William Faulkner's "The Tall Men"

[jessepona]

I recently read this short story for the first time. IMHO, it is an eloquent statement of self sufficiency. I'm curious if anyone else has read it and what they think.

Here's a link to the story: The Tall Men

Here's my favorite passage:

“That was after Buddy and them had quit raising cotton. I remember that too. It was when the Government first begun to interfere with how a man farmed his own land, raised his cotton. Stabilizing the price, using up the surplus, they called it, giving a man advice and help, whether he wanted it or not. You may have noticed them boys in yonder tonight; curious folks almost, you might call them. That first year, when county agents was trying to explain the new system to farmers, the agent come out here and tried to explain it to Buddy and Lee and Stuart, explaining how they would cut down the crop, but that the Government would pay farmers the difference, and so they would actually be better off than trying to farm by themselves.

“‘Why, we’re much obliged,’ Buddy says. ‘But we don’t need no help. We’ll just make the cotton like we always done; if we can’t make a crop of it, that will just be our lookout and our loss, and we’ll try again.’

“So they wouldn’t sign no papers nor no cards nor nothing. They just went on and made the cotton like old Anse had taught them to; it was like they just couldn’t believe that the Government aimed to help a man whether he wanted help or not, aimed to interfere with how much of anything he could make by hard work on his own land, making the crop and ginning it right here in their own gin, like they had always done, and hauling it to town to sell, hauling it all the way into Jefferson before they found out they couldn’t sell it because, in the first place, they had made too much of it and, in the second place, they never had no card to sell what they would have been allowed. So they hauled it back. The gin wouldn’t hold all of it, so they put some of it under Rafe’s mule shed and they put the rest of it right here in the hall where we are setting now, where they would have to walk around it all winter and keep themselves reminded to be sho and fill out that card next time.

“Only next year they didn’t fill out no papers neither. It was like they still couldn’t believe it, still believed in the freedom and liberty to make or break according to a man’s fitness and will to work, guaranteed by the Government that old Anse had tried to tear in two once and failed, and admitted in good faith he had failed and taken the consequences, and that had give Buddy a medal and taken care of him when he was far away from home in a strange land and hurt.

I'd never read much Faulkner before.

[Rick]

I liked the excerpt. We read Faulkner in 1973 at UMBC.

Thanks for the link.

[whiterock]

Many think Southern writers are not worthy of being read. A shame really.
Ed

[jessepona]

Some of the best American writers I can think of were Southern- Mark Twain, Flannery O'Conner, William Faulkner.


I just read another story by Faulkner called "Shall Not Perish" that was also set in the rural South and was very good. It was more about military service rather than homesteading. It was amazing though, so good I got shivers reading it.

I love short stories set in rural areas about homesteaders or farmers, people trying to be self sufficient.

[Alice In TX/MO]

What a wonderfully well crafted story. Good message, too.