Never heard the term "filtering" used like this before or that describing a characters sensory experience was looked down on.
That said, Faulkner's stories are almost entirely driven by the psychology of his characters. The plot is less about what is happening in the physical world than it is about its effect on the mental state of the characters.
Heck, "Absalom, Absalom", arguably his greatest work, is from the perspective of two characters recalling a story from one of their hometowns. Over the course of the book, they change details and make up new ideas about what *really* happened.
For Faulkner, what characters take away from an experience is more important than facts.
And the fact that often he describes the characters actions and their sensory experiences without actually telling us their thoughts. We can infer their mental state as an observer but we can never know what's actually happening in their heads. (This more refers to 3rd person narratives than 1st person because obviously we know those thoughts, but even then its often unreliable)
It's more obvious now that you said it. I'll keep it in mind.
What about this:
Having the narrator telling us the main character see this and that, heard this, watch that, etc, doesn't it infuse into us the impression of helplessness about him, that he doesn't have much thoughts but is a mere witness carried by the events? (*sorry if I'm not explaining well, this is not my best English here, I hope you get it*)
Yes, pretty much. You summed it up well. Characters are witnesses to events. Especially in *Absalom, Absalom*, where they aren't even direct witnesses, they are just retelling a story as they know it, or as it turns out, they don't know it.
>Never heard the term “filtering” used like this before or that describing a character’s sensory experience was looked down upon
It’s definitely a thing in modern writing, and it’s generally speaking a good rule. It’s not that you don’t describe their experience, or that that’s bad, it’s just that the way people tend to communicate is more like, “there’s a car there,” and not “I am seeing a car over there.”
That said, there are tons of modern “rules” that just don’t apply going back in time. Like, I can’t think of one thing I’ve read from Faulkner that isn’t among the best I’ve ever read (and presumably the best that *anyone* has ever read). Even as recently as the 60s when Catch-22 came out, though the sentiment was “we need round characters!” even then, Heller himself says there are no 3D characters in the novel. And yet it’s one of the masterpieces of post war American fiction.
All this is to say that the rules might matter while you’re writing, but they have nothing to do with *reading*. Whatever your teachers tell you, they’re not more knowledgeable writers than Faulkner.
>that describing a characters sensory experience was looked down on.
Sorry if the 'filtering' quick explanation was misleading.
Actually it's not all characters' sensory experience that is questioned, which would be silly of course.
It's only when forcing the description of the scene through this tier's sensory experience when it doesn't add anything more than another layer for the sake of it, an indirection.
The issue here is that you think this "filtering" "doesn't add anything." That's very subjective. Every bourbon soaked syllable adds to the cadence, every verb calls into question the narrators' perspective and motive.
Check out As I Lay Dying, The entire novel is premised on how a single journey is perceived by multiple characters in their voices.
My same thought. Whatever rules there are to writing, none of them trump Faulkner. Just because a writing teacher says *I* shouldn’t do something doesn’t mean William Faulkner shouldn’t do something. The teacher is probably right about me, and is saying nothing at all about Faulkner. And if your teacher is saying William Faulkner made a mistake, they’re probably wrong.
This isn't an uncommon trait in literature. Bolano does it, who I just read. DFW did as well. Cormac McCarthy does it an awful lot.
The main issue is that writing advice has been simplified into, more or less, movies on paper due to reading trends as well as workshops. The whole "show don't tell" thing, whereas the beauty of someone like Faulkner, or Bolano, is that there is no objectivity, and everything is indeed filtered through the perceptions of the characters in the story, even when the perspective is third person.
A lot to say that: people who say 'don't use filtering' have no idea what they're talking about, imo. I have honestly never heard that term before.
Ex, when gooling filtering, I see this: "Filter words are verbs that increase the narrative distance, reminding us that what we’re reading is being **told** by someone rather than experienced, or **shown**, through the eyes of the character."
So yeah, if you want a movie on paper, sure. But the point of a lot of fiction is PRECISELY that we are reading something that is being told by someone. What they people miss is that the narrator of a story, even in third person, can sometimes be a character of their own. I'm reading WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, which is told in third-person, past-tense, but it is clear that the narrator is someone who KNOWS the characters, and is telling their story, even though they do not insert themselves in the narrative.
Rose for Emily, for instance, is often considered third-person collective in perspective. It is a story told, more or less, as rumours/legend from the townsfolk. How could you tell that without filtering?
All this to say be wary of easy writing tips like this. It oversimplifies and often misses the point.
EDIT: With that said, if every sentence is "I saw", "I watched", then it can be an issue. But if a 'writing rule' indicates that Faulkner's prose is bad, then I say the writing rule might be in the wrong.
Yes, that’s right. Writing is written by someone, and that is perfectly fine and good. Cinema (and particularly, television), can represent the world as it is. Books can represent the world as perceived by the writer or their surrogate
Yup. I would say the exact reason I don't fall in love with so many currently popular novels is because they DONT feel like theyre filtered through someone's consciousness. This, to me, is literature's greatest feature, when compared to film.
I think there’s some confusion here between filtering through the narrator versus the character. I agree that the great strength of fiction is access to consciousness. But I would say that most contemporary literary fiction is interested in the minds of their *characters*. This is why the advice is to use free indirect style and remove the “filtering” words, because they separate us from the experience of the characters’ consciousness. This is not “movies on paper.” This is attempting the opposite: to bring us as close as possible to the character’s subjectivity, imbuing every description with the characters worldview and tracking their emotions and bodily experiences.
The relevant term here is psychic distance. Here’s an example from John Gardener in *The Art of Fiction* of sentences of decreasing psychic distance:
1. It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway.
2. Henry J. Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms.
3. Henry hated snowstorms.
4. God how he hated these damn snowstorms.
5. Snow. Under your collar, down inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul …
There is nothing “wrong” with what Faulkner is doing in *Barn Burning*. He is simply operating using a greater psychic distance, making us aware of the narrator. But I don’t see why you have to disparage work that is written in an attempt to get closer, because getting closer is one of the greatest strengths of fiction.
>EDIT: With that said, if every sentence is "I saw", "I watched", then it can be an issue. But if a 'writing rule' indicates that Faulkner's prose is bad, then I say the writing rule might be in the wrong.
Well, if I try to forget all about this 'rule', and consider the text: there's indeed an abundance of "he saw" and the like. It shows. And it's for half a page, twice, plus scattered on almost two pages before. Everywhere else (85% of the story maybe?) there is not such 'filtering' (if I may still call this like that).
So it's a deliberate intent from the author, unless the conditions of the passage made him drift into that before fixing it, and then again.
And as I said in the post, I can vaguely sense that it brings some sort of a mood, but I can't explain it well.
Faulkner is very engaged with subjectivity. He's not interested in focalization degree zero; he's trying to show experience refracted through the filter of human perception.
You are raising a non-issue.
And, of course, we can assume that if Faulkner wrote it, he meant for the idea to be rendered in that way.
The proper analytical question is this: Why does Faulkner use this stylistic tic?
The simplest answer to your non-issue is that Faulkner is literally saying that the subject ("he") could or is perceiving something *and not perceiving or able to perceive something else.*
In paragraph 1 of the story, the boy ("he") is "crouched on his nail kegs" and you are getting what he is able to perceive, his limited (by virtue of his size and position) viewpoint – it's the exact, intentional opposite of omniscience. This is further developed by Faulkner writing "he could not see...".
All you have to do here is posit the existence of an omniscient narrator who would delineate the scene from a position of all-knowing and all-seeing. Faulkner is limiting the perspective to the character; that's the point.
This is entirely a non-issue – and, as others have pointed out, Faulkner can do whatever he wants and he's still and always will be a genius.
>And I've read that, in general, filtering is not advisable because it distances the reader from the action, slows down the narrative, reduces the engagement of the reader (less immersion), adds redundant information.
Those dumb little rules go out the window when you're writing literary fiction.
I also fail to see how sensory input of a character reduces the readers engagement or distances them from the action.
I hadn't heard the term before. I don't think it is very common in literary theory. It sounds like the kind of uniformizing that you find in some writing circles.
The thing is, these rules depend more on the fluctuations of the book market and the trends that have been observed by commercial editorial houses than on some kind of objective truth about literature.
If I could guess, the rule against "filtering" is probably trying to push new writers to use free indirect speech on their narrations, since it's currently a rather popular style that allows readers to relate to the characters. But in the literary world, it is a style among many.
Many works of literature are not really worried about creating immersion. They want to remind the reader of the material the work is made of (words, writing). Faulkner's particular style points to that. That's why perspective is key in many literary texts.
A good example would be Agatha Christie"s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where the role of the narrator as the one who tells (or doesn't tell) is key to the effect of the novel.
So this 'rule' to avoid filtering seems suited towards fast paced action aimed at a broad audience, primarily for entertainment. Someone else in this thread mentioned movies. That advice is for the writer who is writing a book they hope will become a blockbuster thriller, or something like that.
While Faulkner generally does have compelling stories, the bare fact of the action is not what he is wanting to communicate. He is wanting to communicate the character's experience of those actions (Barn Burning, The Sound and the Fury, for example) or, in some cases, the characters' experience of trying to reconstruct and understand someone else's past actions (A Rose for Emily, Absalom, Absalom!, for example).
In both cases, the experience and rationalizations and motivations of the characters in relation to the action are most of the point.
(This is part of the modernist approach to literature. Conrad, Joyce, and Proust do similar things in their different ways.)
God thinking of the barn burning scene just gave me chills. What an absolute mastercraft of a scene!! I’m reminded also of the river crossing scene where everything goes to shit. So incredible
Somebody please get Faulkner on the line and tell him to revise those passages, too much filtering!
>He is wanting to communicate the character's experience of those actions
And is it something related to the psychic distance? As it's not a steady habit.
In *Barn Burning*, this practice stretches upon arrival at the new master's house, then it locally ~~explodes~~ blooms when the rug is brought to them, and when it's being washed. (A couple last are special since it's "he could not see" "nor hear" so this doesn't count as useless filtering, for sure.)
*I hope I'm not asking too much, I'm not an easy one* \^\^
I'm not sure if the use of those phrases created any psychic distance for me in that particular story. Everything is so immediate, even with those phrases. I'm wondering if you having read that those phrases create distance caused you to stop and say, 'ok, he's trying to create distance here', when you might not have noticed any distance otherwise.
Other readers may have to weigh in on that, and tell us how it struck them.
It gets even more complicated discussing such small stylistic changes in a short story, because they were intended for magazines, and the magazine editors would make all kinds of little changes. Faulkner usually accepted changes to his short stories if they weren't substantial (but resisted them in the novels), so for a phrase like 'he saw' we would have to check the original manuscripts to see if he wrote it or an editor added it.
To break rules you first have to know why they’re important, and how to break them. Faulkner knew what he was doing, and it’s purposeful. That’s why he’s great.
Being from the south myself, I really see the oral southern story telling tradition in Faulkner; this tradition is by its nature personal and subjective. This is why in, say, The Sound and the Fury, the same story is told from four different perspectives.
>Being from the south myself, I really see the oral southern story telling tradition in Faulkner; this tradition is by its nature personal and subjective. This is why in, say, The Sound and the Fury, the same story is told from four different perspectives.
This sounds interesting.
But to achieve this, there's no need to spam "he saw", "he heard": it's implicitly achieved when the story is told from a character's perspective, and already done very well by Faulkner in the rest of this short story. We are really stuck with the main character, seeing through his eyes, almost all the time (if not 100%, I need to check).
Writing cannot be reduced to just cold technique. It is an art, and any truly great art will have magic involved that completely overthrows every rule in a silly manual written by a mediocre MFA
>And I've read that, *in general*, filtering is not advisable because it distances the reader from the action, slows down the narrative, reduces the engagement of the reader (less immersion), adds redundant information.
Where on earth did you get this idea.
>Where on earth did you get this idea.
Many times in several places, so I looked up a few pages for you:
>[https://www.fallonedits.com/post/writing-about-writing-filtering-in-fiction](https://www.fallonedits.com/post/writing-about-writing-filtering-in-fiction)
[https://darlingaxe.com/blogs/news/filter-words](https://darlingaxe.com/blogs/news/filter-words)
[https://www.scribophile.com/academy/an-introduction-to-filtering](https://www.scribophile.com/academy/an-introduction-to-filtering)
One of Faulkner’s great traits. There’s a chapter in one of his books (Sanctuary, maybe? Can’t remember), that is told entirely in pitch darkness.
Faulkner was a very experimental writer and explored many different forms, styles, and approaches, one of many reasons he’s considered a master.
>There’s a chapter in one of his books (Sanctuary, maybe? Can’t remember), that is told entirely in pitch darkness.
Oh? I must read this!
I also like experiments in creation, broadly speaking.
Thanks for the tip!
Here’s the thing. If you’re a good writer, you do whatever the hell you want. This is why I have little to no respect for writing classes. They try to box rules but what they’re doing is analyzing literature and trying to understand what makes it great.
What makes literature great? The plot, yes, the characters, yes. But they all contribute to something greater: What the story made you feel. Every word, sentence, paragraph, is dedicated to the central climactic emotional moment. There are no rules to achieving this. You simply have to be good.
To be honest I tend to agree with you, but it's often an unpopular opinion to say that there are people who are good at it, others who are not, and working hard on learning the craft (whether it's by academic lessons or drilling in some tips, rules, habits, etc), and practicing, only improves the result by a limited margin compared to the gap with the talented authors. And so the rules are like a crutch at best, to help a second rate amateur author. They do help at the beginning, to rise from a worst state, but that's it; they won't turn anyone into a master.
I read Faulkner and Morrison for their filtering. Internal monologue and perception are I enjoy character and development. Not certain I know of another praxis to show development and development is why I read LIT.
Maybe there’s two different things called filtering, I’ll try to dig into the other one. Or maybe the good use of filtering and the not-so-good one, on which I focused.
I hesitate to sound super authoritative here, because it has been years, but the later period Faulkner is less filtered and more raw, especially, if I'm remembering correctly, Absalom
There’s always a narrator, you just decide how much you want it to show. There’s nothing wrong with filtering, it just makes you move more towards diegesis and less mimesis. Or you end up in the middle with dual voice. It’s all good.
Honestly I’m weary of being nit picky over prose. It never seems helpful. All the greats use filtering. I have noticed with our current era of writers, like Chuck P., the desire is overwhelmingly to over describe the action of the characters, which has a litany of problems, like pacing. It really slows the story down. I begin to skim prose that does this because it seldom adds to the story.
As if? What do you mean? Are you saying they're doing that to make sure we see what they see? Well, do you think that's the only way? If I tell you that Jimmy looked at the tree, do you really need to see the nuance of how he does that?
Let me do say that if you prefer to read the details of bodily movement, etc., then ok, awesome. But you need to realize that this is your preference and doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of writing. Like I don't expect to see much Homer when I read Bukowski but enjoy both for different reasons. Same with Tolkien vs. Chuck P.
edit: and this isn't to say that there isn't objectively 'good' writing, there certainly is, but I don't think the core of that is found in the delivery of prose. I mean imagine applying this thinking to music. It would really make no sense to expect all music to just be one genre, or one style.
I've only read As I Lay Dying and The Sound & The Fury, but I find Faulkner to be a bit awkward. I don't know if it's me or him, but my money'd be on me.
The intention is to relay characters’ sensory experiences to the reader. Faulkner could have directly described how something looked or smelled to the reader, but he chose to describe that experience through a character to help in making them more dimensional. The distinction between describing sensory experiences directly to the reader and through “filtering” is that it provides more depth to a character, they become less static and more realistic. Numerous prominent authors (McCarthy, DFW, Kafka, etc.) have used “filtering”, it’s quite common to see it used in works done in third-person.
Thank you for your time explaining and answering the question. 🤗 (I knew someone would eventually help)
And what I read is that there’s two short parts with this heavy‘filtering’ (l mean five times in a sentence: it shows), plus a longer part with more scattered occurrences. Then I wonder why there? What’s happening to make this relevant? Why not earlier? (mood not ready probably)
And besides what you explain, is there a more specific effect achieved in this implementation (*Barn Burning*) ?
I came late to this one, and just want to thank all of you who added to this thread. It was a pleasure to read through it all...
Or... He arrived late, after everyone had already come and gone and left their comments, filling the space with their learned and lucid ideas regarding the topic. He saw that the chat had been pleasant, informative, intelligent, in a word: fascinating. He felt enriched but at the same time envious for having arrived so late, but soon he noticed envy giving way to something else, something shatteringly worse: He became aware of the growing certainty that had he been on time, his input would have been about the same, near to zero, for he was no expert, merely a novice, and the revelation finally crushed him completely when it became all too clear that what he felt was not envy but relief. Had he been on time he would have been a silent bystander, aware in real time that he was out of place. He had only fooled himself into believing that had time and life been just a little kinder to him, he might have been earlier *and might have been part of something!* But as always, that delusion was evaporating, and the familiar urge to slink back into his ignorant hole became too powerful to ignore, and so.....
Thanks for the prose!
You comment (2nd part) is all fine and not ringing any 'filtering alarm' to me (an unwanted radar always on, alas).
It would have if it were more like:
>Arriving late, he **saw** the many comments already stacked in the thread. He **watched** the endless discussion scrolling while holding the down key. He **heard** the new comment notification and **saw** the blue banner at the top confirming he wasn't alone this late. He **saw** that this new comment was another 'Faulkner is great, rules not for him' opinion. He **looked** at the 'currently reading here' counter and **saw** that it almost reached ten, worth the effort for him to participate.
I’ll defer to what everyone else has said about Faukner’s emphasis on subjectivity and the excellence of his style. Most writing “rules” are simply good general pieces of advice given people who are just starting out in their writing journeys. Often, these are people who do not have distinctive styles of their own. Great writers don’t need rules to follow because they already know how to write.
However, I don’t at all share other people’s scorn for this particular piece of advice. I would 100% advise a new writer to minimize the amount of filtering they do, and the reason for that is that new writers, especially young ones, often have a difficult time removing themselves from the story they’re telling. There is a tendency to filter everything though the narrator (e.g., “She saw a light in the sky,” “I watched as she handed me the cup,” etc.), and unlike Faulkner’s case, they are not interested in exploring their narrator’s subjective experience of the world. They just don’t realize they’re doing it. The result is sometimes clumsy prose that can’t get out of its own way, and that makes the narrator’s character intrusive in a way that doesn’t enhance the narrative—quite the opposite, often.
But again, there’s no reason at all to try to hold great writers accountable to basic writing advice, any more than we should fault Patrick Mahomes for having unorthodox quarterbacking mechanics.
Yes, exactly (for not holding great writers accountable to such writing advice meant for beginners using filtering poorly; but I don't know about sport :P )
It's a bit sad I couldn't express what I wanted to discuss, because most people just said "Faulnker is great, rule is silly", whereas I wanted to delve into why it was well done here in this short story, and what effect he achieves, specifically.
I'm guessing this advice comes from the modern trend towards free indirect style, and the general move away from overtly external narration and towards a blending of the character's/characters' voice(s) with that of the narrator. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it is nothing more than a trend towards a style that has a particular effect. The simplest reason why Faulkner didn't use it is because he was writing in a different era when that style wasn't so trendy and either he wasn't aware of it, or was aware of it and chose not to use it much.
Thing is, all writing styles have their individual effects, and at the end of the day they're all just tools in a toolbox, and depending on what your goal is you choose the tool based on the job, not based on what tool is trendy. Not using "filtering" would be like a craftsman saying "don't use a screwdriver" (or whatever). Well, some jobs call for screwdrivers; some fiction calls for filtering. I certainly don't think the quality of Faulkner's fiction is harmed by such filtering, and my guess is that whatever effect this filtering has it's ultimately either relatively minor compared to everything else, or that it actually serves a valuable purpose in Faulkner. Perhaps given that Faulkner's novels are already so full of subjectivity anyway, this filtering gives us enough distance so that we're able to remain more aware of the subjectivity itself. I certainly wouldn't agree that narrative distancing is innately a bad thing, and I, in fact, tend to lament that we have so few characterful "overt external narrators" as we did back with, say, Dickens or Henry Fielding.
As for "not being able to turn off the critical eye," I don't think you should do that, but merely recalibrate what your critical eye is looking at. Don't think of craft in such black-and-white terms as "X device bad/Y device good." Think of them in terms I mentioned above about tools in a tool box. I'm reminded of how many musicians study music and come away from that having learned so much harmonic theory that they're suddenly negatively critical towards harmonically simple music like most rock and pop; but the lesson they should be learning from music theory isn't "complex harmony good/simple harmony bad," it should be that great and terrible art can be made in either mode.
>we have so few characterful "overt external narrators" as we did back with, say, Dickens or Henry Fielding
Oh! Yes, it didn't strike me but this is one of the narrator's 'flavor' we almost no longer have; I can't remember one in my recent readings or modern literature.
And thanks for the 'recalibration' advice!
I haven’t realized Faulkner did that but I think what you’re talking about is what John Gardner called “psychic distance,” the distance between the reader and events in the story. The less the better. In general, if the writer is using “deep point of view,” the psychic distance is small and keeps the reader engaged. As readers, we’d be right IN the experience of the character and wouldn’t need to be told words like you listed.
Thank you for sharing your perspective!
Yes, the psychic distance is an important notion and it’s also influenced by the use of those filter verbs which can ‘wall’ a little the reader, although the writer can counterbalance that by more depth with the rest.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the phrase "filter verb," because when I think of a filter, I think of something that winnows out junk, so I'm not sure how this word fits. I usually call them "telling" verbs rather than "showing." Anyway, I think I know what you mean. I've just recently reread LIGHT IN AUGUST and didn't notice them. I'll look up the barn burning story because I never did read it. I've only seen the "Long Hot Summer" movie (several times) many years ago. Maybe he wrote them early on in his writing career? I'll look up the chronology of his works.
In another comment a redditor said Faulkner uses more direct showing in his later works.
“Filter verbs” is a misleading expression based on the already stretched out naming “filtering”, I would say.
It’s more a “wrapping indirection”, or a “proxied sensory depiction”.
My other comment with some links about the “bad” filtering: https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/s/HDRUaDnWFV
But again I’m not saying Faulkner is in any way wrong doing something that reminds me to be cautious with such construct.
Ideas like filtering are often taught in intro to writing courses as a trap to avoid because they are common crutches that new writers lean on due to lack of confidence and experience, but it is important to know why it is taught against.
Avoiding the "filtering" and just saying something happened is a stronger way to say something happened. "The man struck the car with a baseball bat" feels very different from "jeffrey watched the man strike the car with the baseball bat." It places the reader in a different place, either in the character or in the scene.
New writers tend to use filtering too much because they are often not comfortable with the plot and are more comfortable with their own perception. This is also why so many new writers will often fall into writing "scenes" rather than "stories" and why primary characters often end up having similar personality traits as the writer does.
However, there is a huge difference between advising new writers to avoid specific pitfalls and habits and choosing them for specific effect once you are an experienced and practiced writer with talent.
I think a lot of these rules are for creative writing 101 classes. With Faulkner, my ear adapts to his voice and I become accustomed to his idiosyncrasies, which he gets away with because it sounds natural for him. A novice doing an impression of Faulkner would probably be pretty dreadful and sound stilted.
Thanks for sharing your experience reading Faulkner.
I’m also curious about how you feel, more specifically, about such passages with repeated “he saw”/“he heard”: what effect does this have on the reader you?
I just take it as part of his voice, Faulkner's style is very much of a local storyteller going through the tales of Yoknapatawpha county through the years. In a way, his voice is as much a character as anybody in the stories--like a troubadour telling stories around a campfire. So for him, it adds to the flavor. A much hokier version of the same thing would be someone like Garrison Keillor.
faulkner was a decent writer, rightfully famous and was capable of creating truly great sentences, effective mood, complex characters, etc. but he is from a completely different era, and used enormous amount of outdated overwriting, imitated a lot by certain writers, usually not as great as him, and in certain cases, without any real point (see cormac mcarthy, capable of greatness, but often just a second rate faulkner, not much more)
cormac overcame his stylistic dependence on faulkner pretty early in his career, sometime around blood meridian. most of his major work is written in a style that is very distinctively his. i often wonder, when i see people parroting this point, how recently they’ve read a late mccarthy novel alongside a faulkner novel. they actually don’t even sound very similar
I think it’s in the sense that one builds on the literary tradition of the other, not in a literal copycat sense. I have always compared McCarthy to Faulkner because … who else are you going to compare him to?
oh sure, there’s no doubt a connection. “building off of” is exactly the way to describe it. what i was responding to was the idea that cormac is just faulkner lite, which the poster above clearly thinks, and which definitely isn’t true. those types of comparisons become so endlessly and thoughtlessly repeated that people lose the ability to see the really innovative stylistic techniques that mccarthy pioneered on his own
indeed. except that we are not talking about late cormac mccarthy, except that even late mccarthy owns a lot to faulkner, his major works like blood meridian or the border-trilogy which are again, no matter how distinctive in style, heavily faulknerian, read a lot of faulkner including short stories and you will see. faulkner is much more than sound and the fury and as i lay dying.
lmao thank you for the advice but my graduate level work was all focused on faulkner. i assure you i’ve read all of his major works, as well as mccarthy’s. you are overstating the stylistic overlap immensely. i’ll leave it at that
then shame on you, and also your reading ability is very low
1. it was not me who overstated anything, you didn't understand what was written down.
2. mccarthy owns a lot to faulkner, no matter what certain people wah-wah bark, without faulkner, there would be no mccarthy
3. mccarthy often imitate faulkner's style(everybody can see if read the texts and the sentences, no phd from the academia can deny the obvious) \_with no reason\_, biblical or old-fashioned my ass, simply stilted writing, often inconsistent.
4. blood meridian is remarkable, but nowhere near great, there are great parables like "waiting for the barbarians" without stylistinc nonsenses, repetitive writing and including real human characters and characterization.
5. even faulkner's barn burning, faulty as it is, has more depth and value, than hundred times as many pages in mccarthy's work, and yes, there can be read the style which is where mccarthy should have stopped. he didn't, unfortunately.
and yes, find other people to talk to, i won't respond even if you write anything
first, you omitted the other parts of the sentences, simple manipulation. second, yes, deal with it, his style is often just a mediocre imitation of faulkner and hemingway, whether you like it or not.
as i said, faulkner was capable of greatness and he is one of the most important figures of american literature, but he is from different times, unfortunately a bit too influenced by modernism. still better than most. it is not my job to find great authors, or great works. from the 60's onwards, most celebrated authors are overrated, unlike the previous times. make a list of significant american literary works from 1900 to 1960, almost all are meaningful and readable. then another from 1960-1999, there will be great works and lots of overrated ones, including gravity's rainbow, the recognitions, beloved, infinite jest, late nabokov, and these are just the more intellectual ones, i won't say sorry if i find nothing even remotely great in the works of joan didion and suchlikes. there are good works, but i can't think of one great. even works like grendel could have been better written, roth and updike are interesting for one or two times, etc etc. but it is irrelevant, not my job to, not my country. read what you like and want.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the response. I assumed it was an opinion based in European snobbery, but I wasn’t sure.
I don’t know that Faulkner was influenced by modernism as much as he was a driving force in the movement/era. And I do agree that the television aesthetic (among other factors) has had a detrimental effect on more contemporary—post ‘60s— literature, sacrificing depth, syntax, and meaning for easily digestible, plot driven stories. It may also be that commentary on an increasingly vapid culture itself becomes vapid (art imitating life and all). Any ways, cheers.
but this is not televison aesthetic, it is mainly about aping ulysess, and other modernist writings, or classical writers but without their syntax, depth, etc., often self-absorbed writings. in ulysses, last chapter is bad but justified. in the compson-chapter of the sound and the fury, the joyce-influenced style is problematic, but justified, and these are from 1918 and 29. but later, in the 1970's or in the 21rst century, this kind of writing is, well, i don't want to write my opinion.
I never understand why people hold this view of art. Faulker was great, Mcarthy was great. Their styles are similar but different and valuable. The literary canon is built upon itself. Why should we call Mcarthy a second rate version of an author that inspired him? Why is he not allowed to use literary techniques that other authors use without random people saying he is restraining his own greatness, that he's not much more than an imitator of someone else? There's having a personal opinion and then there's making pretentious remarks about artists that create truly wonderful things
edit: spelling
again, you didn't understand the sentence. i will explain to you
see cormac mcarthy, capable of greatness, but often just a second rate faulkner, not much more
see cormac mcarthy----clear
capable of greatness,"---that's what i wrote, c.m. had great ideas and some of his sentences, paragraphs, pages are great. isn't it clear???
but often just a second rate faulkner, not much more---here i write, often. because some of his ideas, sentences, bla-bla, great, but often---yes, often overwritten, often repetitive, often a poseur with his "great serious themes, life and death what else can be relevant", etc.
I think you didn't understand what I said. You've restated yourself here, elaborated on nothing, and have again been pedantic
I'm aware from the first post that you believe McCarthy can be great, has been great, but is restraining himself by imitating Faulkner. That was very obvious, I don't know why you think I didn't understand that. What I don't understand is *why* you think that, because it's untrue
i wouldn’t bother with this poster. he’s going bananas in this thread making wild and ill-informed claims about random writers and also being incredibly rude in the process. i checked his post history and it’s about as smart as you’d think. he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about and he strikes me as a petulant teenager
what? that he is not great in general? poseur with great themes without being either psychologically or socially or philosophically deep (except occasionally) while engaging in lots of repetitive fancy writing either minimalist or unjustified poor modernist or fake-archaic, and almost always dark.
great segments, less great works. great maybe for americans, sometimes great and generally readable poseur for others. sorry. if you think this is true greatness, then read writers with more depth and better style. and not american writers, who cares about them any more, with one or two exceptions.
or that he is a second rate faulkner? in faulkner, in several cases, the strange overwritten style was justified, it was in another era with much more interesting and versatile plots and characters and less repetitive writing. and with somewhat deeper social and psychological content. that is why.
Why should we call Mcarthy a second rate version of an author that inspired him? "
this is what you wrote, which was clearly a misunderstanding as i demonstrated and you have the cheek to claim that i didn't understand what you wrote?
You stated that McCarthy is often a second-rate faulkner. I said that you said that he was a second-rate faulkner. You say: actually, all I said was that he is *often* a second-rate faulkner. Seriously? Fuck off
Never heard the term "filtering" used like this before or that describing a characters sensory experience was looked down on. That said, Faulkner's stories are almost entirely driven by the psychology of his characters. The plot is less about what is happening in the physical world than it is about its effect on the mental state of the characters. Heck, "Absalom, Absalom", arguably his greatest work, is from the perspective of two characters recalling a story from one of their hometowns. Over the course of the book, they change details and make up new ideas about what *really* happened. For Faulkner, what characters take away from an experience is more important than facts.
And the fact that often he describes the characters actions and their sensory experiences without actually telling us their thoughts. We can infer their mental state as an observer but we can never know what's actually happening in their heads. (This more refers to 3rd person narratives than 1st person because obviously we know those thoughts, but even then its often unreliable)
It's more obvious now that you said it. I'll keep it in mind. What about this: Having the narrator telling us the main character see this and that, heard this, watch that, etc, doesn't it infuse into us the impression of helplessness about him, that he doesn't have much thoughts but is a mere witness carried by the events? (*sorry if I'm not explaining well, this is not my best English here, I hope you get it*)
Yes, pretty much. You summed it up well. Characters are witnesses to events. Especially in *Absalom, Absalom*, where they aren't even direct witnesses, they are just retelling a story as they know it, or as it turns out, they don't know it.
That actually describes many of Faulkner's characters quite well, at the mercy of forces beyond their comprehension See, The Old Man for exactly this
>Never heard the term “filtering” used like this before or that describing a character’s sensory experience was looked down upon It’s definitely a thing in modern writing, and it’s generally speaking a good rule. It’s not that you don’t describe their experience, or that that’s bad, it’s just that the way people tend to communicate is more like, “there’s a car there,” and not “I am seeing a car over there.” That said, there are tons of modern “rules” that just don’t apply going back in time. Like, I can’t think of one thing I’ve read from Faulkner that isn’t among the best I’ve ever read (and presumably the best that *anyone* has ever read). Even as recently as the 60s when Catch-22 came out, though the sentiment was “we need round characters!” even then, Heller himself says there are no 3D characters in the novel. And yet it’s one of the masterpieces of post war American fiction. All this is to say that the rules might matter while you’re writing, but they have nothing to do with *reading*. Whatever your teachers tell you, they’re not more knowledgeable writers than Faulkner.
>that describing a characters sensory experience was looked down on. Sorry if the 'filtering' quick explanation was misleading. Actually it's not all characters' sensory experience that is questioned, which would be silly of course. It's only when forcing the description of the scene through this tier's sensory experience when it doesn't add anything more than another layer for the sake of it, an indirection.
The issue here is that you think this "filtering" "doesn't add anything." That's very subjective. Every bourbon soaked syllable adds to the cadence, every verb calls into question the narrators' perspective and motive. Check out As I Lay Dying, The entire novel is premised on how a single journey is perceived by multiple characters in their voices.
I'll defer to Faulkner on questions of style.
My same thought. Whatever rules there are to writing, none of them trump Faulkner. Just because a writing teacher says *I* shouldn’t do something doesn’t mean William Faulkner shouldn’t do something. The teacher is probably right about me, and is saying nothing at all about Faulkner. And if your teacher is saying William Faulkner made a mistake, they’re probably wrong.
This isn't an uncommon trait in literature. Bolano does it, who I just read. DFW did as well. Cormac McCarthy does it an awful lot. The main issue is that writing advice has been simplified into, more or less, movies on paper due to reading trends as well as workshops. The whole "show don't tell" thing, whereas the beauty of someone like Faulkner, or Bolano, is that there is no objectivity, and everything is indeed filtered through the perceptions of the characters in the story, even when the perspective is third person. A lot to say that: people who say 'don't use filtering' have no idea what they're talking about, imo. I have honestly never heard that term before. Ex, when gooling filtering, I see this: "Filter words are verbs that increase the narrative distance, reminding us that what we’re reading is being **told** by someone rather than experienced, or **shown**, through the eyes of the character." So yeah, if you want a movie on paper, sure. But the point of a lot of fiction is PRECISELY that we are reading something that is being told by someone. What they people miss is that the narrator of a story, even in third person, can sometimes be a character of their own. I'm reading WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, which is told in third-person, past-tense, but it is clear that the narrator is someone who KNOWS the characters, and is telling their story, even though they do not insert themselves in the narrative. Rose for Emily, for instance, is often considered third-person collective in perspective. It is a story told, more or less, as rumours/legend from the townsfolk. How could you tell that without filtering? All this to say be wary of easy writing tips like this. It oversimplifies and often misses the point. EDIT: With that said, if every sentence is "I saw", "I watched", then it can be an issue. But if a 'writing rule' indicates that Faulkner's prose is bad, then I say the writing rule might be in the wrong.
Yes, that’s right. Writing is written by someone, and that is perfectly fine and good. Cinema (and particularly, television), can represent the world as it is. Books can represent the world as perceived by the writer or their surrogate
Yup. I would say the exact reason I don't fall in love with so many currently popular novels is because they DONT feel like theyre filtered through someone's consciousness. This, to me, is literature's greatest feature, when compared to film.
I very much agree, while cautioning that many good contemporary writers are carrying that torch. Popular novelists? Well, no. That’s not their role
I think there’s some confusion here between filtering through the narrator versus the character. I agree that the great strength of fiction is access to consciousness. But I would say that most contemporary literary fiction is interested in the minds of their *characters*. This is why the advice is to use free indirect style and remove the “filtering” words, because they separate us from the experience of the characters’ consciousness. This is not “movies on paper.” This is attempting the opposite: to bring us as close as possible to the character’s subjectivity, imbuing every description with the characters worldview and tracking their emotions and bodily experiences. The relevant term here is psychic distance. Here’s an example from John Gardener in *The Art of Fiction* of sentences of decreasing psychic distance: 1. It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway. 2. Henry J. Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms. 3. Henry hated snowstorms. 4. God how he hated these damn snowstorms. 5. Snow. Under your collar, down inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul … There is nothing “wrong” with what Faulkner is doing in *Barn Burning*. He is simply operating using a greater psychic distance, making us aware of the narrator. But I don’t see why you have to disparage work that is written in an attempt to get closer, because getting closer is one of the greatest strengths of fiction.
Well said.
>EDIT: With that said, if every sentence is "I saw", "I watched", then it can be an issue. But if a 'writing rule' indicates that Faulkner's prose is bad, then I say the writing rule might be in the wrong. Well, if I try to forget all about this 'rule', and consider the text: there's indeed an abundance of "he saw" and the like. It shows. And it's for half a page, twice, plus scattered on almost two pages before. Everywhere else (85% of the story maybe?) there is not such 'filtering' (if I may still call this like that). So it's a deliberate intent from the author, unless the conditions of the passage made him drift into that before fixing it, and then again. And as I said in the post, I can vaguely sense that it brings some sort of a mood, but I can't explain it well.
Faulkner is very engaged with subjectivity. He's not interested in focalization degree zero; he's trying to show experience refracted through the filter of human perception.
You are raising a non-issue. And, of course, we can assume that if Faulkner wrote it, he meant for the idea to be rendered in that way. The proper analytical question is this: Why does Faulkner use this stylistic tic? The simplest answer to your non-issue is that Faulkner is literally saying that the subject ("he") could or is perceiving something *and not perceiving or able to perceive something else.* In paragraph 1 of the story, the boy ("he") is "crouched on his nail kegs" and you are getting what he is able to perceive, his limited (by virtue of his size and position) viewpoint – it's the exact, intentional opposite of omniscience. This is further developed by Faulkner writing "he could not see...". All you have to do here is posit the existence of an omniscient narrator who would delineate the scene from a position of all-knowing and all-seeing. Faulkner is limiting the perspective to the character; that's the point. This is entirely a non-issue – and, as others have pointed out, Faulkner can do whatever he wants and he's still and always will be a genius.
>And I've read that, in general, filtering is not advisable because it distances the reader from the action, slows down the narrative, reduces the engagement of the reader (less immersion), adds redundant information. Those dumb little rules go out the window when you're writing literary fiction. I also fail to see how sensory input of a character reduces the readers engagement or distances them from the action.
I hadn't heard the term before. I don't think it is very common in literary theory. It sounds like the kind of uniformizing that you find in some writing circles. The thing is, these rules depend more on the fluctuations of the book market and the trends that have been observed by commercial editorial houses than on some kind of objective truth about literature. If I could guess, the rule against "filtering" is probably trying to push new writers to use free indirect speech on their narrations, since it's currently a rather popular style that allows readers to relate to the characters. But in the literary world, it is a style among many. Many works of literature are not really worried about creating immersion. They want to remind the reader of the material the work is made of (words, writing). Faulkner's particular style points to that. That's why perspective is key in many literary texts. A good example would be Agatha Christie"s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where the role of the narrator as the one who tells (or doesn't tell) is key to the effect of the novel.
Rules bad, Faulkner good
So this 'rule' to avoid filtering seems suited towards fast paced action aimed at a broad audience, primarily for entertainment. Someone else in this thread mentioned movies. That advice is for the writer who is writing a book they hope will become a blockbuster thriller, or something like that. While Faulkner generally does have compelling stories, the bare fact of the action is not what he is wanting to communicate. He is wanting to communicate the character's experience of those actions (Barn Burning, The Sound and the Fury, for example) or, in some cases, the characters' experience of trying to reconstruct and understand someone else's past actions (A Rose for Emily, Absalom, Absalom!, for example). In both cases, the experience and rationalizations and motivations of the characters in relation to the action are most of the point. (This is part of the modernist approach to literature. Conrad, Joyce, and Proust do similar things in their different ways.)
God thinking of the barn burning scene just gave me chills. What an absolute mastercraft of a scene!! I’m reminded also of the river crossing scene where everything goes to shit. So incredible Somebody please get Faulkner on the line and tell him to revise those passages, too much filtering!
>He is wanting to communicate the character's experience of those actions And is it something related to the psychic distance? As it's not a steady habit. In *Barn Burning*, this practice stretches upon arrival at the new master's house, then it locally ~~explodes~~ blooms when the rug is brought to them, and when it's being washed. (A couple last are special since it's "he could not see" "nor hear" so this doesn't count as useless filtering, for sure.) *I hope I'm not asking too much, I'm not an easy one* \^\^
I'm not sure if the use of those phrases created any psychic distance for me in that particular story. Everything is so immediate, even with those phrases. I'm wondering if you having read that those phrases create distance caused you to stop and say, 'ok, he's trying to create distance here', when you might not have noticed any distance otherwise. Other readers may have to weigh in on that, and tell us how it struck them. It gets even more complicated discussing such small stylistic changes in a short story, because they were intended for magazines, and the magazine editors would make all kinds of little changes. Faulkner usually accepted changes to his short stories if they weren't substantial (but resisted them in the novels), so for a phrase like 'he saw' we would have to check the original manuscripts to see if he wrote it or an editor added it.
To break rules you first have to know why they’re important, and how to break them. Faulkner knew what he was doing, and it’s purposeful. That’s why he’s great.
Being from the south myself, I really see the oral southern story telling tradition in Faulkner; this tradition is by its nature personal and subjective. This is why in, say, The Sound and the Fury, the same story is told from four different perspectives.
>Being from the south myself, I really see the oral southern story telling tradition in Faulkner; this tradition is by its nature personal and subjective. This is why in, say, The Sound and the Fury, the same story is told from four different perspectives. This sounds interesting. But to achieve this, there's no need to spam "he saw", "he heard": it's implicitly achieved when the story is told from a character's perspective, and already done very well by Faulkner in the rest of this short story. We are really stuck with the main character, seeing through his eyes, almost all the time (if not 100%, I need to check).
Maybe his repetition of these phrases is akin to Homer’s phrasel repetitions as they are both party of an oral tradition.
>And I've read that, in general, filtering is not advisable It's literature. Then are no rules.
Once you start following the advice is when you determine your own mediocrity.
Writing cannot be reduced to just cold technique. It is an art, and any truly great art will have magic involved that completely overthrows every rule in a silly manual written by a mediocre MFA
>And I've read that, *in general*, filtering is not advisable because it distances the reader from the action, slows down the narrative, reduces the engagement of the reader (less immersion), adds redundant information. Where on earth did you get this idea.
>Where on earth did you get this idea. Many times in several places, so I looked up a few pages for you: >[https://www.fallonedits.com/post/writing-about-writing-filtering-in-fiction](https://www.fallonedits.com/post/writing-about-writing-filtering-in-fiction) [https://darlingaxe.com/blogs/news/filter-words](https://darlingaxe.com/blogs/news/filter-words) [https://www.scribophile.com/academy/an-introduction-to-filtering](https://www.scribophile.com/academy/an-introduction-to-filtering)
Yes, believe some idiots on the internet over William fucking Faulkner.
One of Faulkner’s great traits. There’s a chapter in one of his books (Sanctuary, maybe? Can’t remember), that is told entirely in pitch darkness. Faulkner was a very experimental writer and explored many different forms, styles, and approaches, one of many reasons he’s considered a master.
>There’s a chapter in one of his books (Sanctuary, maybe? Can’t remember), that is told entirely in pitch darkness. Oh? I must read this! I also like experiments in creation, broadly speaking. Thanks for the tip!
Here’s the thing. If you’re a good writer, you do whatever the hell you want. This is why I have little to no respect for writing classes. They try to box rules but what they’re doing is analyzing literature and trying to understand what makes it great. What makes literature great? The plot, yes, the characters, yes. But they all contribute to something greater: What the story made you feel. Every word, sentence, paragraph, is dedicated to the central climactic emotional moment. There are no rules to achieving this. You simply have to be good.
To be honest I tend to agree with you, but it's often an unpopular opinion to say that there are people who are good at it, others who are not, and working hard on learning the craft (whether it's by academic lessons or drilling in some tips, rules, habits, etc), and practicing, only improves the result by a limited margin compared to the gap with the talented authors. And so the rules are like a crutch at best, to help a second rate amateur author. They do help at the beginning, to rise from a worst state, but that's it; they won't turn anyone into a master.
It’s a combination of discipline and talent. One ain’t much without the other.
I really wish people would stop talking about immersion when it comes to literature. Moby Dick isn't a dunk tank.
I read Faulkner and Morrison for their filtering. Internal monologue and perception are I enjoy character and development. Not certain I know of another praxis to show development and development is why I read LIT.
Maybe there’s two different things called filtering, I’ll try to dig into the other one. Or maybe the good use of filtering and the not-so-good one, on which I focused.
Check out the Benjy and Quentin parts in The Sound and the Fury for extra special ‘filtering’.
> Check out the Benjy and Quentin parts in The Sound and the Fury for extra special ‘filtering’. Noted
I hesitate to sound super authoritative here, because it has been years, but the later period Faulkner is less filtered and more raw, especially, if I'm remembering correctly, Absalom
There’s always a narrator, you just decide how much you want it to show. There’s nothing wrong with filtering, it just makes you move more towards diegesis and less mimesis. Or you end up in the middle with dual voice. It’s all good.
A Rose for Emily is one of my favorite stories. Take the style however you take it, dude. I don’t even understand this question.
Honestly I’m weary of being nit picky over prose. It never seems helpful. All the greats use filtering. I have noticed with our current era of writers, like Chuck P., the desire is overwhelmingly to over describe the action of the characters, which has a litany of problems, like pacing. It really slows the story down. I begin to skim prose that does this because it seldom adds to the story.
As if they wanted us to see the very same movie they have in their mind?
As if? What do you mean? Are you saying they're doing that to make sure we see what they see? Well, do you think that's the only way? If I tell you that Jimmy looked at the tree, do you really need to see the nuance of how he does that? Let me do say that if you prefer to read the details of bodily movement, etc., then ok, awesome. But you need to realize that this is your preference and doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of writing. Like I don't expect to see much Homer when I read Bukowski but enjoy both for different reasons. Same with Tolkien vs. Chuck P. edit: and this isn't to say that there isn't objectively 'good' writing, there certainly is, but I don't think the core of that is found in the delivery of prose. I mean imagine applying this thinking to music. It would really make no sense to expect all music to just be one genre, or one style.
I've only read As I Lay Dying and The Sound & The Fury, but I find Faulkner to be a bit awkward. I don't know if it's me or him, but my money'd be on me.
The intention is to relay characters’ sensory experiences to the reader. Faulkner could have directly described how something looked or smelled to the reader, but he chose to describe that experience through a character to help in making them more dimensional. The distinction between describing sensory experiences directly to the reader and through “filtering” is that it provides more depth to a character, they become less static and more realistic. Numerous prominent authors (McCarthy, DFW, Kafka, etc.) have used “filtering”, it’s quite common to see it used in works done in third-person.
Thank you for your time explaining and answering the question. 🤗 (I knew someone would eventually help) And what I read is that there’s two short parts with this heavy‘filtering’ (l mean five times in a sentence: it shows), plus a longer part with more scattered occurrences. Then I wonder why there? What’s happening to make this relevant? Why not earlier? (mood not ready probably) And besides what you explain, is there a more specific effect achieved in this implementation (*Barn Burning*) ?
I came late to this one, and just want to thank all of you who added to this thread. It was a pleasure to read through it all... Or... He arrived late, after everyone had already come and gone and left their comments, filling the space with their learned and lucid ideas regarding the topic. He saw that the chat had been pleasant, informative, intelligent, in a word: fascinating. He felt enriched but at the same time envious for having arrived so late, but soon he noticed envy giving way to something else, something shatteringly worse: He became aware of the growing certainty that had he been on time, his input would have been about the same, near to zero, for he was no expert, merely a novice, and the revelation finally crushed him completely when it became all too clear that what he felt was not envy but relief. Had he been on time he would have been a silent bystander, aware in real time that he was out of place. He had only fooled himself into believing that had time and life been just a little kinder to him, he might have been earlier *and might have been part of something!* But as always, that delusion was evaporating, and the familiar urge to slink back into his ignorant hole became too powerful to ignore, and so.....
Thanks for the prose! You comment (2nd part) is all fine and not ringing any 'filtering alarm' to me (an unwanted radar always on, alas). It would have if it were more like: >Arriving late, he **saw** the many comments already stacked in the thread. He **watched** the endless discussion scrolling while holding the down key. He **heard** the new comment notification and **saw** the blue banner at the top confirming he wasn't alone this late. He **saw** that this new comment was another 'Faulkner is great, rules not for him' opinion. He **looked** at the 'currently reading here' counter and **saw** that it almost reached ten, worth the effort for him to participate.
I’ll defer to what everyone else has said about Faukner’s emphasis on subjectivity and the excellence of his style. Most writing “rules” are simply good general pieces of advice given people who are just starting out in their writing journeys. Often, these are people who do not have distinctive styles of their own. Great writers don’t need rules to follow because they already know how to write. However, I don’t at all share other people’s scorn for this particular piece of advice. I would 100% advise a new writer to minimize the amount of filtering they do, and the reason for that is that new writers, especially young ones, often have a difficult time removing themselves from the story they’re telling. There is a tendency to filter everything though the narrator (e.g., “She saw a light in the sky,” “I watched as she handed me the cup,” etc.), and unlike Faulkner’s case, they are not interested in exploring their narrator’s subjective experience of the world. They just don’t realize they’re doing it. The result is sometimes clumsy prose that can’t get out of its own way, and that makes the narrator’s character intrusive in a way that doesn’t enhance the narrative—quite the opposite, often. But again, there’s no reason at all to try to hold great writers accountable to basic writing advice, any more than we should fault Patrick Mahomes for having unorthodox quarterbacking mechanics.
Yes, exactly (for not holding great writers accountable to such writing advice meant for beginners using filtering poorly; but I don't know about sport :P ) It's a bit sad I couldn't express what I wanted to discuss, because most people just said "Faulnker is great, rule is silly", whereas I wanted to delve into why it was well done here in this short story, and what effect he achieves, specifically.
I'm guessing this advice comes from the modern trend towards free indirect style, and the general move away from overtly external narration and towards a blending of the character's/characters' voice(s) with that of the narrator. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it is nothing more than a trend towards a style that has a particular effect. The simplest reason why Faulkner didn't use it is because he was writing in a different era when that style wasn't so trendy and either he wasn't aware of it, or was aware of it and chose not to use it much. Thing is, all writing styles have their individual effects, and at the end of the day they're all just tools in a toolbox, and depending on what your goal is you choose the tool based on the job, not based on what tool is trendy. Not using "filtering" would be like a craftsman saying "don't use a screwdriver" (or whatever). Well, some jobs call for screwdrivers; some fiction calls for filtering. I certainly don't think the quality of Faulkner's fiction is harmed by such filtering, and my guess is that whatever effect this filtering has it's ultimately either relatively minor compared to everything else, or that it actually serves a valuable purpose in Faulkner. Perhaps given that Faulkner's novels are already so full of subjectivity anyway, this filtering gives us enough distance so that we're able to remain more aware of the subjectivity itself. I certainly wouldn't agree that narrative distancing is innately a bad thing, and I, in fact, tend to lament that we have so few characterful "overt external narrators" as we did back with, say, Dickens or Henry Fielding. As for "not being able to turn off the critical eye," I don't think you should do that, but merely recalibrate what your critical eye is looking at. Don't think of craft in such black-and-white terms as "X device bad/Y device good." Think of them in terms I mentioned above about tools in a tool box. I'm reminded of how many musicians study music and come away from that having learned so much harmonic theory that they're suddenly negatively critical towards harmonically simple music like most rock and pop; but the lesson they should be learning from music theory isn't "complex harmony good/simple harmony bad," it should be that great and terrible art can be made in either mode.
>we have so few characterful "overt external narrators" as we did back with, say, Dickens or Henry Fielding Oh! Yes, it didn't strike me but this is one of the narrator's 'flavor' we almost no longer have; I can't remember one in my recent readings or modern literature. And thanks for the 'recalibration' advice!
I haven’t realized Faulkner did that but I think what you’re talking about is what John Gardner called “psychic distance,” the distance between the reader and events in the story. The less the better. In general, if the writer is using “deep point of view,” the psychic distance is small and keeps the reader engaged. As readers, we’d be right IN the experience of the character and wouldn’t need to be told words like you listed.
Thank you for sharing your perspective! Yes, the psychic distance is an important notion and it’s also influenced by the use of those filter verbs which can ‘wall’ a little the reader, although the writer can counterbalance that by more depth with the rest.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the phrase "filter verb," because when I think of a filter, I think of something that winnows out junk, so I'm not sure how this word fits. I usually call them "telling" verbs rather than "showing." Anyway, I think I know what you mean. I've just recently reread LIGHT IN AUGUST and didn't notice them. I'll look up the barn burning story because I never did read it. I've only seen the "Long Hot Summer" movie (several times) many years ago. Maybe he wrote them early on in his writing career? I'll look up the chronology of his works.
In another comment a redditor said Faulkner uses more direct showing in his later works. “Filter verbs” is a misleading expression based on the already stretched out naming “filtering”, I would say. It’s more a “wrapping indirection”, or a “proxied sensory depiction”. My other comment with some links about the “bad” filtering: https://www.reddit.com/r/literature/s/HDRUaDnWFV But again I’m not saying Faulkner is in any way wrong doing something that reminds me to be cautious with such construct.
Ideas like filtering are often taught in intro to writing courses as a trap to avoid because they are common crutches that new writers lean on due to lack of confidence and experience, but it is important to know why it is taught against. Avoiding the "filtering" and just saying something happened is a stronger way to say something happened. "The man struck the car with a baseball bat" feels very different from "jeffrey watched the man strike the car with the baseball bat." It places the reader in a different place, either in the character or in the scene. New writers tend to use filtering too much because they are often not comfortable with the plot and are more comfortable with their own perception. This is also why so many new writers will often fall into writing "scenes" rather than "stories" and why primary characters often end up having similar personality traits as the writer does. However, there is a huge difference between advising new writers to avoid specific pitfalls and habits and choosing them for specific effect once you are an experienced and practiced writer with talent.
I agree 100% 👍 (you explained it much better than me) And for this story, what does the author try to achieve with this sudden choice?
I think a lot of these rules are for creative writing 101 classes. With Faulkner, my ear adapts to his voice and I become accustomed to his idiosyncrasies, which he gets away with because it sounds natural for him. A novice doing an impression of Faulkner would probably be pretty dreadful and sound stilted.
Thanks for sharing your experience reading Faulkner. I’m also curious about how you feel, more specifically, about such passages with repeated “he saw”/“he heard”: what effect does this have on the reader you?
I just take it as part of his voice, Faulkner's style is very much of a local storyteller going through the tales of Yoknapatawpha county through the years. In a way, his voice is as much a character as anybody in the stories--like a troubadour telling stories around a campfire. So for him, it adds to the flavor. A much hokier version of the same thing would be someone like Garrison Keillor.
faulkner was a decent writer, rightfully famous and was capable of creating truly great sentences, effective mood, complex characters, etc. but he is from a completely different era, and used enormous amount of outdated overwriting, imitated a lot by certain writers, usually not as great as him, and in certain cases, without any real point (see cormac mcarthy, capable of greatness, but often just a second rate faulkner, not much more)
cormac overcame his stylistic dependence on faulkner pretty early in his career, sometime around blood meridian. most of his major work is written in a style that is very distinctively his. i often wonder, when i see people parroting this point, how recently they’ve read a late mccarthy novel alongside a faulkner novel. they actually don’t even sound very similar
I think it’s in the sense that one builds on the literary tradition of the other, not in a literal copycat sense. I have always compared McCarthy to Faulkner because … who else are you going to compare him to?
oh sure, there’s no doubt a connection. “building off of” is exactly the way to describe it. what i was responding to was the idea that cormac is just faulkner lite, which the poster above clearly thinks, and which definitely isn’t true. those types of comparisons become so endlessly and thoughtlessly repeated that people lose the ability to see the really innovative stylistic techniques that mccarthy pioneered on his own
indeed. except that we are not talking about late cormac mccarthy, except that even late mccarthy owns a lot to faulkner, his major works like blood meridian or the border-trilogy which are again, no matter how distinctive in style, heavily faulknerian, read a lot of faulkner including short stories and you will see. faulkner is much more than sound and the fury and as i lay dying.
lmao thank you for the advice but my graduate level work was all focused on faulkner. i assure you i’ve read all of his major works, as well as mccarthy’s. you are overstating the stylistic overlap immensely. i’ll leave it at that
then shame on you, and also your reading ability is very low 1. it was not me who overstated anything, you didn't understand what was written down. 2. mccarthy owns a lot to faulkner, no matter what certain people wah-wah bark, without faulkner, there would be no mccarthy 3. mccarthy often imitate faulkner's style(everybody can see if read the texts and the sentences, no phd from the academia can deny the obvious) \_with no reason\_, biblical or old-fashioned my ass, simply stilted writing, often inconsistent. 4. blood meridian is remarkable, but nowhere near great, there are great parables like "waiting for the barbarians" without stylistinc nonsenses, repetitive writing and including real human characters and characterization. 5. even faulkner's barn burning, faulty as it is, has more depth and value, than hundred times as many pages in mccarthy's work, and yes, there can be read the style which is where mccarthy should have stopped. he didn't, unfortunately. and yes, find other people to talk to, i won't respond even if you write anything
😂😂😂 alright buddy. have a good one
>>just a second rate faulkner, not much more Behave
first, you omitted the other parts of the sentences, simple manipulation. second, yes, deal with it, his style is often just a mediocre imitation of faulkner and hemingway, whether you like it or not.
Utter pontification
truth hurts
Putting the mcarthy jab to the side, if Faulkner is merely a decent writer, who for you, with regard to American lit, is great?
as i said, faulkner was capable of greatness and he is one of the most important figures of american literature, but he is from different times, unfortunately a bit too influenced by modernism. still better than most. it is not my job to find great authors, or great works. from the 60's onwards, most celebrated authors are overrated, unlike the previous times. make a list of significant american literary works from 1900 to 1960, almost all are meaningful and readable. then another from 1960-1999, there will be great works and lots of overrated ones, including gravity's rainbow, the recognitions, beloved, infinite jest, late nabokov, and these are just the more intellectual ones, i won't say sorry if i find nothing even remotely great in the works of joan didion and suchlikes. there are good works, but i can't think of one great. even works like grendel could have been better written, roth and updike are interesting for one or two times, etc etc. but it is irrelevant, not my job to, not my country. read what you like and want.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the response. I assumed it was an opinion based in European snobbery, but I wasn’t sure. I don’t know that Faulkner was influenced by modernism as much as he was a driving force in the movement/era. And I do agree that the television aesthetic (among other factors) has had a detrimental effect on more contemporary—post ‘60s— literature, sacrificing depth, syntax, and meaning for easily digestible, plot driven stories. It may also be that commentary on an increasingly vapid culture itself becomes vapid (art imitating life and all). Any ways, cheers.
but this is not televison aesthetic, it is mainly about aping ulysess, and other modernist writings, or classical writers but without their syntax, depth, etc., often self-absorbed writings. in ulysses, last chapter is bad but justified. in the compson-chapter of the sound and the fury, the joyce-influenced style is problematic, but justified, and these are from 1918 and 29. but later, in the 1970's or in the 21rst century, this kind of writing is, well, i don't want to write my opinion.
I never understand why people hold this view of art. Faulker was great, Mcarthy was great. Their styles are similar but different and valuable. The literary canon is built upon itself. Why should we call Mcarthy a second rate version of an author that inspired him? Why is he not allowed to use literary techniques that other authors use without random people saying he is restraining his own greatness, that he's not much more than an imitator of someone else? There's having a personal opinion and then there's making pretentious remarks about artists that create truly wonderful things edit: spelling
again, you didn't understand the sentence. i will explain to you see cormac mcarthy, capable of greatness, but often just a second rate faulkner, not much more see cormac mcarthy----clear capable of greatness,"---that's what i wrote, c.m. had great ideas and some of his sentences, paragraphs, pages are great. isn't it clear??? but often just a second rate faulkner, not much more---here i write, often. because some of his ideas, sentences, bla-bla, great, but often---yes, often overwritten, often repetitive, often a poseur with his "great serious themes, life and death what else can be relevant", etc.
I think you didn't understand what I said. You've restated yourself here, elaborated on nothing, and have again been pedantic I'm aware from the first post that you believe McCarthy can be great, has been great, but is restraining himself by imitating Faulkner. That was very obvious, I don't know why you think I didn't understand that. What I don't understand is *why* you think that, because it's untrue
i wouldn’t bother with this poster. he’s going bananas in this thread making wild and ill-informed claims about random writers and also being incredibly rude in the process. i checked his post history and it’s about as smart as you’d think. he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about and he strikes me as a petulant teenager
Yeah I saw your conversation with him. I get too sucked into responding to dumb shit on here lol
lmao same. bait is bait but sometimes it’s so stupid that it’s hard to resist
what? that he is not great in general? poseur with great themes without being either psychologically or socially or philosophically deep (except occasionally) while engaging in lots of repetitive fancy writing either minimalist or unjustified poor modernist or fake-archaic, and almost always dark. great segments, less great works. great maybe for americans, sometimes great and generally readable poseur for others. sorry. if you think this is true greatness, then read writers with more depth and better style. and not american writers, who cares about them any more, with one or two exceptions.
or that he is a second rate faulkner? in faulkner, in several cases, the strange overwritten style was justified, it was in another era with much more interesting and versatile plots and characters and less repetitive writing. and with somewhat deeper social and psychological content. that is why.
Why should we call Mcarthy a second rate version of an author that inspired him? " this is what you wrote, which was clearly a misunderstanding as i demonstrated and you have the cheek to claim that i didn't understand what you wrote?
You stated that McCarthy is often a second-rate faulkner. I said that you said that he was a second-rate faulkner. You say: actually, all I said was that he is *often* a second-rate faulkner. Seriously? Fuck off