Spittin' Off The Balcony in Oxford, Mississippi
Written: Mar 17 '00 (Updated Jun 06 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Faulkner
Cons: The ghost of Faulkner
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| M_Lee_Williams's Full Review: Mississippi |
Here's the deal, KMHINMAN, expert writer of epinions: I'll write an epinion about Oxford, Mississippi that will tell the readers, and I mean REALLY tell them, about Oxford, and if you enjoy the read, too, you'll go down to Square Books and buy me an autographed copy of Larry Brown's latest book. And Ms. KMHINMAN, Ole Miss student and Epinions expert, if you don't like what you read here, the next time I'm in Oxford, I'll buy you and your friends dinner at City Grocery.
Let's begin at the beginning. In Oxford, the beginning, middle and end is not the football team; it is Rowan Oak--William C. Faulkner's house. Picture this folks: A long tree-lined lane leading to an antebellum mansion built in the 1840s. It's spring and it's drizzling a little when you walk around the locked gate to get to the lane. Don't fret, the gate is really there to stop sillier folks than you from driving down the lane to the house, but it's not meant to stop anyone from walking the lane. To the left over there you see a magnolia tree that surely must be as old as the house--it's long and its limbs sag to the ground. There's an odor in the air and it's a sweet smell. Probably the magnolias, maybe even wisteria.
With each step you become aware of time and how it has stopped. Not a minute has passed at Rowan Oak since 1962 when Faulkner died. The front of the house has the obligatory pillars--every house in Oxford worth its salt has pillars. You climb the steps to the front door and knock. A young man opens the door for you and welcomes you, motions for you to come in. It's quiet in the house. The young man tells you it's his job to care for the house. "Would you like to look around?" he asks and you quickly get the idea that everything is very informal--no structured guided tours, no prepared speech of this divan or that bed once belonging to the aunt of the great writer, Faulkner. You wander through the first floor and find yourself in an office. This is it! This is Faulkner's study where he wrote! On the walls he's written the outline for. . .look closer, see if you can read the words. . .yes, it's an outline for his novel, A FABLE. Didn't he win the Pulitzer for that novel? You're pretty sure he did. And wow! Here you are looking at the beginnings of that novel! In the author's handwriting even!
Before you climb the stairs to the second floor you see the young man again at a desk near the stairs. "This is a great old house," you tell him, and then just to be cute you ask, "Is it haunted?" He tells you it is. He tells you that one day while he was sitting at the very desk he is sitting at now he heard voices--up those stairs. Male voices. He was sure he was alone in the house, so he searched through all the bedrooms upstairs. Not a soul to be seen. And then there was the time that the sound of crashing and banging could be heard. Upon investigation it was found that items in Faulkner's bedroom were turned over, broken.
You go up those stairs anyway. The bedrooms are roped off, but you can see into the rooms. They look just like normal rooms to you, but you don't tarry long at Faulkner's doorway. There are too many other things to see in Oxford.
When you leave the house you wander among the trees, sit on a big, sagging limb of a. . .what kind of tree is that anyway? Sort of looks like a tree you imagined might grow in Africa. Thirty eight acres of peace and quiet. You are surrounded by a wooded area. Bailey Woods. Someone told you that or maybe you read it somewhere. From what ever source you got that information, you recall also getting the information that this place was once called Bailey Place until Faulkner bought it. He changed the name to Rowan Oak after reading in Fraser's THE GOLDEN BOUGH that rowan oaks are said to provide one with peace and serenity. It must work. You feel peaceful and serene.
But, it's time to eat. When you get to the locked gate, you take one look back. Some say Faulkner is the greatest writer America has ever produced. You know he won the Nobel Prize for Literature and two Pulitzers, and you wonder how a man living in this southern state, in this little southern town, writing about poor southern folks could possibly get all that attention from the world. You promise yourself that when you get home you're going to read Faulkner again--and this time you're going to finish THE SOUND AND THE FURY.
At Smitty's, just off the square in downtown Oxford, you order a cheeseburger and a coke. And you hear the couple behind you order a catfish sandwich. Hmmm. Wonder if it tastes good? You switch seats in your booth to watch that couple and all the other folks coming and going through the doors of Smitty's. This has got to be a restaurant straight out of the 50s. Booths along the wall, barstools and a counter, ceiling fans. The cheeseburger tastes great, the Coke tastes better than any Coke you've ever bought above the Mason-Dixon. "Can I have another Co-cola?" says the elderly lady eating the catfish sandwich. That catfish sandwich looks even better than your cheeseburger tastes. "Why, sure you can, Miz Gardner," obliges the waitress. Next time, you promise yourself, next time I'll get you one of those catfish sandwiches.
Not more than 40 foot falls from Smitty's is Square Books. It's motto: "Founded in 1979 -- independent forever." Cool. You've been reading about this place. Owned by Richard Howorth, president of Independent Booksellers. You learned about him when you were reading a magazine article about Larry Brown, the writer who once was a fireman here in Oxford. Now, he's written two novels, DIRTY WORK and JOE; two short story collections, BIG BAD LOVE and FACING THE MUSIC. You read FACING THE MUSIC. Good stuff. Brown doesn't live in Oxford, you read, but he lives up the road a piece. Howorth read some of his stories back when he was a fireman and helped him get an agent. Wonder if Howorth would take a look at the couple of short stories you've written? Hmmm. Something to think about next time you're in Oxford and have the stories with you.
Check it out! Here's a copy of Brown's memoirs when he was a fireman! ON FIRE. And it's autographed! You grab it and head upstairs where you buy yourself a latte and head out to the balcony. Horns are honking, folks are coming and going into the historic courthouse across the street. A couple of them stop at the Civil War monument and read the words written there. Squinting, you make out the figure of a Confederate soldier carved on the top of that monument. Maybe you ought to get a crayon and a big sheet of paper and get a rubbing of what's written on the monument. Well, if you've got time you will.
You really would like to read Brown's book, but dad-gum the square is noisy. You go to the corner of balcony and turn your back to the courthouse. That's what Brown was doing when they took his picture for the flap of his book, FACING THE MUSIC. Someday, you think. Someday. In the meantime, you smile at an imaginary photographer, making sure the expression in your eyes is wise and curious at the same time. That's what every writer's eyes should look like, you think.
On the sidewalk below a couple of coeds are walking and giggling. Should you spit? And then duck back so they won't see you? What would Barry Hannah do? Last night when you were dining at The Downtown Grill, just across the square from here, you saw Hannah. He was holding court--had a table of students around him and he was telling them about his adventures. They were laughing, acting as if it were nothing to be at the table of the man who wrote HIGH LONESOME, a collection of short stories nominated for the Pulitzer. You've read that one, too, and want to read his other books, CAPTAIN MAXIMUS, HEY JACK!, BOOMERANG, NEVER DIE, BATS OUT OF HELL. Well, obviously he's too wise and curious to spit off a balcony, and as soon as you get to be a well-known writer you won't spit either. In the meantime, spit. . .(bullseye!). . .and duck.
It's time to get out of Square Books while the gettin' is good. Acting as innocent as your granny always thought you to be, you walk down the stairs lined with autographed bestsellers. You stop at a book by WILLIE MORRIS. Doggone it, he died last year. Died before you could search the benches on the courthouse grounds to see if he was still hanging around Oxford. A few years back you'd heard he sat on one of the benches, having an evening cool one and just watching the college kids drive by in their expensive cars their mommies and daddies bought them. After awhile he couldn't take it any longer and he yelled out, "Rich and dumb! Rich and dumb!" Now, he's the kind of guy who'd spit off a balcony. You pick up his book, NORTH TOWARD HOME. You already have WITCH OF YAZOO, GOOD OLD BOY: A DELTA BOYHOOD.
You pay for the Brown and Morris books and wander over to the courthouse and settle on one of the benches. It's the one facing Jennie's Hallmark. That's where the Hollywood folks filmed some of the scenes from the movie based on Faulkner's book, INTRUDER IN THE DUST. And hey, where is City Hall? You look around and spot it behind you on the other side of the square. That's where a couple of scenes from THE GUN IN BETTY LOU'S HANDBAG was filmed. Dumb title, but a good enough movie--especially if you are curious about Oxford and want to watch the movie for the scenery. There's a scene from The Gin in that movie. The Gin--a cotton gin turned bar, and it's just up the street a block or two. Maybe you'll check it out before you leave town.
You thumb through Morris' book, but you can't concentrate on it right now. You're thinking about when he was a Writer-in-residence at Ole Miss. Donna Tartt was his student. Boy howdy, if you could write a book like SECRET HISTORY and have lightning strike as it did for her. John Grisham was somebody who dropped in on Morris' classes, too. That's back when he was a lawyer, before he wrote 10 or so books and made a gazillion dollars.
A nice walk through the residential area and you find yourself at St. Peter's Cemetery. Before the afternoon is over you've found Faulkner's grave and his brother's grave. The epitaph on the brother's tombstone is the same one Faulkner wrote in his book, SARTORIS:
I bear him on Eagles'
wings and brought him
unto me.
His brother died after Faulkner wrote the book, so this is a matter of life imitating art. My thanks to John B. Padgett for pointing out that Dean Faulkner died after Sartoris was written, thus I've edited this epinion to reflect the correction.
You hunt for awhile and finally come across the grave of Caroline Barr--Faulkner's maid, friend and maybe surrogate mother. Faulkner dedicated his book GO DOWN MOSES to Mammy Barr. He wrote, "To Mammy Caroline Barr, 1840-1940, who was born in slavery and who gave to my family a fidelity without stint or calculation of recompense and to my childhood an immeasurable devotion and love." When she died Faulkner insisted her body lay in wait in his parlor. He must have also bought her this tombstone, you decide. It reads:
Callie Barr Clark
1840-1940
MAMMY
Her white children bless her
It's late. Time to get going back to Memphis. It's a good hour, hour and a half drive. You left your car back at Rowan Oak, but it doesn't take long to get back there. Sun is getting low on the horizon as you drive toward the Ole Miss campus. You want to find the building on which part of Faulkner's Nobel acceptance speech is carved in the side. It's a great campus. There's the law school. Funny looking building, though. Built on the lot sideways. How odd. But, then lawyers are odd.
There's the grove. During football season there's not a spare inch left when all the campers drive onto it, folks all excited about the weekend's game.
The Lyceum. In your history book there's a picture of military tanks lined up outside the Lyceum when James Meredith registered as the first black student at Ole Miss. 1961? 1962? Well, long ago anyway, but not as soon as it should have been. How could there have been such anger and hatred in this town, this beautiful, gracious town? Folks were shot and killed trying to stop the inevitable, trying to prevent the right and good thing. Oh God, forgive our ignorance and bless our hard-gained, slow-to-recognize wisdom. Amen.
There's the building. You get out and wander over to it. You're carrying Faulkner's speech with you. You look at the words on the page and you reach up and feel his words carved into the building. Good words. Worth repeating. You begin reading the words on the building and when there are no more words to read there, you look at the paper. You read it all aloud:
I decline to accept the end of man. . .I believe that man
will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal,
not because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion
and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's duty
is to write about these things. . .the poet's voice need
not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the
props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
Yeah, good words, but. . .it would have been better if Faulkner had been so curious and wise that he would have realized the power in the inclusion of both genders in that speech. But, he meant well, you're sure of that.
Before leaving the campus, you check at the newspaper office for information on the 27th Annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. Sure enough, they have a flyer you can take with you. It's going to be held July 23-July 28. Right then and there you decide you're going to register for it and you'll be back to Oxford during its greatest week of the year. And if, by chance, you see Barry Hannah holding court again at The Downtown Grill, you're determined to pull up a chair, buy him a drink and tell him about some of your adventures.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
M_Lee_Williams
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Member: M. Lee Williams
Reviews written: 17
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