The Golovlyovs and the Snopes: Separated at Birth?

Call this comparative lit ad absurdum, but it remains an essential question for our times: Were Porfiry Golovlyov and Flem Snopes separated at birth?

Separated at birth? Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

William Faulkner

In this corner: Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The Golovlyov Family was crowned “the gloomiest novel in all Russian literature” by none other than Prince D. S. Mirsky, which of course must mean it’s one of the best. The book chronicles the all-consuming greed, hypocritical existence, and spiritual vacuity of Porfiry Golovlyov—known to all as simply The Bloodsucker—and his fine family of wastrels, cheats, alcoholics, and wanton women. Reading the book, I always wanted to wash my hands after setting it down. It has a pervading mood of gloom, unctuous smarm, and claustrophobic evil. Even Dostoyevsky can’t match it. Great stuff.

A tale told by a
sewing-machine salesman...

And in the other corner: William Faulkner’s The Hamlet remains one of my favorite novels of all time. In the Faulknerian universe, it’s one of his “easy” books, and thus I think doesn’t get the acclaim of the “difficult” ones, but that’s missing the point. The characters and the multiple plots that all tie together into one long chronicle are unforgettable. Enter the Snopes, led by Flem, who marries the beauty of Frenchman’s Bend, sells the townsfolk on his wild mustangs, and helps secure nothing less than the collapse and downfall of the proud old South. Contrary to The Golovlyov Family, The Hamlet is ripe with humor, and I literally laugh out loud every time I read the book.

So, separated at birth or not? 

Either way, The Golovlyov Family may just be the first book in a long and distinguished tradition of White Trash belles lettres.