Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)
Studies - László Dányi: The Eccentric Against the Mainstream: William Styron, 75
known Faulkner critic, related to Faulkner's legacy in the writings of Southern authors, and he jovially remarked that Faulkner was like the Dixie Limited train —you had to get out of its way, otherwise you would be run over. When Styron's Lie Down in Darkness (LDD) was published in 1951 the Southern literary mode had been a distinguished tradition for some thirty years. Therefore when the book appeared it seemed to fit into this tradition. Critics thought that there was another good writer in the familiar Southern style, with another novel about Southern decay. They were eager to point out the Southern characteristic features in the novel, and they tried to prove that Styron followed Faulkner's footsteps and continued his legacy: "This guy was influenced by Faulkner: this guy is trying to write the way Faulkner tried to write. This is a burden ... it is a real burden" (Core 58-59). So Styron had to bear the weight of being called an heir to the Faulknerian heritage, and had to labor in the shadow of the colossus, however, there were critics like Malcolm Cowley who favorably reviewed Styron's usurping the Faulknerian style, rhetoric and concerns (Cowley 19). In one of his essays Gunnar Urang finds Styron's fiction derivative and imitative because it sticks to the old-fashioned models of conveying characters and describing them through their interactions with each other and placing them into a traditional plot. He writes that Styron cannot delete his commitment to an ancient enthusiasm about character and story (Urang 183-209), and in his thematic structuring of stories he is a successor of great 19th century novelists like Flaubert and Melville. Flaubert had affected Styron's attitude to life, in his workroom he wrote the following quotation by the great French novelist: "Be regular and orderly in your life, like a good bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work" (West 277). In an interview by Esquire magazine Styron admits that most people think he writes "just a bunch of derivative trash", and he tries to deny this supposition and to escape Faulkner's shadow: "You can't spend your life living with a monument. If you're going to be a writer, you become a writer on your own terms and totally set yourself free from that influence" (Caputo 150). Interestingly enough, in another interview Styron asserts that it was not only Faulkner who inspired his 12
