Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 11, 1994                   TAG: 9412140007
SECTION: BOOKS                    PAGE: F-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY M. KATHERINE GRIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FAULKNER REINTERPRETED THROUGH HIS FAMILY

William Faulkner appeared naked before his daughter's dates. Faulkner had incestuous feelings toward his daughter, his stepdaughter and his mother. Faulkner was burdened with Southern guilt.

These stories and allegations spice up "Faulkner's Families," in which Gwendolyn Chabrier argues that Faulkner's fiction was inspired by his life.

Chabrier recounts anecdotes and pulls them together with history, literary criticism and social theory. She treats several of Faulkner's major themes - family relationships, miscegenation, racial tension and Southern identity. The book is thoroughly researched and critically solid, despite its heavy reliance on biographical criticism. It is not particularly original, however, and it is filled with annoying errors.

In her examination of Faulkner's fiction, Chabrier has consulted every well-known Faulknerian as well as many lesser known scholars. Her thesis is that Faulkner's family situation and his Southern guilt about slavery and its aftermath profoundly affect his portraits of white and black Southern families, as well as people of mixed race.

Much of the book is interesting, especially for the reader who knows little about Faulkner's life. Chabrier sees her subject's Southern liberalism and guilt as responsible for his sympathetic portrayals of children of white fathers and black mothers. She also credits Faulkner's liberalism for his depiction of black families as psychologically sounder than white ones.

However, explains Chabrier, Faulkner was from Mississippi, so his liberalism went only so far. Most of his black characters are servants loyal to white employers. And although Faulkner condemns slavery, Chabrier alleges that he shows few of his horrors.

Citing "The Reivers" (1962), Faulkner's last novel, Chabrier asserts that the author changes dramatically when he becomes a grandfather and world-renowned author. (He won the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature.) She shows that white families become less degenerate; black characters, less submissive; and characters of mixed race, less isolated.

There's little of importance to refute in Chabrier's book, probably because almost everything that seems very profound is followed by an endnote number. Chabrier has done her homework so well that there's little left for her to say.

Her system of notes, including the archaic bid, is outdated, and note numbers occasionally fail to correspond with the appropriate notes. She misuses words, such as "vindicates" for "avenges" and even "or" for "and." The book contains commas between subjects and verbs, superfluous colons and enough other errors to set an English teacher's teeth on edge.

A good editor could make this a much better book; I hope one will before the second edition comes out. Despite its flaws, I recommend "Faulkner's Families." It provides the reader with insights about the South, Faulkner's life and the overwhelming critical material about his work.

M. Katherine Grimes teaches English at Ferrum College.