William Faulkner: Black Music

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The first thing that jumps out at me in William Faulkner’s “Black Music” is the first paragraph:

This is about Wilfred Midgleston, fortune’s favorite, chosen of the gods. For fifty-six years, a clotting of the old gutful compulsions and circumspections of clocks and bells, he met walking the walking image of a small, snuffy, nondescript man whom neither man nor woman had ever turned to look at twice, in the monotonous hard streets. Then his apotheosis soared glaring, and to him at least not brief, across the unfathomed sky above his lost earth like that of Elijah of old.

I could stop right there and say I’ve read a good story but then I would miss out on the other thing that jumps out at me although it took more of the story to realize the brilliance of the narrator Faulkner uses- something I shouldn’t be surprised at anymore.

As usual we don’t know who the narrator is but they are interviewing Wilfred Midgleston somewhere in what I think is Mexico. Midgleston has disappeared after some shenanigans with his former employer. This interviewer has a journalistic approach to their questions even if we don’t know if they are a journalist. I get the idea they could be fascinated with Midgleston’s disappearance and plan on writing a book or filming a documentary about him.

The detached and unbiased narrator contrasts nicely with the unreliable but entertaining story that Midgleston tells.

Oh, and one of Faulkner’s apparently favorite words is “apotheosis”. It’s almost in every story. I looked it up and it means “a culmination” or “a making divine”. In either case it fits well with this story.