George Plimpton. “The Reivers.” New York Herald Tribune Books, May 27, 1962, p. 3.

The first two words of William Faulkner's new novel are GRANDFATHER SAID, in bold caps, followed by a colon, and then three-hundred-odd pages of what Grandfather (Lucius Priest) does say–an uninterrupted turn-of-the-century reminiscence of such length that one marvels at the staying power of his listener, presumably his grandson. Reckoning two minutes to read a page of Faulkner aloud, a bit more if the print collapses into such inevitable avalanches as “secure behind that inviolable and inescapable rectitude concomitant with the name I bore,” etc., one arrives at a total of 10 straight hours of Grandfather Priest's storytelling without any interruption indicated–not the slightest complaint from the attentive grandson (one wonders at his deep silence), no time out for a meal, or a call to the telephone, or an unruly hound to be set outside the screen door, or even, for that matter, a moment for refreshment. One remembers that Joseph Conrad's Marlow pounds the table and calls for the bottle to get through his recounting of the sea disaster of Youth. But not Lucius Priest. He pegs along with his story, much of it very funny indeed and worth any number of cramps to sit and listen to, until he has at hand what must be one of the longest spoken monologues in literature.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Faulkner tried out a section of The Reivers on the cadets at West Point, who surely in carriage, at least, are listeners of the finest order. He prefaced his reading by remarking that they were going to hear from the “funniest” novel he (Faulkner) had ever read, much less written.