Elizabeth M. Kerr - William Faulkners Yoknapatawpha: a kind of keystone in the universe

.Elizabeth M. Kerr has, with the publication of William Faulkners Yoknapatawpha: A Kind of Keystone in the Universe, completed a comprehensive examination of Faulkners mythical county.this latest work deals with the symbolic values related to the themes of the separate narratives and to the encompassing mythology. In successive chapters, Kerr examines (1) recurrent symbols and archetypes in Faulkners fiction; (2) mythology in the modern world, the South, and Yoknapatawpha; and (3) the basic Christian humanism which underlies Williams Faulkners existential focus on the human condition - most specifically as it relates to Time, Motion, and Change. The book is scholarly, well written, and carefully organized.Highly recommended.-ChoiceAiming for the universal in Faulkners Yoknapatawpha fiction, this book reads somewhat like an annotated bibliography, or three bibliographies: one on symbols in Yoknapatawpha, citing (copiously) dissertations, articles, and books on symbolism in general and Faulkners own symbols; one on various myths Kerr and other critics have noticed in Yo9knapatawpha; and one on the total meaning of the Yoknapatawpha myth as an individualistic, existential, Christian humanism.-University Publishing