Pylon

Faulkner once more. I am not sure how many books of him I haven't actually read yet. Maybe 3, 4 even 5. In any case, I am not too worried about having gone through all of them relatively soon, simply because most of them have as many layers of understanding that rereading them will be a pleasure.

Pylon most definitely is not one of Faulkner prime novels. He apparently wrote it while taking a break from Absalom, Absalom, in order to relax in a sense then. It is the first novel of his I read that does not take place in Yoknapatawpha County.

Pylon is based on a very simple story line. A journalist working in a fictionalized New Orleans (New Valois) is sent to cover an air fair outside of town. This introduces us, the reader, and him, the journalist, to the world of barnstorming pilots. Men who live from their planes, who risk their lives for a little prize money and who never earn enough to know where they will be sleeping that night or tomorrow. In this specific case the journalist (who does not have a name in the novel) stumbles over a family of sorts, that battles out this kind of life together. A pilot, a parachute jumper, a woman who is married to one but sleeps with both and her son whose father might be the one or the other and a mechanic with a penchant for alcohol. The journalist becomes deeply involved with this menage à trois ultimately leading to disaster.

Faulkner hurried this novel through. Some of his sentences lack in logic and sometimes words simply are misspelled, but the novel still offers glimpses of his wonderful, convoluted writing style. I can only recommend reading him, maybe not starting out with this book.