Faulkner's "Requiem for a Nun": A Critical Study by Noel Polk (review)

118Reviews and a weak father may, in some cases, add up to a troubled child. No matter what Westbrook says, and he is fair and objective, the pictures that emerge of Clarence, of Grace, and of their relationship are not happy ones. Westbrook is certainly right that they "were two fine human beings," yet they were probably two fine human beings who should not have married each other. The same might be said of many marriages (Eugene O'Neill's parents, for example). Then again, these parents provided the crucible from which some very fine art came, and Westbrook does a nice job examining "The Doctor and The Doctor's Wife" and "Soldier's Home." There are some small points on which individual readers may disagree with Millicent Bell's "A Farewell to Arms: Pseudobiography and Personal Metaphor," but the final effect of the entire essay is that of a rich and suggestive—if dark—understanding of the novel and its author. As well, there are some small places in Carol H. Smith, "Women and the Loss of Eden in Hemingway's Mythology" that will not reconcile easily with Bell's article, but Smith's piece, employing a women's study approach to Hemingway's fiction, is interesting , especially on the character of Brett Ashley. Following Smith's essay in the volume, Malcolm Cowley's observation about how closely two Nobel laureates read each other's work is developed in Peter L. Hays, "Exchange between Rivals: Faulkner's Influence on The Old Man and the Sea," which explores the influence of "The Bear" on the Hemingway novel. The final essay in the fourth section is James D. Brasch's "Invention from Knowledge : The Hemingway-Cowley Correspondence," and it is by far the best piece in the section and one of the best in the entire volume. Brasch is dealing with a lively and important correspondence—and relationship—and he knows how to handle and present the material. Moreover, the essay is important not only for its extrinsic and obvious interest but because it may contain the clearest expression of Hemingway's aesthetics or modus operandi, what Hemingway was trying to do with his writing, particularly The Old Man and the Sea, and what he felt was necessary for him, or any writer, to create enduring, worthwhile fiction—the ability to "make" from knowledge. One of the consistent features of this book is that each of the scholarly essays in it makes it clear that its author has been through the manuscripts and letters which have become available since the last published scholarly collection. Without question, this is the best gathering of essays on Hemingway to appear since Richard Astro and Jackson J. Benson, eds., Hemingway in Our Time (Corvallis: Oregon State Univ. Press, 1974). It may be among the best collections of original pieces bound in one cover on any single twentiethcentury American writer of fiction. St. Bonaventure UniversityJames J. Martine Polk, Noel. Faulkner's "Requiem for a Nun ": A Critical Study. Bloomington : Indiana Univ. Press, 1981. 273 pp. Cloth: $17.50. Noel Polk's study of Requiem for a Nun reveals a good critical mind and a writer of graceful, clear prose. It is an interesting book. Its major achievement is that it forces one to reread Faulkner's novel. Polk marshals his arguments and presents them so ingeniously that one begins to question one's own memory. A rereading of Requiem, however, makes clear that the major flaw in Polk's study is its creativity. Though obviously a great admirer of Faulkner and a diligent student of his works, Polk is not satisfied with the novel Faulkner wrote. Studies in American Fiction119 In Polk's version of Requiem the focus of the moral drama is shifted away from Temple. She is seen not as a victim of her own past and her own sins but as a victim of the misguided and excessive idealism of Nancy Mannigoe and Gavin Stevens, the one the symbol of the church, the other of the state. "Both institutions," Polk writes, "are concerned with order, security, peace. Both strive to make this a better world, the church by encouraging, and the state by...