FAULKNER COLLECTION COMES ALIVE AT NEW STUDY CENTER

American novelist William Faulkner's life is more than an open book nearly 35 years after his death.

It's a life documented in more than 10,000 letters, manuscripts, movie scripts and photographs of the famed Southern writer, housed at Southeast Missouri State University's Center for Faulkner Studies.

The university has housed the Faulkner collection in Kent Library's Rare Book Room since it was acquired from St. Louis businessman, poet and book collector Louis Daniel Brodsky in 1988.

Under a 20-year arrangement, Southeast will have paid $1.8 million to Brodsky by 2008, including $800,000 for his services as curator.

But English professor and Faulkner scholar Dr. Robert Hamblin feels the cost is well worth it.

Hamblin directs the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast.

It's one of only four Faulkner collections in the world. The others are at universities in Virginia, Texas and Faulkner's home state of Mississippi.

"If you are a serious Faulkner scholar, you have to use all four," said Hamblin.

As curator, Brodsky continues to acquire Faulkner materials. "This is a growing collection," said Hamblin.

"Collecting Faulkner is not like collecting Shakespeare, where everything is under glass," he said. "There is still a lot of Faulkner material out there."

Faulkner died in 1962.

The Faulkner center doesn't have money set aside to acquire new material.

Hamblin said the center occasionally sells one or two of its Faulkner-inscribed books in order to buy other items for the collection. An inscribed book is worth thousands of dollars, he said.

The center has more than 200 books inscribed by Faulkner, including several first editions.

But to a scholar, the real treasure is the letters and original manuscripts that offer a closer look at Faulkner and his life, said Hamblin.

He and Brodsky have co-authored several books about Faulkner, based on materials in the collection.

Hamblin said the center owes its priceless collection to the efforts of Brodsky.

"He has literally rescued materials from the waste cans," said Hamblin.

One of the most recent additions are the files of Joseph Blotner, a Faulkner biographer, who wrote two books about the novelist.

The files currently are stored in boxes, stacked in one of the rooms of the new Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast. Work is under way to catalog all the research files.

The center is housed in a renovated suite of offices on the third floor of Kent Library, one floor above The Rare Book Room where the Faulkner collection is housed.

The center includes a reception area office, reading and seminar rooms and a work room.

While Southeast acquired the Faulkner collection nearly a decade ago, the university hasn't had a center or work area for scholars to use in researching manuscripts and other materials in the collection.

In the past, the research has been handled largely by mail.

Scholars have requested copies of material in the collection. The materials have been copied and then mailed out, Hamblin said.

The center officially will open Tuesday with a lecture by Brodsky at 7:30 p.m. in Kent Library Little Theatre.

Dawn Pearson, a graduate assistant pursuing a master's degree in literature, helps out with cataloging and other duties at the center.

Pearson said Faulkner's letters give her a better understanding of the author's life and a greater appreciation of his novels.

The center's regular hours are Monday through Friday from 1-4 p.m., and at other times by appointment.

The center publishes a "Teaching Faulkner" newsletter twice a year. The center recently went on the Internet with its own web site.

The site's Internet address is www2.semo.edu/cfs/

So what would the writer from Oxford, Miss., have thought of the Internet and computer technology?

Hamblin said Faulkner wouldn't have liked it. "He didn't even like radio. Faulkner liked silence. He said he preferred the silence and thunder of prose," said Hamblin.

Faulkner didn't like modern technology and urban life, although he did watch some television. "Car 54, Where Are You?" was his favorite TV show.

Faulkner wrote about man's exploitation of nature. The author hated lumbermen because they cut down trees, Hamblin said.

Faulkner never had a bestseller, Hamblin said. "In 1950, when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he was in debt, out of print and neglected in this country."

But today, scholars like Hamblin and collectors like Brodsky are doing their best to see to it that Faulkner won't be overlooked again.