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I thought the lighting looked cool. Rowan Oak itself is just barely visible at ground level on the right.
The "Falkner" side of the headstone of John Fa(u)lkner, brother of novelist William Faulkner. John, who was himself a writer, had adopted his older brothers habit of including a "u" in the spelling of his name, as had John's oldest son, Jimmy, but John's other son, Murry "Chooky" Falkner, continued to spell it without the "u." When Jimmy and Chooky's father died, they resolved the spelling of John's last name in a rather unique way: by spelling it one way on one side of the stone, the other way on the reverse, and with the letter "u" in parentheses on the flat stone atop the grave.
Faulkner won a Nobel Prize in 1949. He added this room to the house three years later. From that time on, it was where he chose to do his writing. He wrote his novel A Fable in this room, and his outline for the novel can still be seen written on the wall. He won a Pulitzer for the novel in 1956. The room has been left as it was at Faulkner's death.
A Joint Service Honor Guard detail performs the traditional POW-MIA Ceremony at the 2012 Secretary of Defense Maintenance Awards ceremony, at the DeVos Place Convention Center, Grand Rapids, Mich., Nov. 15, 2012. The POW-MIA Ceremony is generally used in conjunction with the opening of a dinner function and is held to remember those who have sacrificed their lives for their country. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. David Eichaker/released)
JPG copied from Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Faulkner
At Rowan Oak, his home in Oxford, Mississippi
Battle Creek Air National Guardsmen, 110th Airlift Wing Honor Guard, post colors during the 2012 Secretary of Defense Maintenance Awards ceremony, at the DeVos Place Convention Center, Grand Rapids, Mich., Nov. 15, 2012. This event is the premier annual event for all defense maintainers and recognizes the best maintenance units in the Department of Defense with the presentation of the Secretary of Defense Maintenance Awards, the highest award for maintenance within DoD. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt. David Eichaker/released)
The town square in Oxford, MS has a statue of William Faulkner sitting on a bench in front of city hall. This is his view, watching the townsfolk walk by.
If they stay here soon it will be summer: things
returning, sunlight fingering minnowy deeps,
seedy greens, reeds, electing lights
and edges from the river. Consider
legend, self-deception, sin, the sum
of human purpose and its end; remember
how our poetry depends on distance,
aspect: gravity will bend starlight.
Forgive me if I set the truth to rights.
Bear with me if I put an end to this:
She never turned to him; she never leaned
under the sallow-willow over to him.
They never made love; not there; not here;
not anywhere; there was no winter journey;
no aconite, no birdsong and no jasmine,
no woodland and no river and no weir.
Listen. This is the noise of myth. It makes
the same sound as shadow. Can you hear it?
--Eavan Boland, from "Listen. This Is the Noise of Myth"
The grave of beloved Southern writer William Faulkner. Because I cannot write like the master, I will leave you with his words upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949:
"I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work ā a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before...
...the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed ā love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones..."
ā Faulkner, 1949
The gravesite of William Faulkner in St. Peter's Cemetery, Oxford, Mississippi. Visitors to the gravesite often leave coins, whiskey bottles, and other tokens on his grave.
Rowan Oak is William Faulkner's home. He lived here for 40 years. It's a beautiful estate with a ton of history. You can walk through his house and read about where he would read, what inspired him and information about his wife and daughter.
I just love the property. It's huge and I love how everything is lined with trees as if it's leading you towards the entrance to the house!