When something is new and hard and bright, there ought to be something better for it than just being safe, since the safe things are just the things that folks have been doing so long they have worn the edges off and there’s nothing to the doing of them that leaves a man to say, That was not done before and it cannot be done again. — William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
With something akin to fanatical hate Sebastian Knight was ever hunting out the things which had once been fresh and bright but which were now worn to a thread, dead things among living ones; dead things shamming life, painted and repainted, continuing to be accepted by lazy minds serenely unaware of the fraud. — Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
Faulkner’s trying harder to be Hemingway, which by 1930 may still have been “new and hard and bright”, but it sure as hell hadn’t not been done before. So I’m gonna call this one for Vlad. Besides, I find Faulkner unreadable, so the hell with him.
A good match and hard to call. Hopefully, it will get people reading both writers, deciding for themselves if their lofty reputations are well-deserved. Anyone needing a reason to believe, some faint glimmer of hope for the future should download and read the last few paragraphs of Faulkner’s Nobel acceptance speech. When he talks about how humanity won’t just survive, it will prevail. Sends chills through me just recollecting it…
Alfina,
You know who would be so proud of you even conceiving of this cage match? Ms. ‘it’s on the tip of my tongue’ AP english teacher from high school. I can picture her perfectly in my head (preferably with Toni Morrison quote mobiles flying overhead) but for the love I cannot remember her name. B- something. WTF?
You freaking pedagogue you.
I like Faulkner’s quote.
You know I have to go with Billy on this. But only because he’s my secret-dead-author boyfriend, as you well know. I think they’re pretty evenly matched, in all honesty. And Vlad with all the butterflies. Sigh.
guess it’s not so secret anymore.
I don’t know who my vote is going to yet, but I’m on a Bill Faulkner chapter at the moment, so I might actually have to go with him.
And Lori - Rhymes with Schmenson. Also, she is the one who convinced me to major in English.