I have a million and one library books checked out, but I got a bug to reread "The Hamlet" by the incomparable William Faulkner, and I did and I'm not sorry :) "The Hamlet" is the first of the Snopes trilogy. Frenchman's Bend is a little town (or hamlet) in Mississippi, mostly owned by Will Varner. Varner owns the store, the cotton gin, the blacksmith shop, the school, and holds mortgages on most of the farms. One day his son Jody rents out a tenant farm to a man named Ab Snopes. Will and Jody learn that Ab has a reputation for settling disputes with landlords by lighting barns on fire. In an effort to prevent that, Will offers Ab's son Flem a job in his store. Before you know it, Frenchman's Bend is overrun with Snopes relations. There are Snopeses everywhere. And then Flem marries Will's youngest daughter, Eula, cementing the alliance. It was such great fun to reread, I love how darkly funny it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment