What the Faulkner?

Just exactly like father if father had known as much about it the night before I went out there as he did the day after I came back thinking mad impotent old man who realized at last that there must be some limit even to the capabilities of a demon for doing harm, who must have seen his situation as that of the show girl, the pony, who realizes that the principle tune she prances comes not from horn and fiddle and drum but from a clock and calendar, must have seen himself as the old worn-out cannon which realizes that it can deliver just one more fierce shot and crumble to dust in his own furious dust and recoil,

…

Oh, my gosh. That 120-word, long-winded beginning of a sentence is from William Faulkner’s 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom!, which I purchased and then began reading this week. Faulkner holds the record for the longest sentence ever published in a book – 1,257 words in Absalom, Absalom! – and it runs from page 181 to page 184.  I bought the book specifically to read that passage, and did yesterday. In the pantheon of sentence writing, it is a freak.

As for the novel itself, I’ve battled my way through the first fatiguing chapter and encountered quite a few sentences that are 400-500 words in length. Good grief, William. Were periods frowned upon in 1936?

No Blog Fog

Friends Roy and Diane asked me last week if I still enjoy blogging, and I do. It’s challenging. Who knows? If one of my eventual 7 books sells someday, I can put together a little compilation of these 104 blogs that I’ll end up with from this first book endeavor.

Andrea my niece just told me about a woman in Omaha who has been approached to do a book based on that woman’s blogs. Write on, all writers.

Watts New

I took an enjoyable ride in an all-electric car last week, a 2011 Nissan Leaf, that friend Mark purchased for himself and wife Karen. Very nice car and plenty of hop as Mark and I punched it along the freeway, hitting 85 mph in mere seconds.

Gasoline barons obviously dislike the Leaf, but an eventual major conversion to electric vehicles seems inevitable for America’s driving future. Congratulations, Mark and Karen, for being way ahead of the game.

Calm Frozen Face

And now, as I inwardly emit a blood-curdling scream of anguish, let me share with you the final 98 words from Faulkner’s 1,257-word sentence:

…carry him up the front steps and through the paintless formal door beneath its fanlight imported pane by pane from Europe which Judith held open for him to enter with no change, no alteration in that calm frozen face she had worn for four years now, and on up the stairs and into the bedroom and put him to bed like a baby and then lie down himself on the floor beside the bed though not to sleep since before dawn the man on the bed would stir and groan and Jones would say, ‘Hyer I am, Kernel.

Hurray. A period.