Writer's Are Wild: William Faulkner, Pt.1

Surely, you've surmised that I am a person who likes to learn by now. Curiosity is both my superpower and my nemesis. In addition to trying to cultivate and curate my personal skill as a writer, a goal of mine has been to study writers of all kinds. I want to discover and study a diverse range of writers past and present solely for the previously purported purposes! I love a deep dive!

Recently, I've developed a system for studying writers of interest more efficiently by utilising ChatGPT. Here are the questions I typically start with when putting together a little rabbit hole to hop down explore the life and ideas of a literary figure: 

1. Chat, can you give me some basic biographical information about...?

2. Was/Is this author considered problematic?

3. What are some good works to read by this figure tailored for a beginner?

4. Can you provide any good articles featuring or about (the figure)?

5. How is (this figure's) style defined and how can I incorporate it into my own writing exploration?

6. Can you provide writing prompts inspired by this author's style/genre?

7. Who are some diverse and modern day figures/writers who were influenced or comparitive in style?

8. Can you tell me (figure's) writing routine? 

Of course my questions and process will become more refined in the future the more I do this but for now it quickly produces such a rich document of research that offers a point of entry into my subject. This is only my 2nd I've done it for writers specifically and each time I've been busy for WEEKS exploring. 

More often than not, when I've done research on literary figures in the past I've discovered their lives have been quite astounding. This is the antithesis of the reclusive writer or boring librarian trope. Things were happening all around and many were sure to place themselves front and center to take notes and contribute commentary or a perspective of thought. I'm often delighted with little jewels of stories, gossip, and anecdotes involving these figures. So many of writers were quite the characters in the crazy story of their own lives. Many times, upon first glance the initial information may not read off the page as being that dramatic until you put them in the context of their time period and societal norms. Sometimes it's just imagining the literal reality and placing it factural life. Writer's are wild AF!

One of the first interesting things that pricked my mind about William Faulkner was that he exaggerated his military service. An odd place to start I know but he never served in a war, yet mimicked walking with a limp due to war injuries. In fact during World War I he was rejected by the US Army due to his height/small weight (allegedly 5'5) so he only ever served in the British Royal Air Force in Canada. The reality of this multiple Nobel/Pulitzer Prize winner limping around playing a wounded war veteran provoked all kinds of questions within me about what kind of person does that and what the motivations behind the pretence would be. Maybe daddy/granddaddy issues? 

Real talk, I feel like this was a pretty commonplace practice back in the day due to societal and social pressures on men/white men. I don't know how many men are lying about their military service anymore (though being a milspouse, I've witnessed it) but really I'm speaking more to the idea of men creating clout to fulfil perceptions of masculinity or valor/honor. Men, you are enough. None of this deterred me from my mental musings casting Falkner (later changed to Faulkner) as the southern gothic Verbal Kint from the Usual Suspects, traversing plantation roads and southern lanes gradually straightening up his gait the closer he comes to his writing room.  Nor from imagining, the far more exaggerated and hilarious Cherry Surprise from I'm Gonna Get You Sucka. " Don't make me come hopping after you." 

What's more is you can see how the experiences in Will's life; whether it be his service, the railroad, his hometown later went on to shape aspects and concepts in his writing works. Discoveries like these are alway encouragement to me because I've had a lot of life experiences and tries at things in life. I know a little about a whole lot of things. It's comforting to know that the greats were actually consistently pulling from the same small personal sums of their lives to create magic. 

Other intrusive thoughts while submerging myself in the basics of Faulkner include: 

-Is this where we get the term 'little Willy from or is it truly just a vulgar phrase?  How tall is Kevin Hart? 

-What qualified as romance prior to the 1900's? Willy's great grandfather wrote, The White Rose of Memphis, in 1881. It sounds like a racists or patriarchal purity based fever dream. I read some reviews and a couple of synopsis- it is not. 

-Bet he had a learning disability and didn't even know it - he quit high school after repeating eleventh and twelfth grade twice yet went on to be a bookkeeper, railroad owner, and THE prolific/profound Faulkner. 

-Where can I get a Phil Stone? 

-Octosyllabic couplets? Is that eight syllables per pair of lines? 

-What is post Joycean experimentalism and was there enough of it to be a named era? They just be naming everything. 

-Mosquitos: A rap battle mix tape. 

-IsYoknapatawpha Faulkner's Bon Temps? When I create my own BonTemps I'm going hard. 

-Bruh. Why did Britannica do him that way,

 "...his health undermined by his drinking and by too many falls from horses too big for him." 

The mind is relentless, chile. Can you gather why it takes me forever to study anything? This is why my remedy has to be to just start things. Don't think too much or you'll never stop ...or start for that matter.

In other news, Faulkner dropped out of college after only a single year ya'll. I wonder if there was a bunch of tense bullshit back and forth with his parents or if he just chucked the deuces in peace. The parent child dynamics of the past always intrigue me when I read about them. I can't imagine half the stuff depicted in novels and articles as the norm. Nevertheless, it plays out that his family and family relationships kept him moving and shaking through a myriad of jobs into what we would consider current day adulthood while he made small steps toward his writing destiny. 

What literary figures would you create your own AI study guide about? What questions would you ask?