Abstract
AbstractChapter two explores the contradictions of petromodernity through the optic of the motor excursion, revealing Faulkner as a keen student of the ontological, phenomenological, aesthetic, epistemological, and ecological dimensions of US petroleum consumption. The Yoknapatawpha road trip contests the ideology of modern automobility, its aura of freedom, mastery, and expansiveness, with an insistent emphasis on the contingencies of personal motoring: the accidents, breakdowns, traffic jams, refueling stops, citations, sudden swerves, Jim Crowed roadways, and other exigencies that constitute the dialectical otherness within transportation modernity. “Elmer,” The Sound and the Fury, Sanctuary, Light in August, “Monk,” The Wild Palms, and The Mansion introduce a new Faulknerian genre, the filling station narrative; and Intruder in the Dust, Knight’s Gambit, and Requiem for a Nun merge crime fiction with road fiction to make detective work hinge on the act of driving. The Reivers’ Ned McCaslin finally illustrates the challenges of motoring while Black.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford