Scan barcode
bwood95's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
graywacke's review
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
Faulkner's second novel has a lot of issues. A wealthy widow in New Orleans takes her niece, a small crowd of local artists on her yacht. Unfortunately, the artists aren't really her friends and don't cooperate with her plans. Then the boat goes aground. As does the text, which sputters through events with lusty mostly middle-aged men, and a pair of teenage lightly dressed girls. Sometimes it manages to be erotic, but mostly more mundane, intentionally disturbing, with scattered decently serious thoughts on writing and art. One character reads poems out loud to the others, presented to reader. Ultimately it has entertaining elements that I'll continue to think about, but with atrocious pacing. I kind of wish they had somehow been stranded in New Orleans instead in a mosquito-infested lake.
weechito's review against another edition
3.0
A lot of talk about art and sex without feeling particularly deep. Definitely feels like a young artist’s work. Faulkner as we would come to know him is still en route.
kindared's review against another edition
2.0
I can't do it... I keep trying to get through this but it is such an annoying book.... 200 pages down and I'm out
croppedhead's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
neemzilla's review against another edition
3.0
In my opinion, the only reason to read this book is for the scenes featuring ‘the niece’, and the transformation (or lack thereof) of bumbling, lovelorn Talliaferro, though there are better versions of the boyish, spoiled female ingenue in ever Henry- Miller- esque novel of the time period. Cool to read Faulkner before he matured, but easy to see why this isn’t the sort of work that we know and revere him for.
devinr's review against another edition
2.0
I don't know what to think of this book. It's my first exposure to Faulkner, and I hear that he gets much better later in his career, and at this point I feel he kind of has to. There are flashes of brilliance but they always sputter out to nowhere. I think Mosquitoes is trying to say something about art and sex and women and the upper class and human nature, but I will be damned if I can tell you what it is. It's so damn opaque. I don't know what the point of the book is, other than to get a couple of cheap laughs at Mr. Talliaferro and Major Ayres. The last ten or so pages were probably the best; Faulkner writes drunken ramblings quite well. Otherwise: it's occasionally brilliant but generally incomprehensible. I can't say I didn't like it, but I won't say I liked it either.
lilnoto's review against another edition
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
adrianasturalvarez's review against another edition
3.0
As a disconnected and individual book, this one wasn't very good. However, in the context of Faulkner's artistic development (particularly juxtaposed with Soldiers' Pay), Mosquitoes is a very interesting read. Here, the young writer maintained his social interest in the characters inhabiting his world but compounded them with a much more elaborate and ambitious intellectual project. At times, sure, this came off as overly engineered and trying to hard, but the fact that he was even interested in aping European modernists gave him a structural framework to hang his characters on that exceeds most novelists' sophomore effort. It shows his artistic interests, though his language is still a little vague and full of self-created idioms, which are endlessly repeated. Okay, we get it, Talliaferro is "diffident," Mark Frost has "a prehensile mouth," no need to tell us over and over. There is frequently "a rumor of moonlight" and "a shock of hair."
These are easy violations to forgive in hindsight. We know this young author will become the Faulkner of Absalom, Absalom! and As I Lay Dying so watching him ease into more disciplined prose is actually a delight. A bit like watching Mozart play around with scales, if ever a thing were possible. Not only that but there are worthwhile themes and stylistic experiments in this novel that have the ability to shock and move the reader. It may pale in comparison to his later works but it is still a pretty good read.
Reading an author's work from beginning to end provides insight into the way he develops his ideas and style. In my humble opinion there is no better way to approach an artist. For that I completely recommend Mosquitoes to anyone interested in approaching Faulkner's oeuvre.
These are easy violations to forgive in hindsight. We know this young author will become the Faulkner of Absalom, Absalom! and As I Lay Dying so watching him ease into more disciplined prose is actually a delight. A bit like watching Mozart play around with scales, if ever a thing were possible. Not only that but there are worthwhile themes and stylistic experiments in this novel that have the ability to shock and move the reader. It may pale in comparison to his later works but it is still a pretty good read.
Reading an author's work from beginning to end provides insight into the way he develops his ideas and style. In my humble opinion there is no better way to approach an artist. For that I completely recommend Mosquitoes to anyone interested in approaching Faulkner's oeuvre.