On Thursday Roger Shumann flew a race against four competitors, and won. On Saturday he flew against but one competitor. But that competitor was Death, and Roger Shumann lost. And so today a lone aeroplane flew out over the lake on the wings of dawn and circled the spot where Roger Shumann got the Last Checkered Flag, and vanished back into the dawn from whence it came.
Thus two friends told him farewell. Two friends, yet two competitors too, whom he had met in fair contest and conquered in the lonely sky from which he fell, dropping a simple wreath to mark his Last Pylon
It stopped there, but the copyboy did not. “O Jesus,” he whispered. “Maybe Hagood will let me finish it!” already moving toward the desk where Hagood now sat though the copyboy had not seen him enter. Hagood had just sat down; the copy-boy, his mouth already open, paused behind Hagood. Then he became more complete vassal to surprise than ever, for lying on Hagood’s desk and weighted neatly down by an empty whiskey bottle was another sheet of copy which Hagood and the copyboy read together:
At midnight last night the search for the body of Roger Shumann, racing pilot who plunged into the lake Saturday p.m. was finally abandoned by a threeplace biplane of about eighty horsepower which managed to fly out over the water and return without falling to pieces and dropping a wreath of flowers into the water approximately three quarters of a mile away from where Shumann’s body is generally supposed to be since they were precision pilots and so did not miss the entire lake. Mrs Shumann departed with her husband and children for Ohio, where it is understood that their six year old son will spend an indefinite time with some of his grandparents and where any and all finders of Roger Shumann are kindly requested to forward any and all of same.
and beneath this, savagely in pencil: I guess this is what you want you bastard and now I am going down to Amboise st. and get drunk a while and if you dont know where Amboise st. is ask your son to tell you and if you dont know what drunk is come down there and look at me and when you come bring some jack because I am on a credit
EDITORS’ NOTE
This volume reproduces the text of Pylon that has been established by Noel Polk. It is based on William Faulkner’s own typescript, which has been emended to account for his revisions in proof, his indisputable typing errors, and certain other mistakes and inconsistencies that clearly demand correction. Faulkner typed and proofread this document himself, and it also bears alterations of varying degrees of seriousness by his editors.
Faulkner began Pylon in October 1934, writing so rapidly that he sent chapters to his publisher in November and December, as he typed them. However, his publisher made a great many changes in Faulkner’s text—shortening sentences, adjusting paragraphs, and similar alterations—often without querying the author. In his galley proofs, Faulkner restored much of his original writing but also on occasion rewrote around the editorial changes or simply retained the changes. The Polk text tries to distinguish between those changes made by Faulkner as a response to his text as he saw it in type for the first time and those caused by editorial intervention, although it is not always easy to do so.
Extant documents relevant to the editing of Pylon are the typescript setting copy at the University of Virginia’s Alderman Library and the corrected galleys at the Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas. The holograph manuscript, at the University of Mississippi, is incomplete.
American English continues to fluctuate; for example, a word may be spelled more than one way, even in the same work. Commas are sometimes used expressively to suggest the movements of the voice, and capitals are sometimes meant to give significances to a word beyond those it might have in its uncapitalized form. Since standardization would remove such effects, this volume preserves the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and wording of the text as established by Noel Polk, which strives to be as faithful to Faulkner’s usage as surviving evidence permits.
The following notes were prepared by Joseph Blotner and are reprinted with permission from Novels 1930–1935, one volume of the edition of Faulkner’s collected works published by The Library of America, 1985. Numbers refer to page and line of the present volume (the line count includes chapter headings). For further information on Pylon, consult the appropriate portions of Joseph Blotner, Faulkner: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1974); Cleanth Brooks, William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha and Beyond (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978); and Michael Millgate, The Achievement of William Faulkner (New York: Random House, 1965).
1 FEINMAN … DOLLARS] On February 9, 1934, New Orleans’ Shushan Airport, constructed on land reclaimed from Lake Pontchartrain, was officially dedicated. It was named after Colonel A. L. Shushan, president of the Levee Board. Beginning on February 14, several days of aerial competition and exhibitions followed. The events of the air meet, postponed because of bad weather, coincided with the Mardi Gras festivities. In December 1934, Faulkner wrote his publisher about his use of New Orleans and Shushan Airport and added, “But there all actual resemblance stops … the incidents in Pylon are all fiction and Feinman is fiction so far as I know, the only more or less deliberate copying of fact, or the nearest to it, is the character ‘Matt Ord,’ who is Jimmy Weddell.”
2 Jules Despleins] One of the Shushan competitors was Michael de Troyat, billed as the “European acrobatic champion.”
3 Vas … Sharlie?] The frequent refrain of a radio comedian of the 1930s who called himself the Baron Munchausen.
4 modest … lapel] Faulkner occasionally wore on his lapel a small pair of silver wings bearing the initials QB, which stood for Quiet Birdmen, an organization of pilots formed after World War I for charitable purposes, later a purely social group.
5 dot-dot-dash-dot] The Morse code signal for F identifies Feinman Airport.
6 FIRST … Plane] The night Faulkner and Omlie arrived at Shushan Airport, Capt. W. Merle Nelson died in the crash of his “Comet plane.”
7 “Laughing … Poik!”] Here reporting a race result, the newsboy employs one variety of New Orleans dialect, one of several in the novel.
8 (i n r i)] This abbreviation stands for Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum, which Pilate ordered placed above Jesus’ head on the cross. (John 19:19)
9 tomorrow and tomorrow] From the passage in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, V, v, 19–28; also used for the titles of the fourth and fifth chapters and the title of The Sound and the Fury.
10 the Vieux Carré] The old square, the site of the original city of New Orleans, later called the French Quarter, the hundred-odd square blocks stretching from Canal Street on the south to Esplanade on the north, and from North Rampart Street to the Mississippi River.
11 spent … clatterfalque;] The debris left after the passage in the Mardi Gras parade of one of the ornate floats built by particular social groups (“Krewes”) according to a dominant theme. Cf. ll. 77–78 of The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot, and the passage from which these lines are derived in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, 196–97.
12 “Toulouse,”] Street in the French Quarter. The following fictional streets are apparently derived from real ones in New Orleans: Grandlieu St. from Canal St., St. Jules Ave. from St. Charles Ave., Barricade St. from Rampart St., and perhaps Lanier Ave. from Claiborne Ave. Alphonse’s Restaurant is probably based on Antoine’s, and Renaud’s upon Arnaud’s.
13 miked] Used a micrometer to measure the valves in the airplane engine to ensure that they are within the proper tolerance for efficient operation.
14 there … eat] Cf. “i sing of olaf glad and big,” by E. E. Cummings.
15 The … Franciana] This corporation is probably modeled on that of Jimmy Weddell and Harry T. Williams, The Weddell—Williams Air Corporation at Patterson, Louisiana, on which the Blaisedell of the novel is based.
16 We … regimented.] Feinman is referring to regulatory agencies of the Roosevelt administration such as the A.A.A., the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
17 Lovesong of J. A. Prufrock] From the poem by T. S. Eli
ot.
ALSO BY WILLIAM FAULKNER
ABSALOM, ABSALOM!
One of Faulkner’s finest achievements, Absalom, Absalom! is the story of Thomas Sutpen and the ruthless, single-minded pursuit of his grand design—to forge a dynasty in Jefferson, Mississippi, in 1830—which is ultimately destroyed (along with Sutpen himself) by his two sons.
AS I LAY DYING
As I Lay Dying is the harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Told by each of the family members—including Addie herself—the novel ranges from dark comedy to deepest pathos.
A FABLE
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, this allegorical novel about World War I is set in the trenches of France and deals with a mutiny in a French regiment.
FLAGS IN THE DUST
The complete text, published for the first time in 1973, of Faulkner’s third novel, written when he was twenty-nine, which appeared, with his reluctant consent, in a much cut version in 1929 as Sartoris.
LIGHT IN AUGUST
A novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, Light in August tells the tales of guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, an enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.
THE REIVERS
One of Faulkner’s comic masterpieces and winner of a Pulitzer Prize, The Reivers is a picaresque tale that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi and their wild misadventures in the fast life of Memphis—from horse smuggling to bawdy houses.
REQUIEM FOR A NUN
The sequel to Faulkner’s most sensational novel Sanctuary, was written twenty years later but takes up the story of Temple Drake eight years after the events related in Sanctuary. Temple is now married to Gowan Stevens. The book begins when the death sentence is pronounced on the nurse Nancy for the murder of Temple and Gowan’s child. In an attempt to save her, Temple goes to see the judge to confess her own guilt. Told partly in prose, partly in play form, Requiem for a Nun is a haunting exploration of the impact of the past on the present.
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in American literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the man-child Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant.
THE UNVANQUISHED
The Unvanquished is a novel of the Sartoris family, who embody the ideal of Southern honor and its transformation through war, defeat, and Reconstruction: Colonel John Sartoris, who is murdered by a business rival after the war; his son Bayard, who finds an alternative to bloodshed; and Granny Millard, the matriarch, who must put aside her code of gentility in order to survive.
Snopes Trilogy
THE HAMLET
The Hamlet, the first novel of Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy, is both an ironic take on classical tragedy and a mordant commentary on the grand pretensions of the antebellum South and the depths of its decay in the aftermath of war and reconstruction. It tells of the advent and the rise of the Snopes family in Frenchman’s Bend, a small town built on the ruins of a once-stately plantation. Flem Snopes—wily, energetic, a man of shady origins—quickly comes to dominate the town and its people with his cunning and guile.
THE TOWN
This is the second volume of Faulkner’s trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the postbellum South. Like its predecessor The Hamlet, and its successor The Mansion, The Town is completely self-contained, but it gains resonance from being read with the other two. The story of Flem Snopes’ ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, the book is rich in typically Faulknerian episodes of humor and of profundity.
THE MANSION
The Mansion completes Faulkner’s great trilogy of the Snopes family in the mythical county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, which also includes The Hamlet and The Town. Beginning with the murder of Jack Houston and ending with the murder of Flem Snopes, it traces the downfall of the indomitable post-bellum family who managed to seize control of the town of Jefferson within a generation.
BIG WOODS
The best of William Faulkner’s hunting stories are woven together brilliantly in Big Woods. First published in 1955 and now available in paperback for the first time, the volume includes Faulkner’s most famous story, “The Bear” (in its original version), together with “The Old People,” “A Bear Hunt,” and “Race at Morning.” Each of the stories is introduced by a prelude, and the final one is followed by an epilogue, which serve as almost musical bridges between them. Together, these pieces create a seamless whole, a work that displays the full eloquence, emotional breadth, and moral complexity of Faulkner’s vision.
COLLECTED STORIES
“A Bear Hunt,” “A Rose for Emily,” “Two Soldiers,” “Victory,” “The Brooch,” “Beyond”—these are among the forty-two stories that make up this magisterial collection by the writer who stands at the pinnacle of modern American fiction. Compressing an epic expanse of vision into narratives as hard and wounding as bullets, William Faulkner’s stories evoke the intimate textures of place, the deep strata of history and legend, and all the fear, brutality, and tenderness of which human beings are capable. These tales are set not only in Yoknapatawpha County but in Beverly Hills and in France during World War I; they are populated by such characters as the Faulknerian archetypes Flem Snopes and Quentin Compson (“A Justice”) as well as ordinary men and women who emerge in these pages so sharply and indelibly that they dwarf the protagonists of most novels.
GO DOWN, MOSES
Go Down, Moses is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in implication and insight.
INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Intruder in the Dust is at once engrossing murder mystery and unflinching portrait of racial injustice: it is the story of Lucas Beauchamp, a black man wrongly arrested for the murder of Vinson Gowrie, a white man. Confronted by the threat of lynching, Lucas sets out to prove his innocence, aided by a white lawyer, Gavin Stevens, and his young nephew, Chick Mallison.
KNIGHT’S GAMBIT
Gavin Stevens, the wise and forbearing student of crime and the folk ways of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, plays the major role in these six stories of violence. In each, Stevens’ sharp insights and ingenious detection uncover the underlying motives.
PYLON
One of the few of William Faulkner’s works to be set outside his fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Pylon, first published in 1935, takes place at an air show in a thinly disguised New Orleans named New Valois. An unnamed reporter for a local newspaper tries to understand a very modern ménage a trois of flyers on the brainstorming circuit. These characters, Faulkner said, “were a fantastic and bizarre phenomenon on the face of the contemporary scene.… That is, there was really no place for them in the culture, in the economy, yet they were there, at that time, and everyone knew that they wouldn’t last very long, which they didn’t.… That they were outside the range of God, not only of respectability, of love, but of God too.” In Pylon Faulkner set out to test their rootless modernity to see if there is any place in it for the old values of the human heart that are the central concerns of his best fiction.
SANCTUARY
A powerful novel examining the nature of evil, informed by the works of T.S. Eliot and Freud, mythology, local lore, and hardboiled detective fiction, Sanctuary is the dark, at times brutal, story of the kidnapping of Mississippi debutante Temple Drake, who introduces her own form of venality into the Memphis underworld where she is being he
ld.
THREE FAMOUS SHORT NOVELS
In this book are three different approaches of Faulkner, each of them highly entertaining as well as representative of his work as a whole. Spotted Horses is a hilarious account of a horse auction, and pits the “cold practicality” of women against the boyish folly of men. The law comes in to settle the dispute caused by the sale of “wild” horses, and finds itself up against a formidable opponent, Mrs. Tull. Old Man is something of an adventure story. When a flood ravages the countryside of the lower Mississippi, a convict finds himself adrift with a pregnant woman. His one aim is to return the woman to safety and himself to prison, where he can be free of women. In order to do this, he fights alligators and snakes, as well as the urge to be trapped once again by a woman. Perhaps one of the best known of Faulkner’s shorter works, The Bear is the story of a boy coming to terms with the adult world. By learning how to hunt, the boy is taught the real meaning of pride and humility and courage, virtues that Faulkner feared would be almost impossible to learn with the destruction of the wilderness.
UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF WILLIAM FAULKNER
This invaluable volume, which has been republished to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of Faulkner’s birth, contains some of the greatest short fiction by a writer who defined the course of American literature. Its forty-five stories fall into three categories: those not included in Faulkner’s earlier collections; previously unpublished short fiction; and stories that were later expanded into such novels as The Unvanquished, The Hamlet, and Go Down, Moses. With its introduction and extensive notes by the biographer Joseph Blotner, Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner is an essential addition to its author’s canon—as well as a book of some of the most haunting, harrowing, and atmospheric short fiction written in this century.