May 5, 2011

I am rereading "The Sound and the Fury," one of America's greatest novels. I consider Faulkner to be America's Shakespeare, albeit a Shakespeare run amok. He and James Joyce were both praised and chided for utilizing a "stream of consciousness" writing technique in their storytelling. As I read it now, I recognize it as a crude stab at writing down mindfulness or witness consciousness. Free association as it occurs. Choiceless awareness. These writers really nailed what E.T. calls the human condition: "lost in thought." They were crude as Picasso was crude with cubism, slicing, dicing, rolling out 'dem bones in a way both brand new and ancient.