Three Famous Short Novels: Spotted Horses Old Man the Bear

by William Faulkner

Book Overview

"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore." --William Faulkner These short works offer three different approaches to Faulkner, each representative of his work... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394701496
• ISBN13: 9780394701493
• Release Date: February 1958
• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

The Bear

This was a challenging story, like all works of Faulkner. But also a very rewarding story. When you finish this one you feel like you have been somewhere... truly immersed in a time period... truly immersed in a family.No author, ever... has had the knack of creating a world of ordinary people so expertly intertwined throughout his novels. Faulkner either by design or accident (I doubt that??) has created a rich tapestry in his books, of characters subtlely connected by time and circumstance.I have read The Sound and the Fury and most of Light in August; and it is not difficult to see the connections in just these two books plus the short story The Bear. Everything I have chanced to read by this amazing author has had careful, deep, intricate connections to the other works.I know this is a well known fact... but the way in which Faulkner executes it, leaves me amazed each and every time I encounter it.The Bear is a coming of age story about Ike McCaslin. It traces his development to a young man through several vingettes. Each time we see him he is involved in a hunt. That is until the last 2 sections in which we see him at age 21 looking back on his family history and discussing his right to the land. Once we see him as a young boy and then onward into his teenage years.The story revolves around an aged bear who roams the forests and swamps where they hunt. It is interesting to see Ike develop as a hunter and man, as the hunters get closer and closer to the old bear.There are many rich characters in this story.... far to many for me to touch on in this short review.A big theme that impressed me in this one was how our personal history is inexticably tied to the land we grow up on. Ike McCaslin was, "who" he was because of where he was from, and he could never escape that fact. Faulkner was an author unafraid to delve into the scriptures in developing his ideas. I believe his use of scriptural narratives only serves to strengthen his work. What he says, rings with authority when he uses Abraham, Adam and Eve as illustrations. He expertly uses the story of Abrahams travels to the promised land to show how his characters have squandered their "rights" to the land they grew up on... their "promised land". There is no doubt William Faulkner knew how to put a story together. Any of his works, beg to be read again and again. I will surely be picking this one up again... I recommend it to anyone who loves books! William Faulkner is a giant in the world of literature!

A critical look at The Bear

Among Faulkner's best work, The Bear is more than a simple story of the hunt for an ellusive bear. Faulkner uses the backdrop of the hunt in 19th century Mississippi to show the progress his protagonist, Ike McCaslin, makes towards the unltimate achievement of man. Faulkner was convinced of the godd that man is capable of; Ike, the typical Faulkner youth seen in other works, shows this idea in full detail. Ike begins his hunt as a young man, growing to accept the ways of nature as taught to him by a fallen Indian chief. The connotations of a fallen race abound in the story, yet they are no more obvious than in the detailed fourth chapter. Readers are advised not to merely skim this section; it remains one of the best testaments to Faulkner's ability to create some of the most complex material of the 20th century.

Three short novels by America's greatest writer.

Three Famous Short Novels gathers together three long and diverse works by America's greatest writer (that's my opinion, others my contest it, I will only agree to disagree). Spotted Horses is a humorous tale culled from the pages of The Hamlet, the first novel in the famous Snopes Family Trilogy. The Bear is the expanded version of the somber and mythic hunting story about the killing a legendary bear that means so much more than just that. The final story is the exciting adventure yarn Old Man and was one half of the two conjoined novellas that made up The Wild Palms (aka If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem). Although each story has more power than many writers have in their entire output, they acheive even more when woven into the wide fabric of Faulkner's far reaching, generations spanning Jefferson, Mississippi. Required reading.

Not for children

If you expected Faulkner's "The Bear" to be as difficult as "Pat the Bunny" you will be deeply disappointed. High school teachers may assign it in segments to English classes, but it is at heart an adult story, with deep seams of place and poetry. In this coming of age novella, the relationship between the boy Isaac and Old Ben the bear takes place against the backdrop of threatened forest land. Faulkner's passionate writing about the value of the woods rings true for nature conservationists today. The lengthy section on Civil War ghosts and the equivocality of inheritance, often considered an intrusion within the main narrative, also rewards careful reading. As for Faulkner's infamous run-on sentences -- well, here they are on full steam ahead, and even Faulkner's machismo is forgiveable in the context of his marvellous sentences.