Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Absalomie, Absalomie...

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Absalomie, Absalomie... by William Faulkner

16 reviews

gene_parmesan's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A work of indescribable beauty and depth. You have to understand what you're getting into. This is art of the highest caliber. You will be challenged, in many ways. Some days I could only manage a single page - not because it was hard to read, but because each page contains so much richness - of character, theme, prose - that I could hardly digest it all.

The first book I've ever read where I don't think I could even attempt to give an answer to the question "what's it about?" I found myself in tears for the final few pages and I don't even know why.

Certainly the most masterful novel Faulkner ever wrote.

PS - no shade to audiobook listeners but this is NOT a good one for that format. There are sentences that go on for pages, meaningful usage of italics; you will be very very lost if you try to listen to it.

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wanderaerrr's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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blesstherainss's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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

officially finished the hardest book i'll ever have to read in college (allegedly) so it's all uphill from here (i only have one semester left)🥳🎉🎊

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anomandrewrake's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

No star rating, because I don't really feel qualified. About five pages into this book I was saying to myself, "I'm not quite sure I'm smart enough to understand this." I know now I'm smart enough to, but I feel I need to defer any judgement until a second read when I can really dig into it.

The thing I will say about Faulkner (other than that he's bonkers) is that there's something about his (bonkers) prose that's utterly hypnotic. There's a rhythm to it, like a beat. This book is the best example of someone breaking grammar rules not because they can't be bothered, but because they know exactly what effect they hope to achieve and simply can't do it without breaking them.

On the other hand, this book is depressing depressing depressing. Similar to The Sound and the Fury, I guess. I'm not sure I have a good handle on what Faulkner was trying to say with this story, so for now the sadness and the darkness just feel oppressive to me. Can't deny he built an atmosphere though.

I've learned that apparently the two Faulkner novels I've read are universally considered his most unapproachable, so I still want to give him a shot further. Not sure about As I Lay Dying, but I might try a short story or maybe The Hamlet. I do want to read something lighter first though.

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bookish_bry's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This is a hard, hard read. It's only about 300 pages, but it's so dense (which I've come to expect from Faulkner). The narrative structure is very interesting and I like that there is a lot of ambiguity about what really happened to these people who are mostly all dead during or by the end of the story. It also gives a very complicated view of the south during the just pre to post-civil war. Most of the characters aren't good people, some of them are very bad people, but they all seem to be people. Honestly, the last paragraph of the novel bumped up the rating by 1/4 point because it really drove home the point of the novel in a way I didn't really see upon the first read until that point.

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