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2.96 AVERAGE
2.96 AVERAGE
Too much thought required for summer reading. Will try again another time.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Gawd I hate Faulkner. So pompous. So lengthy, so preachy. I could barely follow the plot except that it was a Christ story, and there was this whole side story about horse racing. Truly painful to listen to, even after I sped it up to 1.5 speed.
I hated this book. It is a rambling run-on chapter, page, paragraph, and sentence of a book so full of side notes and parenthetical comments to make it nearly unintelligible. I had to read it to complete my "reading all the Pulitzers" goal but this by far has been the most challenging read.
This book was hard to find and after reading it I know why. The story is akin to that of Jesus and the 12 disciples but is not subtle enough to be interesting especially as tedious a read that it is.
I would wager that if you put a hundred high school english teachers or college writing professessors to the task of grading the writing style in this book, the vast majority of them would mark it as a failure.
I would recommend this only to Pulitzer winner or Faulkner completists.
This book was hard to find and after reading it I know why. The story is akin to that of Jesus and the 12 disciples but is not subtle enough to be interesting especially as tedious a read that it is.
I would wager that if you put a hundred high school english teachers or college writing professessors to the task of grading the writing style in this book, the vast majority of them would mark it as a failure.
I would recommend this only to Pulitzer winner or Faulkner completists.
As good as it may be, I cannot stand Faulkner's writing style. Stream of consciousness. Either you hate it or you love it. Personally, I hate it.
medium-paced
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER: 1955
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DNF ~25%
I just can't do it... This is actually the last Pulitzer Prize Winner on my list before I will have read (or attempted to read) them all, and I really wanted to finish it just for that reason, but goddamn that 25% was like pulling teeth. I honestly barely know what has even happened so far, as the writing is so dense and opaque and boring as all hell. I've honestly not been wildly impressed with any of Faulkner's work but this one was said to be quite a departure for him so I was hopeful, but alas, it was not meant to be.
===
DNF ~25%
I just can't do it... This is actually the last Pulitzer Prize Winner on my list before I will have read (or attempted to read) them all, and I really wanted to finish it just for that reason, but goddamn that 25% was like pulling teeth. I honestly barely know what has even happened so far, as the writing is so dense and opaque and boring as all hell. I've honestly not been wildly impressed with any of Faulkner's work but this one was said to be quite a departure for him so I was hopeful, but alas, it was not meant to be.
I am an Ivy-league-educated attorney who reads dense legalese every day, and I had a heck of a time getting through this book. Gravity's Rainbow was easier to read than this monstrosity.
I appreciate excellent fiction, and consider myself to be a bit of a snob when it comes to literature, but sometimes a book is too much, even for me. I read this as part of my quest to read all the Pulitzer-prize-winning novels. I've read about eighty of them, and this was by far one of the worst. There's a difference between being verbose for a purpose, and being verbose to show off how many pages you can make one sentence. It is dense for the sake of being dense. And the story is beyond slow.
Painful.
I appreciate excellent fiction, and consider myself to be a bit of a snob when it comes to literature, but sometimes a book is too much, even for me. I read this as part of my quest to read all the Pulitzer-prize-winning novels. I've read about eighty of them, and this was by far one of the worst. There's a difference between being verbose for a purpose, and being verbose to show off how many pages you can make one sentence. It is dense for the sake of being dense. And the story is beyond slow.
Painful.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"what remained had not only to be the answer but the truth too; or not even the truth, but truth, because truth was truth: it didn't have to be anything."