Big Woods: The Hunting Stories

No one could write like Faulkner, no one has ever captured what it’s like to be out in the woods on a drizzly iron cold November day cradling a rifle then hoisting it quickly to your shoulder as a burst of speed, pelt and shadow slips through the thickets and trees, the squeeze of the trigger, the kick against the shoulder, the sharp clap-clap-clap that shudders the air. Faulkner writes with a river of words that carry the reader a long like a leaf on a fast-flowing stream, eddying, pooling, whirl pooling, figure-eighting, dragged under, then buoying up, motionless for a moment, then swept on again. These stories are as good as anything Faulkner ever wrote, which means they’re masterpieces, haunting, beautiful revelations of the spirit of the land, of the ghosts who still walk that land, of the land’s devastation, of the living who still treasure its surviving bounty and mourn in the watches and deepest keepings of their heart its irreversible and inevitable passing. If you read anything by Faulkner, read this. You’ll hear the rain on the tent, smell the 4 o’clock coffee, stretch on the cot, feel the promise of dawn seep through the tent flap, step out into darkness sparkling with stars. Very Highly Recommended.

Big Woods was my introduction to William Faulkner, and I waited far too long it seems (owing to my immature aversion to Faulkner due to his criticism of my beloved Ernest Hemingway). These four tales and their prologues were so rich and vivid with their sylvan tradition, ritual, barbarism, naturalism and romanticism. Through the progression of the tales, up until the last lines, I grew sorrowed and lamented the gradual ravaging of Big Bottom, the Big Woods. A very poignant work. I look forward to enjoying some more of William Faulkner's works. I will let Faulkner's and Hemingway's verbal jabs at one another die with those writers, and I will enjoy both of their works.

Good stories by great author

Faulkner is a difficult read for those used to conventional narratives. What he tries to do with words, however, is sculpt a scene and then place it into a frame with language as his only material. He fashions a kind of diorama. The reader simply has to let go, let the words and phrases continue until he sees the whole scene, both in its historical depth and in its ongoing solidity.If the reader can permit him or herself to do that, the language will become beautiful and flowing and be heard to be saying things. that might otherwise take many books to say. The danger of this approach is that the language might become evanescent, and while some of the images might remain in the reader's mind their expression will have passed too quickly to be recalled. So: Faulkner is a daring writer. It takes effort o read him. I found it worth it. Others might not. --Harold J.Bershady

nice

loved it

This book is written by William Faulkner. What else needs to be stated?

Great read. The way the author brings the story to life is amazing. Makes you feel like you are actually in the woods with the characters in the stories.