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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
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)🥳🎉🎊
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Racial slurs, Racism, Grief, Murder, War
A meio do livro, e com a paciência completamente torrada, resolvi folhear o livro, e encontrei no final uma cronologia dos principais eventos e uma genealogia dos principais personagens, e fiquei ali especado a olhar para aquilo. Então, para se compreender a narrativa é suposto eu confrontar o que li com aquelas listas, de outro modo tudo não passará de uma grande névoa.
Faulkner escreve belissimamente, mas a sua anti-estrutura não é para todos. Podem até dizer que é um sucessor de "O Som e a Fúria", mas aà o destruturar da narrativa é feito com um propósito. Aqui questiono-me porque é feito? porque o hei-de continuar a ler? o que espero encontrar no final? Não obtive respostas, por isso parei.
Provavelmente, também ando mais cansado, e ler este tipo de textos requer uma disposição que não encontro em mim. Conto cá voltar novamente um dia.
Faulkner escreve belissimamente, mas a sua anti-estrutura não é para todos. Podem até dizer que é um sucessor de "O Som e a Fúria", mas aà o destruturar da narrativa é feito com um propósito. Aqui questiono-me porque é feito? porque o hei-de continuar a ler? o que espero encontrar no final? Não obtive respostas, por isso parei.
Provavelmente, também ando mais cansado, e ler este tipo de textos requer uma disposição que não encontro em mim. Conto cá voltar novamente um dia.
This unquestionably has some of the best writing, page for page that’s ever been put down. It may be, as a total, the best volume of written word I’ve read to date. I was gobsmacked over and over at how things were communicated and explained and implied and exposed. I had to stop so many times and think “damn. I don’t think that sentence could’ve possibly been written any better”.
Some of the best written books I’ve read may have 5-10 sentences that reach a tier of true literary supremacy. Faulkner manages 5-10 sentences of similar quality PER PAGE in this book. Either some sentences strung together where I would find myself revisiting entire paragraphs and pages just to bask in the glory. I just perpetually couldn’t fathom or accept the expertise and mastery in display. I just had to ride the wave and stop trying to understand how someone could’ve possibly thought to articulate something in such a perfect way…so consistently.
The funniest bit is that Faulkner does this sort of self-editing within the prose where he says “X was Y. No not Y, but Z.” This is astounding 1) because idea Y is unquestionably the best possible—or at least expert level—way to communicate that idea, 2) no actually Z was the best, truly god tier level that makes Y look like children’s talk, 3) he left all that self editing in the book, and 4) he does this at least once per page.
We’d all have been impressed with Y but Z always blew my mind, but to show Z next to Y does nothing less than emphasize the genius on display.
His confidence to use his self editing as a literary device to consistently provide not one but two masterful expositions was at first annoying, especially given the frequency, but ultimately magnifying and exciting. I literally got to be point where anytime I read the words “no not….” I got giggly with anticipation at what the next few lines would be. And he literally never disappointed. I was waiting for a weaker following idea but it never came. And each one was so obviously beyond the realm of my plebeian brain’s ability to have expected or articulated.
With that said, I’ve struggled structurally and meaningfully with other things I’ve read by the author and nothing has quite hit this level of quality for me, whether it’s characters or plot or moral or themes or style. There’s a lot to criticize across his more popular works. Even in this book, it’s not an easy or straightforward experience in many ways and I really didn’t enjoy the plot or characters all that much (and I knock it a star in my rating for such).
But damn is that rough journey some of the most magnificent accumulation of letters I’ve ever experienced. It’s like taking a windy rocky unmarked trail up a mountain in the Swiss Alps: it might be rough, inefficient, difficult, and maybe confusing—you might even lose the trail once or many times and struggle to know you’re on the right track, but the scenery along the way is utterly transcendent and unbeatable.
Thus this was/is.
Some of the best written books I’ve read may have 5-10 sentences that reach a tier of true literary supremacy. Faulkner manages 5-10 sentences of similar quality PER PAGE in this book. Either some sentences strung together where I would find myself revisiting entire paragraphs and pages just to bask in the glory. I just perpetually couldn’t fathom or accept the expertise and mastery in display. I just had to ride the wave and stop trying to understand how someone could’ve possibly thought to articulate something in such a perfect way…so consistently.
The funniest bit is that Faulkner does this sort of self-editing within the prose where he says “X was Y. No not Y, but Z.” This is astounding 1) because idea Y is unquestionably the best possible—or at least expert level—way to communicate that idea, 2) no actually Z was the best, truly god tier level that makes Y look like children’s talk, 3) he left all that self editing in the book, and 4) he does this at least once per page.
We’d all have been impressed with Y but Z always blew my mind, but to show Z next to Y does nothing less than emphasize the genius on display.
His confidence to use his self editing as a literary device to consistently provide not one but two masterful expositions was at first annoying, especially given the frequency, but ultimately magnifying and exciting. I literally got to be point where anytime I read the words “no not….” I got giggly with anticipation at what the next few lines would be. And he literally never disappointed. I was waiting for a weaker following idea but it never came. And each one was so obviously beyond the realm of my plebeian brain’s ability to have expected or articulated.
With that said, I’ve struggled structurally and meaningfully with other things I’ve read by the author and nothing has quite hit this level of quality for me, whether it’s characters or plot or moral or themes or style. There’s a lot to criticize across his more popular works. Even in this book, it’s not an easy or straightforward experience in many ways and I really didn’t enjoy the plot or characters all that much (and I knock it a star in my rating for such).
But damn is that rough journey some of the most magnificent accumulation of letters I’ve ever experienced. It’s like taking a windy rocky unmarked trail up a mountain in the Swiss Alps: it might be rough, inefficient, difficult, and maybe confusing—you might even lose the trail once or many times and struggle to know you’re on the right track, but the scenery along the way is utterly transcendent and unbeatable.
Thus this was/is.
I think I liked this book. Or it made me feel things, which is pretty much the same thing.
I found this quite slow in places (and sometimes struggled to understand), but I think the way the narrative unfolds (non-linear, driven by different and sometimes contradictory narrators) was unlike anything I’ve ever read.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
From a little after two oclock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that—a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism
Moderate: Incest
I really appreciate Faulkner, but this one was too difficult for me: the construction of the story is too complicated, this is only enjoyable by literary scientist, I guess. Ofcourse, some parts are really tremenduous.