Roger Hall wonders if reading too much Faulkner can be bad for you?

I was browsing in Takapuna's pleasant second-hand bookshop, Book Mark, and picked up a copy of The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy.
Percy I didn't know, but loved the southern drawl and gentlemanly persona of Shelby Foote on Ken Burns' great series, The Civil War.
I was rewarded even in the introduction.

"Walker..discovered the perils of falling too much under the spell of Faulkner. Imitating Faulkner's all-too-distinctive prose style on his freshman English placement test, Percy found himself assigned to the remedial section."

RH