Chronology Entry
Year
1982
Text
["China letters" from Chinese correspondents in Beijing about William Faulkner.]
(1) I think you will be interested to hear that many Chinese students are enjoying Faulkner's works. I taught 'Spotted horses' and 'Pantaloon in black' to my students here last semester – they liked them very much. And they all think Faulkner is greater than Fitzgerald or Hemingway. These two stories have started them on their way to further readings. I have recommended The potable Faulkner and Light in August. I don't want them to feel frustrated after reading The sound and the fury. It is a bit too difficult for them at present.
(2) Last semester a Fulbright professor gave a Faulkner seminar at Beijing University. This semester another Fulbright professor is giving a seminar on Cather and Faulkner, and teaching The sound and the fury and Light in august in her novel course. She is also supervising graduate students working independently on Faulkner. I continue to work on my translations of the stories and teach various Faulkner stories in my classes.
(3) Faulkner's achievement in style is now highly acclaimed here and, as you know, there are many brave attempts to introduce him to the Chinese reader. Aside from all the translation, critical essays on him are coming out, too, on his style and his themes. Two graduate students at my university want to write about his technique and the initiation problem in his works. These are ambitious topics. They are young people full of original ideas and some of them very good. I've learned a lot from them. As for other American writers, I like some of Hemingway and Fitzgerald but I prefer Faulkner because he has more depth. My students feel the same way, too. Fitzgerald's prose is graceful and his stories are affecting and touching. But they are a bit shallow, and they are concerned with very trivial matters, maybe too personal. But Faulkner had a deep understanding of human beings with all their vice and virtue… Also, the collapse of a big family is a familiar and recurrent theme in Chinese literature. So is the burden of the past, though not racial problems or original sin, but the sin committed by one's ancestry…
(1) I think you will be interested to hear that many Chinese students are enjoying Faulkner's works. I taught 'Spotted horses' and 'Pantaloon in black' to my students here last semester – they liked them very much. And they all think Faulkner is greater than Fitzgerald or Hemingway. These two stories have started them on their way to further readings. I have recommended The potable Faulkner and Light in August. I don't want them to feel frustrated after reading The sound and the fury. It is a bit too difficult for them at present.
(2) Last semester a Fulbright professor gave a Faulkner seminar at Beijing University. This semester another Fulbright professor is giving a seminar on Cather and Faulkner, and teaching The sound and the fury and Light in august in her novel course. She is also supervising graduate students working independently on Faulkner. I continue to work on my translations of the stories and teach various Faulkner stories in my classes.
(3) Faulkner's achievement in style is now highly acclaimed here and, as you know, there are many brave attempts to introduce him to the Chinese reader. Aside from all the translation, critical essays on him are coming out, too, on his style and his themes. Two graduate students at my university want to write about his technique and the initiation problem in his works. These are ambitious topics. They are young people full of original ideas and some of them very good. I've learned a lot from them. As for other American writers, I like some of Hemingway and Fitzgerald but I prefer Faulkner because he has more depth. My students feel the same way, too. Fitzgerald's prose is graceful and his stories are affecting and touching. But they are a bit shallow, and they are concerned with very trivial matters, maybe too personal. But Faulkner had a deep understanding of human beings with all their vice and virtue… Also, the collapse of a big family is a familiar and recurrent theme in Chinese literature. So is the burden of the past, though not racial problems or original sin, but the sin committed by one's ancestry…
Mentioned People (1)
Faulkner, William
(New Albany, Miss. 1897-1962 Byhalia, Miss.) : Schriftsteller, Nobelpreisträger
.
.
Subjects
Literature : Occident : United States of America
Documents (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1982 | Stoneback, H.R. The hound and the antelope : Faulkner in China. In : Faulkner : international perspectives. Ed. by Doreen Fowler and Ann J. Abadie. (Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 1984). (Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, 1982). | Publication / Faul4 |