Lições da história de um esplêndido fracasso

Noel Polk

Irritados com prosa difícil de Faulkner, os editores mexeram muito em Absalom, Absalom! , que é o único romance cuja versão “restaurada” por Noel Polk apresenta mudanças substanciais. Polk descreve o processo de edição:  

Clifton Fadiman, autor da resenha

“The editors of Absalom, Absalom! […] made massive alterations, deleting dozens of passages of sometimes 10 lines or more, altered punctuation to shorten some of his long sentences, and, for example, clarified deliberately ambiguous relative pronoun antecedents because, as they note in the margins, they couldn’t figure out what kinds of challenges Faulkner was presenting in the new novel. Since he preserved the typescript that the editors worked from, it was pretty easy to restore those cuts and make an Absalom more nearly what Faulkner wrote.”

Pelo jeito a mão pesada dos editores não adiantou nada. A resenha da revista New Yorker (uma poderosa instituição nas letras gringas que nunca morreu de amores por Faulkner muito antes pelo contrário) foi simplesmente implacável: 

“… I do not comprehend why Absalom, Absalom! was written, what the non-Mississippian is supposed to get out of it, or, indeed, what it is all about. Nor do I understand why Mr. Faulkner writes the way he does. And, having gone so far, I may as well break down and state my conviction that Mr. Faulkner’s latest book is the most consistently boring novel by a reputable writer to come my way during the last decade.”

O livro vendeu tão mal que os mesmos editores proibiram que ele desse ao livro mais conhecido como Wild Palms o nome de If I Forget Thee Jerusalem para que a referência bíblica não criasse associações com Absalom, Absalom!: 

Faulkner nos anos 40 dando duro em Hollywood

“… they told him, Absalom had been such a bust in the bookstores and they didn’t want to risk another novel with a biblical title; Faulkner was furious (one of the very few times he actually objected to an editorial decision), but had no choice but to accede."

O próprio Faulkner gostava de falar dos seus romances como “fracassos”. Quando perguntam se ele se sentiu satisfeito ao terminar The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner respondeu assim [podemos ouvir sua voz aqui]:

“No, I don't. That's the—the one that I love the best for the reason that it was the most splendid failure. I think that—that they all failed. Probably the reason the man writes another book is that he tried to—to tell some very important and very moving truth and failed. He's not satisfied, so he tries again. He writes another book, trying to tell some—the same moving truth, since there's only one truth, and they fail. And this one I worked hardest at. It's—it's like the—the idiot child that the parents love the best. This one was the—the most splendid failure, but I—I wish I hadn't done it because if I could do it now, I think I could do it better. Of course, I couldn't, [audience laughter] but I would like to try it again if I had never written it.”

Faulkner mais ou menos na época de Absalom, Absalom!

Absalom, Absalom! é um dos fracassos mais esplêndidos que eu conheço e a recepção do romance me ensinou muito. Acho um equívoco me encher de sentimento de superioridade e simplesmente ridicularizar aqueles que, naqueles anos em que Faulkner não havia ainda sido canonizado [literalmente transformado em santo], não tiveram durante a leitura a paciência ou o respeito que eu acho que Absalom, Absalom! merece. Melhor aprender, humildemente, que é preciso tentar enxergar além dos panteões de santos literários e ler com paciência e respeito o texto que se esconde entre as capas de cada livro.