Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T11:08:02.793Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

These Thirteen (1931)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

M. Thomas Inge
Affiliation:
Randolph-Macon College, Virginia
Get access

Summary

Edward McDonald. “Violent World of Faulkner in These Thirteen.” Philadelphia Record, October 4, 1931, p. 14-B.

What, another book by William Faulkner! Yes, just that–his fifth since 1929, the year in which Mr. Hoover became President of these States.

Howsoever things have recently stood with the rest of us, all has been well with Mr. Faulkner. He has in the last three years just about walked off with the literary show. In an amazingly short time he has with breathless speed risen to fame–or, if you will, to notoriety at least. And These Thirteen, a first collection of short stories, will in nowise do discredit to the eminent position Mr. Faulkner has so rapidly attained.

Six of the stories in the present volume are already known to Faulkner readers; seven are here published for the first time.

But whatever their background, all of these stories are alike in this: all are composed out of their author's apparently inexhaustible literary resources, namely, his haunting knowledge of the frustrations, the perversions, the imbecilities, in a word, the compulsions of all sorts which drive his men and women into behavior which swings distractedly from the uttermost in heroism to the uttermost in degradation. The world of these stories is, then, like the world of Faulkner's novels: violent, disordered, cataclysmic. If any reader objects to the presentation, however brilliant, of such a world he had better give free rein to his inner check and leave These Thirteen alone. Certainly this is no book for humorists.

Since These Thirteen is the first opportunity to appraise Faulkner's short stories as a whole, we may expect to hear endless conjecture about the Hemingway influence upon Faulkner. There has been much of this already; there will be more.

Type
Chapter
Information
William Faulkner
The Contemporary Reviews
, pp. 65 - 74
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • These Thirteen (1931)
  • Edited by M. Thomas Inge, Randolph-Macon College, Virginia
  • Book: William Faulkner
  • Online publication: 07 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519314.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • These Thirteen (1931)
  • Edited by M. Thomas Inge, Randolph-Macon College, Virginia
  • Book: William Faulkner
  • Online publication: 07 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519314.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • These Thirteen (1931)
  • Edited by M. Thomas Inge, Randolph-Macon College, Virginia
  • Book: William Faulkner
  • Online publication: 07 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519314.010
Available formats
×