A Fable

By: William Faulkner

Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau

Length: 20 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

An allegorical story of World War I set in the trenches in France and dealing ostensibly with a mutiny in a French regiment.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of William Faulkner's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews James Lee Burke about the life and work of William Faulkner – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

This production is part of our Audible Modern Vanguard line, a collection of important works from groundbreaking authors.

©1954 William Faulkner (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Boring, wordy

Faulkner did a great job stringing together words in such an uninteresting manner that an antiwar fable had me dosing off.

I'm still not a Faulkner fan.

I continue to find Faulkner overly obscure. I've tried some of his other novels, but the results have been the same.

satirical anti-war novel

What would happen if soldiers on the front line of a war refused to continue fighting?

William Faulkner's 1954 novel "A Fable" explores this possibility. In the middle of World War I, a French Corporal persuades his comrades to ignore their orders and stop fighting the Germans. The Germans notice and also cease hostilities. The truce spreads to the armies of other countries in the conflict, and the war is brought temporarily to a halt. The peace enrages commanders on both sides, who interpret the soldiers' actions as Mutiny. The opposing generals meet in secret to determine how to deal with this threat to their authority.

Like most Faulkner novels, this one is difficult to read. Long, involved sentences with parenthetical asides, most of which provide important background information and some of which reflect seemingly random musings of the author, challenge the reader's attention. Often followed by sentence fragments. The author declines to provide names for most of his characters forcing the reader to keep track of them by their titles - and sometimes not even that.

Unlike most Faulkner novels, he sets this one outside the fictional Mississippi county of Yoknapatawpha. The battlefields of eastern France provide a different flavor from most of his writing.

The Corporal exhibits numerous similarities to Jesus Christ. He begins by converting the twelve men in his squad, who spread the message to the rest of the army. He is betrayed by one of his followers. He is arrested, tried, and executed before the women in his life come to claim his body. The story takes place over a few days and parallels the Passion of the Christ.

Although this novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award, it has been largely forgotten. Critics hold many of Faulkner's earlier works in much higher regard.

The book's strength is its satire. It underscores the absurdity of war and the lengths those invested in combat will go to perpetuate it. I wonder if Joseph Heller drew some inspiration when he penned his classic anti-war farce "Catch-22." Heller's execution was superior, but Faulkner came first.

Difficult Novel Not Helped by Reader

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

A Fable, which might be for many an important novel --about soldier resistance to WWI fighting--- is to my mind one of Faulkner's most difficult novels. He spent ten years writing it and got the Pulitzer for it, but he sure doesn't give the reader much help. The pronoun "he" is used so often and so far from the anchoring name that we completely lose track of which "he" is being talked about. The reader doesn't help. Though pronouncing very clearly with a pleasant voice he has a strange arrhythmia: minor words are emphasized with inappropriate pauses, or stresses; a single speech stream is broken into two; vocal emphasis is given to non-emphasized syntax or meaning, Trying to process why this emphasis or that lack of it interferes with the ability to comprehend, much less appreciate. Too bad I can only recommend with warnings, as I'd like to give it much more.

Potentiality

Admittedly, I am a huge Faulkner fan; though, Southern Literature is not my area of study, I have read most of Faulkner's novels. This was one of the gaps in his canon for me. What you have here is Faulkner at his best and his worst. You have moments when the plot and style come together to form a cohesive narrative. But you have plotting that takes turns where none are needed, becoming a book that is mainly potential. To bring the Great War into novel form was the life-long pursuit of Faulkner, which could be noted in his false claims to participation in the war. But the addition of a Chirst-like character onto the narrative leaves the novel moving in different and competing directions.

Bad Production and Direction

What did you love best about A Fable?

This is generally considered one of Faulkner's lesser works, although he took ten years writing it and said more than once it was his best. Overall, I thought the story was good. There is a very long digression that adds very little and feels like separate story embedded in this novel.

Any additional comments?

The director of this work chose to have the actor read everything in the same voice, no accents for British or French characters, no dialect or inflection for regional differences. Also, there are dozens of words mispronounced. Finally, there are some places early on where the editor//producer failed to properly edit out second takes and we hear the same line repeated.These added together nearly drove me to abandon this book early on. I persisted only because I wanted to follow the plot. If there is another version of this book in Audible I would recommend trying that first.

Definitely Not Impressed w/ the Audiobook

Would you try another book from William Faulkner and/or Kevin Pariseau?

I would read another book of William Faulkner, but I probably won't listen to another book read by Kevin Pariseau

Would you be willing to try another book from William Faulkner? Why or why not?

Yes. I have read a couple of books by Faulkner and am open to reading more books by him.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Although the narrator spoke clearly, I found his reading excruciating slow and boring and not helpful to the understanding of the novel. There were long pauses in places where pauses should not be. It was quite distracting. So much so that I stopped the recording and read the book.

Do you think A Fable needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No. Even though I'm not a fan of Faulkner, I think he completed the story even if it was verbose

The Horror of War

I liked the mixture of stream of consciousness and hyper realistic observation of World War I. The Horror of trench warfare is unforgettably depicted. Faulkner tells a fable of a Christ like Corporal who is executed for his insubordination and whose Division leader is murdered. I find Faulkner’s use of Christian Allegory one of the most daring leaps by any modern writer. He draws on other great writer’s such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and produces something entirely original.

Boring and confusing

I found the plot confusing, annoying, and so indubitably boring. I was really disappointed with this book.