William Faulkner had a very prolific writing career that eventually won him a Nobel Prize in Literature. The award was granted for works that were mostly out of print by then, but it must have been an honor just the same. His biography said he was on the forefront of the avante-garde scene in the late 20's and the 30's, but I saw little of that in Barn Burning which we read this week. I was hoping to read more of his experimental works and will have to look into them when I have some spare time. I do agree with his biography in that his writing is rather labyrinthine and slightly hard to follow. I had to reread passages in order to keep the story straight in my head.
Barn Burning was a story about a man named Abner with anger issues and how this effects his family. He is almost constantly on the move, with the family in tow, because of his outrageous actions. If Abner feels slighted in the least he goes off and does something drastic. We see this in the opening of the story when he admits he burned down his neighbor's barn because the neighbor kept letting his hog roam free, and again when Abner purposely ruins his bosses' rug because he feels the boss is an obstentatious snob. Finally, in the end of the story, we see Abner gathering up kerosene and can only assume he is going to burn down the barn of his boss.
I'm not sure I understand the purpose of this story. To me, it was simply a tale of a downtrodden man with a huge chip on his shoulder. There appeared to be no real social commentary as far as I could see. Despite this fact, I enjoyed the story once I got into it. It was full of emotion and very well written.
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