Pylon

by William Faulkner and Reynolds (Preface) FAULKNER, William (Author);PRICE

Book Overview

In this book, an unnamed reporter for a local newspaper, tries to understand a trio of flyers on the barnstorming circuit.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394441567
• ISBN13: 9780394441566
• Release Date: October 1965
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The hand to mouth hero pilot is jipped by the rich airport owner... not news at 11

The Tarnished Angels (Pylon) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Spain ]Someone has revived this dangerous sport in my home town bay. And the parachute jumper hit the innocent benefactor reporter for being with the rotten drunken mechanic. Pylon racing gypsies living in their own distorted ( surreal) version of the depression world makes for a story that you have a hard time putting down: a strange two husband marriage (with 8 year old kid) by almost any standards, it appears to be more biography than than fiction. Death of a rocket pilot in 1934 gets the "performers" a 2.5 % pay reduction for printing new programs... it is a George Bush sort of world where the liars are winning.

Unconditional

I have no excuses to give for this book. Don't read it if you don't want to. Don't read it if you want literature. Don't read it if you want prurient prose (despite the other reviewers' references to sex, there is little to find in it). Don't read it if you want Faulkner. Don't read it if you want style, or flow, or popular fiction, or innovation, or a book about racing planes, or New Orleans. Don't read it if you want a good book at all. But if you do read it, you may find something that anchors you in the heart of the imperfect as no better work can do, a failed book about failure failed, and love it as no better love could.

Liked It-Didn't Love It

Faulkner's humor, even in such lighthearted books as the Reivers, could never be called madcap. Even when Lena hands Byron Bunch down from the truck bed as though he were an infant, the comedy is derived from a sense of startling humiliation and debasement. That or it's as dark as shoe polish. This latter option is the case in Pylon, which, despite its overall gravity, has many funny moments.The story: An unnamed reporter in New Valois, some forgotten hamlet with the sole distinction of having a regulation airport that hosts diverting but empty and pretentiously-hyped plane races. This reporter discovers a polyganous relationship between one pilot (Roger Schumman) and Laverne, whose shared son is of dubious origin. Then, as always happens in a Faulkner novel, a great, sinuous spate of events kicks in. The reporter is fired from his job (only to be rehired later) for obsessing over his new crew at the expense of his correspondence. Later, the reporter embezzles a considerable sum from his office (this in addition to many times cadging money from his boss) to pay for a dangerous plane for Roger to fly against the owner's wishes. Roger dies, the child falls by mother's indifference to the custody of the paternal grandparents.Faulkner has, to my knowledge, never written a bad book. This good, but often spotty book comes the closest to out-and-out failure as any work in the Faulkner canon of which I know. I agree with an earlier reviewer, though: I'd sooner read Faulkner or Turgenev than the [stuff] most writers call popular fiction these days.

A true story about people who never existed.

Early experimental planes, romance and realities are driven out of control in a dusty town of a forgotten America. Nastalgic pilots will find the dark side of Bach.