Customer Reviews:
 A Moment in TIme October 17, 2007
Harry G. Arnold (Oak Ridge, TN United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Faulkner's County" was photographed by Martin Dain in 1961. He came by the Forest Service's office (which was the same up-stairs office as the Lawyer's office in the movie "Intruder in the Dust") and asked if any of the people working there would guide him around Lafayette County. The Government couldn't help, so Dain ended up following the Watkin's Products salesman on his rounds to kitchens flung far and near around the country side.
"Faulkner's County" went out of print, and, as I heard it, there were copyright problems with Dain's estate, so it was never republished. Fortunately, the University of Mississippi Press published many of these same photographs in a volume entitled "Faulkner's World" in 1997, for Faulkner's 100th birthday. The primary differences in the two books are: 1) "Faulkner's County" accompanies the photographs with quotations from Faulkner while "Faulkner's World" accompanies the photographs with identifications of the subject matter; 2) the dust jacket for "Faulkner's County" is a wide angle shot of the dismal looking Sardis Reservoir in winter, while the photograph for the jacket of "Faulkner's World" is the town square in Oxford; and 3) Faulkner's World contains photographs of Faulkner's funeral that Dain made on a second trip to Oxford in 1962.
As luck would have it, Martin Dain captured Oxford just as it was beginning to rennovate the store fronts, figure out a workable traffic pattern for the town square, and before all the roads in the county were paved (or even gravelled for some of them). Many of these photographs are, in a sense, historic, because some things Dain saw hadn't changed very much since the Civil War. In fact, it is hard to identify some of the places today because the University, the city and the county have changed so much since Dain was there.
In my opinion, these are excellent photographs, making effective use of high speed black and white film with a wide angle lens. The team of mules plowing towards the camera, while the rest of the scene converges into endless rows of plowed land in the distance; the barren feeling of the country school room, the grassless yards; and most of all, the faces, complement the photographic style very well.
An amazing visual account of the life of Oxford Mississippi November 20, 1999
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
There has been very few times in the past that I have ever considered buying a coffee table book, most in my opinion just collect dust. This book however is a wonderful pictorial account of Oxford Mississippi during the time when Faulkner still walked our streets. What I think is amazing is that some of the people pictured in this book as children still live in Oxford and are still an active and beautiful part of our local history. This is an ideal gift for friends or family that have attended the University of Mississippi and have learned to love the small town personality of Oxford.
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