The Unvanquished: The Corrected Text

If you are new to Faulkner or starting over with him or re-reading his work this is a good place to begin. There is 'foreshadowing' in retrospect of other works - such as Absalom, Absalom! the novel in which he was taking a break in writing to write the stories contained here , characters and family names (Sartoris of course, but also Compson, Snopes and Sutpen), and all in much more accessible yet still Faulknerian prose.First some housekeeping. Is it a novel or is it a set of interconnected short stories? The short answer is an unequivocal yes.On the surface this is about the end of the Civil War and the South's defeat. But more so the novel (stories) explore the ongoing relationships between the black and white characters, particularly Bayard and Ringo who are the same age and act and feel more like brothers, twins, faithful to one another even while in competition for experiences (like who saw a railroad and who hadn't). Interesting too that after the defeat and emancipation the economy of the Sartoris household hadn't really changed. The house is rebuilt and things and people go on as before, even while scarred by loss and freedom. It's also about the end and undoing of Colonel John Sartoris, whose memory lives on 'Flags in the Dust' (which I'm reading next) and others as well as the namesaking of Ab Snopes' son in 'Barn Burning'.My experience with Faulkner has been the shorty stories, Absalom Absalom. As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August and The Hamlet. Every couple of years I get a bug, almost always in Summer - though it hit me early this year - to go back into the deep south and deeper prose of Faulkner. I picked this up as a means of jump starting the reading of novels I hadn't read and re-reading those I had. After finishing The Unvanquished I think I chose well to begin here.He has a way of having you struggle through a paragraph, not clear on what's happening exactly, and then you realize that he had, without you even knowing he was doing it or had done, taken a picture and planted it firmly and fully formed in your head. That is in here, particularly in the scene by the bridge (won't give any spoilers), the image of which popped unbidden into my thought again a few days after having read it and is still there.. In other places he does with a sentience, a few words, a character's exclamation, a gesture.This is brilliant stuff and while I've seen other writers try it and some with a little success, no one does this like Faulkner.Start here.

Years ago in college I first read "An Odor of Verbena" as a stand-alone story from the Malcolm Cowley-edited Vintage collection. Not long after, I read "The Unvanquished," in its entirety. I thought highly of it then. Now as an older adult and retired psychiatrist, I am a more discerning and critical reader. I don't like getting lost in Faulkner's verbiage. But I still greatly appreciate Faulkner and his unique style. There is wisdom in this book that seems applicable to the present-day American scene with the intolerant eyes of Colonel John Sartoris still wide open in our day, and the ferocious hysteria of Drusilla still acting as political chorus.

Funny. Sad. Tragic. The Civil War from a Mississippian POV. Faulkner is at once a cinematographer, a comic storyteller and tragedean equal to Shakespeare but with the language of the deep South. Sherman burns every plantation. Freed slaves leave their homes with no idea of where to go or what to do. A grandma and her two grandsons, one black one white accidentally finds herself with new riches and trasnforms.into a forger. Death and retribution pile on too of each other into a spiraling circle that threatens never to end. And the poetry never stops.

The Unvanquished takes the form of a Bildungsroman, beginning with Bayard as a 13-year-old boy during the Civil War and ending when he is 24 years old, a man, living in the reconstructed South. This gives it a clear direction and thematic unity; the book is about Bayard growning up and learning to deal with the new order of things. Through his perspective we see an evolution from a state of utter innocence, to cynical despair, as he first comes to grips with the chasm between the fantasy ideal of the South and the morally bankrupt reality, and finally to moral awakening as the novel ends with Bayard standing on principle, namely the intrinsic value of life, and in so doing, wittingly or not, condemns the caste system of the antebellum south which was predicated on slavery and dehumanization of an entire race. ultimately this is a novel of the enduring and indomitable nature of the human spirit. Any fan of Faulkner will certainly not want to miss this fine work, and it's a great place to start for readers new to Faulkner. Reading The Unvanquished, and Flags in the Dust prior to tackling The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, and As I Lay Dying, will give the reader some helpful perspective and background to the history of Jefferson county. Above all, this is Faulkner, in my humble opinion the greatest writer to ever live. Any serious reader will gain much from this reading, as with any of his works.

Excellent descriptive writing. However it was a bit broken in the story flow. I think Faulkner couldn't figure a proper ending for this book so he just quit.

Faulkner is the greatest American novelist (in my humble opinion of course) and apart from his short stories, the Unvanquished is a wise way to break into the tangle that is his prose: hauntingly beautiful at times, and often challenging, because above all, Faulkner makes you think, makes you pause and reread what you just thought you understood because there is often a deeper meaning behind his words; the man had an unbelievably deep mind, not sure he even knew how deep it was. But what's best about him is that although he is "literary" he never sacrifices story just to make a point, Faulkner is all about story, and this simple but complex novel of two boys growing up in the background of the civil war is a mesmerizing story. It was published as separate shorter stories but the whole meshes well and it reads fast which can't be said for most Faulkner. Start with the Unvanquished, then move on to As I lay dying, Light in August; save Absalom Absalom and the Sound and the Fury for later on.

I like William Faulkner. I have not read or listened to this one, but I am certain that I will like it, because Faulkner is like Hemingway in the fact that he has a familiar, distinctive style that I am fond of.

I really enjoyed this, well written as always by Faulkner and really evocative of the American Civil War period. The plot works as a series of incidents united to form a whole narrative. Easier to read and much shorter than Absalom Absalom, a good introduction to Faulkner I would say.

Good read

Great

The book was full of notes, arrows and stripes in every page.

"The Unvanquished" by William Faulkner is unique amongst his works. In some ways it is simpler because his syntax, his juggling with time and his choice of vocabulary is less elaborate. But his objectives are also very different. At the moment I'm teachingsome students with a module on short stories of the Deep South, with authors such as Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, CarsonMcCullers, but it's evident that they require some historic background from the American Civil War to understand the atmosphereand attitude that later writers possess. Faulkner's "The Unvanquished" is invaluable in providing vignettes which relate to actualhistorical events and people and the sequence of interconnected short stories, which cover both during and after the war and thechanges in the relationship between Bayard Sartoris and Ringo due to their ages and their colour, reveal the experience of theAmerican Civil War as it was seen by them. Not all of the stories share the best qualities, as in the first one "Ambuscade", but itwould be a mistake to judge the book in the same way as we might consider "Light in August" or "As I lay Dying". Faulkner's objective was more historical rather than literary and if we approach the book in that way we won't be disappointed.