The past isn't dead. It's not even past

October 26, 2012 8:56 PM

"The past isn't dead. It's not even past." Source?

Recently this Faulkner quote has been in the news due to a rather absurd lawsuit by the Faulkner estate.

Sample article:

http://gawker.com/5955332/sony-is-being-sued-because-owen-wilson-paraphrased-a-two+sentence-faulkner-quote-in-midnight-in-paris

The quotation is always cited to have come from Requiem For a Nun.

But... but... but... I could have SWORN that the quotation is actually from Absalom, Absalom!!

In fact, I thought that was effectively the whole point of the book! ... We're originally presented with Quentin telling the story of his family's history, and as we dig deeper and deeper into the past we realize more and more how much the consequences of past events, specifically regarding race, ring down through the generations and have terrible and profound effects on the novel's present.

Now, it's been a few years since I read the novel, and I read it in the context of a class.... so it's possible that we read a selection from Requiem for A Nun at the same time, because presumably they have thematic similarities. (I know for sure that I've never read Requiem cover to cover.)

I don't have Absalom, Absalom! with me in order to check why I thought the quote came from that novel.

Does anyone know why I would have thought that "The past isn't dead. It's not even past" came from Absalom, Absalom?

posted by lewedswiver to media & arts (4 answers total)

Nope, definitely from Requiem for a Nun. I totally understand your confusion, because that sentiment is basically the subtext of all of Faulkner's novels, especially Absalom, Absalom! That whole novel is pretty explicitly about the ways that the present is haunted by the past, so it makes perfect sense that you would remember it as coming from that book. Especially since it stars Quentin Compson, one of Faulkner's most past-obsessed characters. Add that to a plot that literally turns on the genetic legacy of old mistakes and it's not hard to see why the quote would be at home in Absalom, Absalom!

Part of your confusion could also stem from the fact that a big chunk of Absalom, Absalom! is Quentin trying to explain the South to his Canadian roommate. So that's a context in which it might make sense for him to say that line. Still, Absalom, Absalom's pull quote is usually the bit about "I don't hate the South!"
posted by Ragged Richard at 9:09 PM on October 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Direct quote is "The past is never dead. It’s not even past." (Never instead of isn't.)
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:42 AM on October 27, 2012

The part of Requiem for a Nun that that quotation comes from is on Google Books. Maybe it will ring a bell if you did read an excerpt from it? But yeah, otherwise what Ragged Richard says, that quote sums up a theme that's present in a lot of Faulkner's work, especially Absalom, Absaolm!
posted by radiomayonnaise at 8:49 AM on October 27, 2012

> Absalom, Absalom's pull quote is usually the bit about "I don't hate the South!"

To play the Pyrogenesis role, direct quote is:

“I dont hate it,” Quentin said, quickly, at once, immediately; “I dont hate it,” he said. I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!

posted by languagehat at 3:02 PM on October 27, 2012