Soldiers' Pay

by William Faulkner

Overview

Though it is about people who took part in WW I or suffered through it, Faulkner's first novel is in no sense a book about war. Nor is SOLDEIRS' PAY a book about peace. It is a book about disillusion and fulfillment, about sensuality and beauty, about love and hate and all the human emotions that shake us in Armageddon or in peace. It is a story for our own time, a story moving and intense, a story blended with humor and insight and pity.

"A deft hand has woven this narrative of mixed and frustrated emotions and has set it down with hard intelligence as well as consummate pity. The book rings true." (The New York Times)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593470961
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/15/2023
Series:	Vintage International
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	309,410
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.98(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

William Faulkner (1897–1962) is the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, among other works. These two novels were originally published by Liveright in the 1920s.

Date of Birth:

September 25, 1897

Date of Death:

July 6, 1962

Place of Birth:

New Albany, Mississippi

Place of Death:

Byhalia, Mississippi

What People are Saying About This

Edmund Wilson

Faulkner... belongs to the full-dressed post-Flaubert group of Conrad, Joyce, and Proust.

Robert Penn Warren

For all the range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity [Faulkner's works] are without equal in our time and country.

Editorial Reviews

"This book rings true." —The New York Times

"Comic, passionate, tormenting, and strange." —Literary Digest

"Moving and intense. The story alone is a gem, but for deeper things that lie back of the mere plot the book is likely to become a classic." —St. Louis Globe-Democrat

From the Publisher

A rich compound of imagination, observation, and experience. In an isolated world of Faulkner's own making, shadows having the reality of men grope through a maze complex enough to be at once pitiful and comic, passionate, tormenting, and strange.
—Literary Digest

Louis Kronenberger

A deft hand has woven this narrative of mixed and frustrated emotions and has set it down with hard intellegence as well as consummate pity. This book rings true.”

1926 New York Times

During a train trip to Georgia, WWI veterans, deftly portrayed by narrator Adam Barr, experience continued grief and trauma. Soldier Mahon suffers the most hideous and heinous wounds. As a small circle of supporters surrounds him, escorting him home, Barr portrays the most notable characters, especially Joe and Mrs. Powers, with exceptional skill. Mahon holds onto the possibility of a life with his fiancée even though he has disfigurement that may taint her love. Barr inhabits the lives and souls of these mismatched characters with humanity and compassion. The novel employs some of the same narrative gymnastics explored in Faulkner's later work. This is a fine introduction to his literary prowess, and Barr makes it the best way to enjoy the journey. R.O. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile

During a train trip to Georgia, WWI veterans, deftly portrayed by narrator Adam Barr, experience continued grief and trauma. Soldier Mahon suffers the most hideous and heinous wounds. As a small circle of supporters surrounds him, escorting him home, Barr portrays the most notable characters, especially Joe and Mrs. Powers, with exceptional skill. Mahon holds onto the possibility of a life with his fiancée even though he has disfigurement that may taint her love. Barr inhabits the lives and souls of these mismatched characters with humanity and compassion. The novel employs some of the same narrative gymnastics explored in Faulkner's later work. This is a fine introduction to his literary prowess, and Barr makes it the best way to enjoy the journey. R.O. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2023 - AudioFile