The Town: A Novel of the Snopes Family

by William Faulkner

Paperback, 1957

Status

Available

Call number

813.52

Publication

Vintage (1957), Mass Market Paperback, 371 pages

Description

This is the second volume of Faulkner's trilogy about the Snopes family, his symbol for the grasping, destructive element in the post-bellum South. Like its predecessor, The Hamlet, and its successor, The Mansion, The Town is completely self-contained, but it gains resonance from the other two.The story of Flem Snopes' ruthless struggle to take over the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, the audiobook is rich in typically Faulknerian episodes of humor and of profundity.

User reviews

LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd

I don't know how many times I've read this...fewer than I've read The Hamlet, but not by a lot. It is just as funny, just as tragic, and just as frustrating, as every other time I've read it, but now I know I can skim the Gavin Stevens sections for the kernels of story buried in them, and just

relish the Ratliff sections for all they're worth. This novel is Faulkner's tale of how a family of schemers and ne'er-do-wells moves into the town of Jefferson, Mississippi, from out in the boonies (Frenchman's Bend), singly and in bunches, and sets the place on its ear. Poor over-educated Lawyer Stevens, infatuated first with Eula Varner Snopes, and later obsessed with saving her daughter from what he imagines to be a stunted existence, expends all the words ever in trying to sort out motivations and intentions and passions, but as his friend V. K. Ratliff constantly points out, he mostly gets it wrong. A grand little piece of the Yoknapatawpha saga.

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LibraryThing member dianelouise100

I thought Faulkner’s The Town, second novel in his Snopes Trilogy, more satisfying than The Hamlet. There were not the lapses into soaring and beautiful flights of rhetoric, which I struggled to hold onto, but then just let go of out of frustration. And it did have a plot, a plot which follows a

line, as Flem eventually weasels his way into the presidency of the Jefferson Bank, seemingly his goal all along. The writing is Faulknerian, but somewhat simpler and more readable than The Hamlet.

Flem’s character is fleshed out in The Town, and we are given a great deal more understanding of Eula, and her daughter Linda and their relationship to Flem. Linda, a babe in her mother’s arms when the Snopes family arrives in Jefferson, becomes significant; and we now have a team of Snopes watchers: our faithful Ratliff, there when his route brings him to town; Gavin Stevens, young lawyer, educated at Harvard and abroad; and Gavin’s nephew, Chick Malleson, who is not yet born when the Snopeses first arrive. These Snopes watchers provide the narration, each telling us in sections things he has observed for himself or heard about from others. I enjoyed this narrative technique and the variety in narrative voice. And the narrators have plenty to watch and report on. Many of the Snopeses from Frenchman’s Bend move into Jefferson when Flem has a spot for them. A significant new character is Manfred de Spain, son of one of the most aristocratic families in Jefferson. Eula falls in love with him, and surprisingly, their affair proves to be the lasting kind. Flem is aware of this affair, but ignores it. The sorting out of this triangle is perhaps the major plot interest, bringing together its major threads.

There are more surprises in this story, not all happy ones. I enjoyed the novel a great deal and now feel all set up for The Mansion, to see what else Faulkner has in mind for his Snopses

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