Oxford, Mississippi

During a family trip to Florida, on a last minute impulse as we drove through Mississippi, I dragged my family with me to Oxford to see the imaginary town of Jefferson that I had read so much about. It wasn't hard to find the Faulkner home, there were signs all over town pointing to it. I immediately recognized the home when I saw it. It was the plantation I had imagined, and seen in so many of his novels, from "A Light in August," to "The Mansion," to "The Sound and The Fury." We arrived late in the day so I didn't have time to see much. Too late to take a tour but that was fine with me. Just like when I read Faulkner, I wanted to experience everything for myself, by myself, and without a guide.

I went running through the house, knowing that I only had fifteen minutes to see it all. I saw the kitchen and so was able to see the kitchen I had imagined when I read the unforgettable description from "A Light in August," of the slave who had been freed, who returned twenty years later and simply walked into the kitchen and started preparing soup.

I ran through the yard looking for the tree Caddy climbed to look in the window the "night Damuddy died." I looked in the gracious rooms upstairs and saw for myself the probable office room where Flem Snopes put his feet on the desk and his hands behind his head and looked out over the fields and said "I just had to find out why anybody needed all this."

I only had fifteen minutes. Now I need a lifetime to read Faulkner some more and head back to Oxford to see more of Jefferson, Mississippi.