I thoroughly enjoyed this biography of William Faulkner. For the first time I get a sense of the flesh and blood man. Faulkner seems to have been a hard man to get to know, for he was not garrulous and didn't not seek to reveal much of himself.
This book is valuable also because the author summarizes each of the novels. I have read some Faulkner, but do not plan to read any more except to finish the short stories and maybe read Alsalom, Alsalom.
What intests me is to come to terms with the man himself and his work as a whole without getting bogged down in particular works. He constructed his imaginary world with characters who wandered across multiple books. He said he wrote about universal themes based on the human heart in conflict with itself. He came out of small-town Mississippi in the early decades of the 20th century. He had family history and stories to draw on. The material was at hand for his writing.
I enjoyed reading about his time in New Orleans with writer Sherwood Anderson. Faulkner made the obligatory trip to Europe in the early 1920's. He had numerous stints in Hollywood writing movie scripts though none of them amounted to much. Given his acute and chronic alcoholism, it's amazing that he lived to almost 65. His wife Estelle was crazy in her own right---as much a drinker as he was. He would have long brooding spells when he would shut himself into his writing room.
At the time of death in 1962, he was planning to move to Virginia having fallen in love with that state when he served as writer in residence at UVA. I did not know this.
I suppose I will have further comments on Mr. Faulkner.
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