William Faulkner published collections of his short stories over the course of life, culminating in the winner of the 1951 National Book Award, Collected Stories. Since his death, more volumes have made into the pipeline, but that award-winner remains the most highly regarded so-called comprehensive compilation. For those who have decided they enjoy the master enough to get comprehensive with his short fiction, Collected Stories is the real must-have on the bookshelf. Before one gets to that point, however, any collection which mirrors the contents of Selected Short Stories is the place to begin.
The first thing to be aware of when embarking upon a visit into the world of Faulkner’s highly regarded short-term fictional endeavors is that his expression in this form is not the same as it is when working in the longer form of the novel. When reading about Faulkner, some may become wary at the frequent references to “stream-of-consciousness” techniques. William Faulkner was at the forefront and vanguard of America’s Modernist movement which took up the challenge of penetrating into the less linear structure of unconscious narrative technique. Even at his most experimental, however, Faulkner is never as impenetrable to even advanced readers as Ireland’s James Joyce. And when it comes to his short stories, the whole deal is beside the point.
That any relatively literate college freshman can understand “Barn Burning” is made clear by the fact that it is has been a staple of undergraduate English courses for more than half a century now. “A Rose for Emily” has even filtered down into non-advanced upper grade high school English classes; proof enough that one need not be pursuing an academic degree in literature to follow the surface narrative while also picking up on thematic issues waiting to be discovered in the subtext.
A lesser-known quantity is a war story simple enough to be adapted into a Joan Crawford film in 1933. On the other hand, “Red Leaves” is an “Indian story” that may be challenging to some because Faulkner handles it less as being interesting less for its straightforward narrative qualities than for its mystical poeticism. Long on imagery, the reader who flies through “Barn Burning” may easily become bogged down. It is one thing to get caught up in the coming-of-age mystery of whether Sarty is going to stick to what he’s told like a proper Son of the Confederacy or whether he is going to start thinking for himself and choose the path of righteous indignation over family loyalty.
Two of the strongest stories that directly comment upon the infectious strain of racism in the South are also included here. “Dry September” is about as forthright on the issue as any southern writer publishing during the Depression was ever likely to get and though handled with the typical Faulknerian complexity, it also stands as a testament capable of knocking back any retrogressive effort to paint the author as a mindless Son of the Confederacy himself. “That Evening Sun” handles the topic of racism a bit more obliquely which is all to its credit as a story ideal for a Faulkner beginner’s collection. If one doesn’t want to confront the inherent racism head-on, the story offers an almost equally satisfying way out in its surface presentation as a chilling little thriller that might have enticed Hitchcock for a film adaptation had he any interest at all in issues of American racism.
Anyone looking to prepare for the greater challenges of taking on Faulkner’s novels has been given ample opportunity to step into the shallow end of the author who is by any standard convention of measurement one of the three or four great American writers of the 20th century. This particular collection and any other that treks along the same basic path of content choice may not necessarily be said to enjoy an advantage, but they most certainly cannot be accused of starting from point of weakness.
And then, once the literary bloodstream has grown accustomed to the peculiar climate of Faulkner’s prose, the next logical step is the big one. The award winner and one of the finest short story collections ever published: Collected Stories of William Faulkner.
