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bwood95's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
graywacke's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Faulkner's first published novel, one that no one read. 1200 copies sold before he became famous and this wasn't the first one anyone read once he got famous either. It's also a little unusual in that the setting he small town Georgia, not Mississippi (and that he wrote in New Orleans, no Oxford, MS). It's an interesting and complex novel, doing lots of thing. It's also drawn out a bit and Faulkner clearly had trouble letting his characters go.
He's working on post-war America. WWI soldiers are returning home to wives, fiancés, widows, and not everyone has been true, or wants to be. The soldiers are wild and girls have a lot going on to. The main tangled story here is a hot-headed veteran takes to a seriously wounded air force veteran, with a nasty facial scar and a fiancé waiting at home. He can't see and may be dying. They get help from a war widow who our healthy veteran has fallen for, but feelings are kind but not mutual. Once in Charleston, GA, we meet the wounded soldier's father, a rector who can't see his son is dying, and his fiancé, who is young, gorgeous, and runs around in white silk dresses attracting and toying with a number of men, some pushing to uncomfortable lengths. It's a sexually charged novel throughout until it isn't. It's also a southern culture charged novel, with "negroes" filling various roles, including servants and musicians, but always foreign, other and mysterious. And Faulkner is straining the normal prose styles. He's itchy to jump around, become impressionistic. He spends many pages on various micro-dramas at a dance.
I feel this is a novel that will reward rereading. There is a lot built it. An interesting if forgotten and overshadowed immature work.
He's working on post-war America. WWI soldiers are returning home to wives, fiancés, widows, and not everyone has been true, or wants to be. The soldiers are wild and girls have a lot going on to. The main tangled story here is a hot-headed veteran takes to a seriously wounded air force veteran, with a nasty facial scar and a fiancé waiting at home. He can't see and may be dying. They get help from a war widow who our healthy veteran has fallen for, but feelings are kind but not mutual. Once in Charleston, GA, we meet the wounded soldier's father, a rector who can't see his son is dying, and his fiancé, who is young, gorgeous, and runs around in white silk dresses attracting and toying with a number of men, some pushing to uncomfortable lengths. It's a sexually charged novel throughout until it isn't. It's also a southern culture charged novel, with "negroes" filling various roles, including servants and musicians, but always foreign, other and mysterious. And Faulkner is straining the normal prose styles. He's itchy to jump around, become impressionistic. He spends many pages on various micro-dramas at a dance.
I feel this is a novel that will reward rereading. There is a lot built it. An interesting if forgotten and overshadowed immature work.
frannieman's review against another edition
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
2.0
blueyorkie's review against another edition
3.0
This work is Faulkner's very first novel, published in 1926. The war of 14-18 hangs over the whole story, not evoked directly, but by the influence it may have had on the fate and the inner world of the characters, whether it was those who made it or others, civilians or young people just a little too young. An aviator disfigured by a terrible scar at the book's centre, Donald Mahon becomes blind and gradually moves towards inevitable death. Around him were three women who somehow attached themselves to him. And then a whole series of portraits of inhabitants of a small American town, former soldiers demobilized, relatives of the disappeared. It is a book of great richness, complex situations, and endearing characters; the writing is undoubtedly more straightforward than in later works. Nevertheless, I had the impression of something not quite accomplished, of a draft genius; I could not help but imagine what the Faulkner of maturity could have done with these themes and characters.
adrianasturalvarez's review against another edition
3.0
Though not as accomplished as his later novels, Soldiers' Pay still has moments of revelation, which reveal Faulkner willing to bend language to get at a feeling.
"They greeted him with the effusiveness of people who are brought together by invitation yet are not quite certain of themselves and of the spirit of the invitation; in this case the eternal country boys of one national mental state, lost in the comparative metropolitan atmosphere of one diametrically opposed to it. To feel provincial: finding that a certain conventional state of behavior has become inexplicably obsolete over night."
Like a rough house Proust. The vocabulary he pulls from doesn't suck either. At times, I couldn't tell if I wasn't getting a phrase because I was intellectually inferior or just not Southern. At other times, his stylistic daring worked better than others. He seems to be going along with the whole "make it new" dictum of the postwar period yet not fully buying into it.
There are amateur moments in the book as well. A lot of gorgeous descriptions of sunset... but like, a LOT of them. Many characters who don't fully flesh out and so become intellectual exercises, instead of insights into the human experience. The more moments like this I read, however, the better I felt. He's human, this Faulkner, and perhaps writing a novel can be learned after all.
I only recommend this book to Faulkner fans and those horrified at how paltry their first novel has turned out.
"They greeted him with the effusiveness of people who are brought together by invitation yet are not quite certain of themselves and of the spirit of the invitation; in this case the eternal country boys of one national mental state, lost in the comparative metropolitan atmosphere of one diametrically opposed to it. To feel provincial: finding that a certain conventional state of behavior has become inexplicably obsolete over night."
Like a rough house Proust. The vocabulary he pulls from doesn't suck either. At times, I couldn't tell if I wasn't getting a phrase because I was intellectually inferior or just not Southern. At other times, his stylistic daring worked better than others. He seems to be going along with the whole "make it new" dictum of the postwar period yet not fully buying into it.
There are amateur moments in the book as well. A lot of gorgeous descriptions of sunset... but like, a LOT of them. Many characters who don't fully flesh out and so become intellectual exercises, instead of insights into the human experience. The more moments like this I read, however, the better I felt. He's human, this Faulkner, and perhaps writing a novel can be learned after all.
I only recommend this book to Faulkner fans and those horrified at how paltry their first novel has turned out.
iosnopes's review against another edition
3.0
It's hit or miss with this, Faulkner's first novel. It's a slow build toward the middle sections, and then quickly begins fading, only to be rescued by the final few chapters.
msroark's review against another edition
1.0
Nope - not for me.
I could forgive some of the racism as it was the times (1920's).
And it was not belligerent just "the way it was".
But the brutishness and callousness of all the men including the rector in his way was just disgusting.
A depressing, unnecessary story.
I could forgive some of the racism as it was the times (1920's).
And it was not belligerent just "the way it was".
But the brutishness and callousness of all the men including the rector in his way was just disgusting.
A depressing, unnecessary story.
msand3's review against another edition
4.0
Faulkner's first published novel (although not the first one he wrote) is also his best early effort before he unleashed The Sound and the Fury on the world. In Soldiers' Pay Faulkner is already experimenting with fragmented narrative, multiple perspectives, and a type of stream-of-consciousness technique that he would perfect in later works. We also get to see some early examples of classic Faulkner stylistic traits: his first use of the word "myriad," mules as symbols, a character named "Loosh" (although not the same Loosh as in The Unvanquished), oddball punctuation, etc. These moments are a real treat for Faulkner fans.
The plot itself is a bit soap opera-ish, with soldiers returning home from war only to fight each other over women. I get the impression that each of these male characters contains a bit of Faulkner himself: the lovable loser who goes home to mamma in the hope of winning the girl, the wise-cracking good fella who is locked into the "friend zone," the wounded vet who is caught in a love triangle but is too close to death to care, and even the skeezy drifter who didn't actually fight in the war and manages to tick off everyone he meets (probably the closest to the actual Faulkner!). The reader is subjected to some cheesy Southern Gothic melodrama throughout, but Faulkner's unique style keeps the pace moving quite rapidly. I don't think an unbiased reader would rate this as high as I did, but Faulkner fans will enjoy the read. Even if it doesn't quite have that classic Faulkner "feel" of Sartoris/Flags in the Dust, it's certainly better than the tepid and forgettable Mosquitoes.
The plot itself is a bit soap opera-ish, with soldiers returning home from war only to fight each other over women. I get the impression that each of these male characters contains a bit of Faulkner himself: the lovable loser who goes home to mamma in the hope of winning the girl, the wise-cracking good fella who is locked into the "friend zone," the wounded vet who is caught in a love triangle but is too close to death to care, and even the skeezy drifter who didn't actually fight in the war and manages to tick off everyone he meets (probably the closest to the actual Faulkner!). The reader is subjected to some cheesy Southern Gothic melodrama throughout, but Faulkner's unique style keeps the pace moving quite rapidly. I don't think an unbiased reader would rate this as high as I did, but Faulkner fans will enjoy the read. Even if it doesn't quite have that classic Faulkner "feel" of Sartoris/Flags in the Dust, it's certainly better than the tepid and forgettable Mosquitoes.