For Faulkner, Forever Ago

Yesterday, I set up my record player at my parents' house. I hope to take it with me to Chicago, but I don't really want to neglect it in the interim. After dinner, my dad and I sat down to shoot the bull (as is our custom) while my mom washed dishes, saying there was just a bit more, just a bit more... (as is her custom).

My dad had already sifted through all of his old LPs that I stole, so I put on Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago. A few tracks in, I realized that I couldn't stop thinking about Faulkner, specifically Absalom, Absalom!. I reread Absalom in January, and had recently purchased For Emma, so was listening to it a lot, while reading. I'll grant you that it's possible that the simple act of listening to a record a dozen or so times while reading a single book will naturally link the two in the reader's/listener's mind. However, I don't think that's where the connection ends.

To begin with, consider just the sound of the record. It's dark, hollow, and haunting. It's like a painting with deep, rich colors, made with wide, but careful brush strokes that capture incredible detail without obviating the viewers use of imagination. Think: Iron & Wine meets Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen meets Starry Night. There's also something faintly Southern about the sound. Acoustic guitars fading out like a lap steel player just missed a fret. A single bass drum backbeat that could be the singer stomping his foot on a dancehall stage along with the beat. To punctuate the link between the sound and the novel, consider a bit of historical evidence: Justin Vernon, the sole composer of the album left North Carolina to spend the winter in a Wisconsin cabin, and emerged after three months with For Emma. Absalom, Absaslom, of course, is the story of the Sutpen and Compson families of Mississippi as told primarily by Quentin Compson to his college roommate on a cold, winter's night in Massachusetts. So, both works are, in the end, a Northern retelling of Southern events that have been refashioned and misremembered over a span of time and space. (NB: I wonder if Vernon is aware of Absalom and the role in the narrative played by Charles Bon. I know the myth about Bon Iver being a purposefully misspelled version of the French phrase for "good winter," misspelled because "hiver" reminded Vernon to much of liver and mononucleosis. But if a folk-pop singer/songwriter doesn't know the power of layers of meaning, he isn't much of a folk-pop singer/songwriter, now is he?)

Now, consider the album's lyrics. The opening track begins with Vernon swooning almost threateningly, "I am my mother's only one / It's enough." He sings later in the song, "I am my mother on the wall, with us all / I move in water, shore to shore / Nothing's more." The primary plot movement of Absalom, Absalom! is motivated by the opaque past of it's central character, Thomas Sutpen, slowly materializing in front of us with an inevitability that draws the reader along, knowing the heartbreak to come, but powerless to turn away. Along the way, Sutpen's son, Henry meets Charles Bon at school. Eventually, to no surprise to even the most inattentive reader, Charles Bon is revealed to be Sutpen's estranged son from an abandoned, Haitian wife. If there is little question as to whether or not Bon knew the truth about his father and his friend, Henry, there is even less question as to whether or not his mother knew the errand on which she sent her son, long before he ever completed it. The novel is broken up by points in time when Sutpen disappears to New Orleans, presumably visiting his abandoned wife, but whatever purpose he imagines himself to carry out is far too late to appease the woman, as her "only one" is already moving "shore to shore" acting out her vengeance upon the Sutpen's. Read the novel for that story.

Skipping ahead one track, to "Lump Sum," Vernon sings an incomprehensible tale of loss, regret, trade, sacrifice, and unkept promises. As if we need to be reminded, Vernon sings, "So the story goes..." at intervals. In Absalom, we're periodically brought back to Quentin and his roommate, Shreve. Shreve fills in parts of the story for Quentin, when he is unable (or unwilling) to draw difficult conclusions about his family history. One can hear him saying, "Thomas Sutpen abandoned his mulatto wife and son, or so the story goes," and, "Charles Bon fell in love with Henry's sister Judith, his own half-sister, or so the story goes." It's then not hard to hear Shreve saying, "So, Eulalia Bon sent her son to school in Mississippi, hoping he would find his father, knowing what would happen when he did," and "Old Sutpen knew that his son, Henry, would murder Charles when he realized that his sister, Judith, was going to marry a black man, or that she was going to marry her half-brother." So the story goes...

The next song, "Skinny Love" is the singer's recollection of his last-ditch effort to save a romance doomed by something he can't remember, something he won't remember, or something that doesn't matter. "I told you to be patient / I told you to be fine / I told you to be balanced / I told you to be kind." I wanted you to be all of these things that you are not. I put you in a box into which you fit uncomfortably for a while, but now you're out and we both know that you aren't going back in. "Pour a little salt we were never here." Quentin's retelling of his grandfather's friend's story echoes these sentiments (or, I suppose it's more accurate to say that Bon Iver echoes Faulkner. Whatever.) Thomas Sutpen came to Mississippi from West Virginia by way of Haiti, leaving behind him a wake of shame and sadness. He arrives in Mississippi with nothing and strong-arms his way into a legacy of prosperity. He was who he told people he wanted to be. He fit into the box he built for himself, but it inevitably failed to hold him. By the end of the novel, all that's left of his legacy is not even a shadow of its previous prosperity. It's not thing more than a thin layer of ice on a Massachusetts window that could be erased forever with a single pinch of table salt. We were never here.

"Someday my pain / Someday my pain will mark you." At this point, does that one really need an explanation? Read the book.

I'll reward your patience and persistence if you've made it this far by sparing you anymore close analysis of Bon Iver songs beyond this last one: "So did he foil his own? / Is he ready to reform? / So many torahs / So many for us / The creature fear." Taking the first two questions in succession as they refer to Thomas Sutpen: 1) Yes, duh. 2) No. He dead. There are a myriad of Torahs. Every traveling salesman has the gospel you need to make your life what you want it to be for four easy payments of $19.95. Ask anyone you know and they'll give you a scripture prescription for whatever ails you. What they won't tell you is that what ails you is fear. What chased Thomas Sutpen from Virginia to Haiti to Mississippi to his unmourned grave was fear. We are weak creatures with strong thoughts. To think is to be afraid. Consider any problem you've ever had or any decision you've ever struggled to make. Can you phrase the crux of the issue beginning with, "I fear that..."? I fear that I'm not smart enough. I fear that the market won't recover. I fear that there isn't enough time. I fear that there's something I haven't considered. I fear. You fear. It's not the absence of fear that gives one courage, but the ability to make the best life you can in the face of fear. Remember Prince Hal's words in Henry IV: "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them." We do not remember people because they did not fear. We remember those precious few among us who feared, but did not react to it. Instead, they saw their fear and acted in spite of it.

Buy the album:

Buy the book:

Thanks for reading,

M