Seeing What You Look For

William Faulkner needed money.  He was land rich but cash poor.  At the time Go Down, Moses was published he was the largest landholder in Oxford, Mississippi.  And yet, he was constantly arranging loans and advances from his publisher.

Faulkner had found out that his short stories could be written quicker and were more profitable in the short run.  So he produced a number of these to alleviate his cash flow problems, but when completed there was not an immediate market for them.  At the same time Random House continued to hound him to produce another full-length novel.

Faulkner's solution was simple and efficient.  Put together some of his already written short stories, change them in ways to augment their connections and add a few new pieces.

The publisher, who was aware of this, first published his new work under the title Go Down, Moses and Other Stories.  The book was then read and reviewed as a collection.  But Faulkner didn't intend for it to be read that way.  The new material and changes he made brought a subtle but present narrative unity to the work that made the free standing stories richer and deeper when read together.

When readers thought it was a short story collection, they tended to read it without considering the context of each story.  It was only later when the title was changed that critics began to see not some ingenious little stories but a great novel.

The whole incident is proof that you often find what you think you will.  It makes me wonder how many treasures we pass by each day unappreciated because we have decided to see them as something less than they are.