With all the stuff going on in today’s world, I think I will go back in time to a person who really started pouring his thoughts out exactly 100 years ago. He published his first major work, the Sound and Fury in 1929. By my estimation he really got the gumption to start writing in 1922. By the time 1923 rolled around he was ready to quit his job. He resigned as postmaster of Mississippi with the following quote: “As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.” Anyone that can write a resignation letter like that, demands my respect.
The past as he would write in one of his later books “is never dead. It’s not even past.” Meaning that we are living history ourselves. We should never disregard the wisdom, knowledge and ideas of those that have come before. There is much to learn, from those we deem as good and those we deem as bad and everyone in between.
So today, I start my quest to read all the works of William Faulkner. 30 works in all.
Guy Reams
