Go Down, Moses

371 pp. "Go Down, Moses is an episodic novel by American author William Faulkner, consisting of seven short stories. The most prominent character and unifying voice is that of Isaac McCaslin, "Uncle Ike", who will live to be an old man; "uncle to half a county and father to no one." The novel was originally thought to be a collection of short stories, but in his later life, Faulkner insisted it was indeed a novel. Although originally published in 1942 as Go Down, Moses and Other Stories, Go Down, Moses is not a collection of stories but a unified, though seemingly fragmented, novel. (Faulkner received editorial help from H.L. Mencken.) It spans more than a century in the history of the McCaslin family, viewing their hardships and triumphs by examining their daily lives. Its plantation and the fictional Yoknapatawpha County are in Mississippi. It deals with such issues as slavery and race, the relationship between man and nature, the vanishing wilderness, stewardship versus ownership of land, and property and inheritance. The title refers to the spiritual "Go Down Moses", which draws a comparison between the enslavement of blacks in America and the Jews in Egypt, as is evidenced by Molly(ie) Beauchamp's comments in the final story, where she repeats that her grandson has been "sold to pharaoh". Also not coincidentally, Go Down, Moses is possibly Faulkner's most spiritual book, as shown in the connection to nature and the land in The Old People, The Bear, and Delta Autumn. The Bear is also one of Faulkner's best-known short stories."