a virgin, I cried/screamed/exclaimed with delight at my own thoughts in Quentin's passage, in his struggle with sexual maturity. "It's not not having them. It's never to have had them then I could say O That That's Chinese I don't know Chinese. And Father said it's because you are a virgin, don't you see? Women are never virgins. Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature. It's nature is hurting you not Caddy and I said That's just words and he said So is virginity and I said you dont know. You cant know and he said Yes. On the instant when we come to realise that tragedy is second-hand." As a virgin, I said "YES. EXACTLY." All I wanted was to not know, to UNknow sexuality. To return to being 6 when sexuality wasn't something we thought about or knew about or understood. For sex to be foreign again. But we can't go back. It's not Chinese. We speak the language of sex as reproductive human beings and when you are in the "Quentin" phase of life, that fucking sucks. Because of the stigma, because of the idea of being "unpure," because of everything Quentin deals with. And I said yes, virginity is just words. 
But now, instead of feeling like Quentin, I feel more like Father. Purity is negative. To be unpure, [to have sex] is to be NATURAL. Virginity is just a word, a label, we apply. But I remember feeling like Quentin and it brings back all the memories of all the pain I had as a sexually-maturing teenager. Lying to everyone about "how far" I had gone with a boy. Thinking I was too young to be fooling around, even, when really, there isn't such a thing as "too young." It happens when it happens. It wasn't really until Josh, until I was 17/18, that I was comfortable with my own sexuality. With my own position in the world as a woman.

 

I think in a lot of ways I still struggle with the idea of feminism, of being a woman, of being inferior. I have been force-fed the superior thought-process of males my entire life, and honestly, I respect them. I respect males on the basis that they are male and I am not. They think better, almost. And as an intelligent woman, I realize this is fucked up. Mistaken. But I still struggle with the idea of males being superior. Not so much with my sexuality anymore, I'm on good terms with that, but more my role as a woman and what that means. I like to cook, cleaning and/or crying CAN be therapeutic, but I also detest emotions and hate the fact that I possess them. I like getting made-up and wearing dresses but I also like to play football and video games and kick ass. I hate the idea of the "traditional woman" so much that I never want to get married or have kids. I want to rebel against the idea of womanhood that I myself am attached to, that I am enamored with. So where is the middle ground? 

As for feminism, I think the idea/concept is beautiful, but the execution is sloppy. The main reason for this being there are two ways of looking at every action. On the one hand, we SHOULD be liberating the women in Iran forced to wear burqas and to repress their sexuality. On the other, it is really embarrassing and insulting to these women that we try, not to mention ethnocentric. On the one hand, we should be reaching out to black and crippled and transgendered women, but by doing this, are we saying that they are not capable of helping themselves? Are we being condescending by trying to thwart condescension? Are we subscribing to the male patriarchal way of thinking by trying to overturn it? How do we fight the structure WITHIN the structure? 

One final note on pretension: It seems to me that "young people" (myself definitely included) are incredibly concerned with appearing pretentious. It has become a deadly sin among young smart people, especially the ones who are the most guilty: that kid with the TOMS shoes and all-organic, odd clothing who doesn't own a car and listens to Indie music but if you ask him he won't give you band names on the off chance that you recognize one because he prides himself on being different--if you ask THAT kid about pretension, he will vehemently talk about how annoying it is. Ironic, no? What does this word even mean anymore? For me, it has become a symbol of anything I resent not being an expert about. I have a tendency to want to be an expert on EVERYTHING, so if anyone knows more about something than I do, they are "pretentious." I have decided to eradicate that word from my vocabulary. I am not claiming that ANY of the conclusions I have made here are original, or unique in some way--quite the contrary, actually. Most of these conclusions are drawn from observations in class, things we have talked about in various classes. And if thinking about school AFTER school makes me in some way pretentious, then so be it. If being "scholarly" makes me pretentious, then I embrace it. Anyone is capable of anything. I am not special, I am just willing to take what I learn in school/class/college and apply it to my life. And I'm ok with that. "Intelligent" or "knowledgeable" need to be freed from their "pretentious" cousin.