Reviews

I felt things just kept going in circles. I like the idea of many different narrative perspectives, but all three voices are the same narrative style. It just felt like we kept covering the same content over and over, talking in circles.

ajcohen21's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-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

4.0

baldwinme40's review against another edition

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2.0

This is the kind of book you're either going to love or hate. Personally, I hated it. The prose can either be like dreamily wandering through a wisteria garden or dragging yourself through a thorny thicket of poison ivy. For me, it was the latter. I can appreciate it, but it seems excessive especially when trying to pass it off as characters speaking that way. There were many different narrators and they all had the same voice, which was Faulkner's. I felt that he was showing off and it was frustrating. This is what we scoff at and call "purple prose" nowadays. But some people really like it and I can see why, it just didn't fly with me.

I didn't find the characters realistic or sympathetic. The women all seemed to be sort of ghostly and strange and non-human, not as well written as the men. The story was interesting and through letters and rumors and confusion and firsthand accounts, it all gets untangled and told and retold and the suspense ends up being enough to keep you reading.

Probably the best thing about this book and the reason it's been so honored is the way it portrays the race and class themes of the Civil War-era South really well and explores their psychological effects on people, and the conflict of being a Southerner where you have to admit so much about it is messed up but you still are proud of where you're from.

Overall I'd say read the first chapter and if the prose isn't too awful to you then keep going, because it might be worth it. It's indisputably an important book. But I spent most of it wanting to travel back in time to punch Faulkner in the dick, so, there's no accounting for taste I guess.