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chris_chester 's review for:
The Wild Palms
by William Faulkner
"Between grief and nothing I will take grief."
All the things one would expect from Faulkner are present here: depressing Southern locales, hopelessness, and rambling, incisive prose.
The two interwoven tales revolve around a common theme... if you can really call it that. Set in the poverty of the South in the 1930s, the characters do not pursue modern aspirations like happiness, self-fulfillment or even peace. They don't hope. They don't dream.
Harry and Charlotte's romance is hopeless almost from word one, and they both know it. Harry just kind of falls backwards into the relationship, taking as it goes, accepting that they have an expiration date, but just existing in the moment while they can. This is the kind of doomed love that Hollywood often flirts with, but here it is firmly grounded in its time.
The story of the tall convict is one more about duty than anything else. In jail since before he was ever really old enough to try and find an above-the-board way in the world, he has never really had a chance to prove or even discover his character. But when asked to paddle a boat out to save a pregnant woman during a great flood, he spends more than a month a half executing his task. He cares for the woman, navigates the uncertain and shifting waters of a flooded Mississippi delta, never losing sight of his duty and never even considering escape.
Both stories tap into a style and mode of living that I think is closer to the true human experience of the last 10,000 years. This aspiration, naval-gazing time that we live in is not long for this world. We're allowed to indulge in Romance because we don't have to spend so much of our time and energy just trying to survive.
But when you live closer to the edge, the principle choice is much closer to the bone. It's really whether to live or not to live. And both characters show the frenzy with which man will cling to grief when the only other choice is nothing.