William Faulkner Audio Collection

Joseph BlotnerSir, this sounds an awful lot like a novel called The Sound and the Fury [with] Quentin Compson wanting to love people and the same sort of relationship with his sister.

William FaulknerI don't quite agree with you. I don't believe that—that Quentin and Holden were very much alike except in being a little too sensitive and coming from a somewhat similar background of—of people that were—were over-intelligent but incapable of—of any strength of—of mutual affection and tenderness, which, as I got it, was—was Holden's home.

A. K. DavisMr. Faulkner, Holden wasn't grown up, and Quentin was grown up. He was holding onto something. He was a case of arrested development, and Holden was a case of . Isn't that true?

William FaulknerYes, sir, there was that difference.

A. K. DavisI don't know whether I read Quentin right or not, but he was holding onto an ideal, wasn't he, sir?

William FaulknerYes, sir.

A. K. DavisThat—that simply could not be lived up to in his terms.

William FaulknerYes, that's right. That couldn't have been lived up to in any time maybe. But Holden Caulfield was simply looking for something which should be everybody's right, not only a privilege, but everybody's right, to find mankind and—and love mankind and be accepted into mankind, and he couldn't, because mankind, as I tried to say in my paper, in Holden's terms, wasn't there anymore.