ABSTRACT
It is possible that one of the three writers struggling for possession of Faulkner's heart may be a genius. That writer is hard to distinguish because so much nonsense has been written about him, as every man ofhigh talent provokes critical nonsense. For example, the short story 'll Rose for Emily' is an immensely comic piece; but its significance can be left to those criticswho wish to draw some sociologicalinference from every piece of fiction-even from the fact that once upon a time in Mississippi an old maid fed rat poison to her faithless lover. One hopes Faulkner lends no ear to the jitney sociologists who patronize him; for this truly comic side of his work is his best side, and the conversation of the bedraggled lily who ran the Memphis house-in Sanctuary-is downright genius. Faulkner has a whole gallery of tragicomic figures from the back-waters of Huey Long's kingdom; but I think he would have peopled this gallery with similar studies had he been born in Swampscott. So much for the number one Faulkner.
