OXFORD, Miss. – We are at Rowan Oak, Susan and I – 719 Old Taylor Road, Oxford, Miss., USA. Once the home of William Faulkner, the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author, and his family for over 40 years. Built in 1844, and renovated from time to time thereafter, this modest Mississippi mansion is situated on some 30 acres of residential properly not far from the town square. Promotional literature says it’s “open year round, from dawn to dusk."
Aside from the grad student who collects our entry fee (“Admission $5 for visitors 12 and over” reads the brochure), we’re the only ones in the house. And on the grounds. For close to an hour, in virtual solitude, we roam this real estate, which is now owned by the University of Mississippi, having been sold to it by Faulkner’s daughter, Jill Summers, in 1972. The Place had been declared a National Historic Landmark in 1968.
Here stand I, gazing into the library on the first floor, where Faulkner wrote before moving to a smaller adjacent writing room that he built in the 1950’s. The library features paintings by the author’s mother, bookshelves built by the author, and a bust of Don Quixote. Across the entranceway, where the grad student lurks reading, is the parlor, with its Chickering piano and gold-framed portrait of Faulkner in his riding habit.
Next door to the parlor is the dining room, which leads out to a patio. I cross the back hallway to see the writing room, where the plot outline of Faulkner’s novel “A Fable” is written on the wall in his handwriting. Atop a small table sits a typewriter. The second floor is similarly divided, consisting of bedrooms.
Outside now, in the humid heat of late August, as we walk across the grounds, oohing at the Post Oak Barn, the English Knot Garden, the Smokehouse, and more, I find myself thinking, So what? It’s hot as blazes, and this is where one great author lived and wrote over 80 years ago. Walking around this place isn’t making me a better writer.
Visiting Rowan Oak is one of those things that I had to do. I lived in Oxford for a few weeks in 1973 and, though I was taking two literature courses at Ole Miss – and was an English major and writer-wannabe – I never bothered to drop by then.
But it’s not then, it’s now. It’s 2014. I’ve been teaching Faulkner’s short story “Tomorrow” in the Law & Lit seminar for 11 years. I’ve been talking about “Absalom, Absalom” for 40. Susan and I have recently decided we need to reread Faulkner’s novels (that’ll take a while). We could not possibly have understood them in our 20’s.
I pull out my iPhone, type in the dateline, and begin this column. A few minutes later, we are back on the road, and I’ve forgotten the grad student’s name. Ten days later, I open my iPhone and cannot find the draft I started on the grounds. Ah, memory!
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.