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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
I’m sure I’m not the first to notice that the entire book is really distilled in a single (but very long) sentence on p.80 of my edition:
“They are there, yet something is missing; they are like a chemical formula exhumed along with the letters from that forgotten chest, carefully, the paper old and faded and falling to pieces, almost indecipherable, yet meaningful, familiar in shape and sense, the name and presence of volatile and sentient forces; you bring them together in the proportions called for, but nothing happens; you re-read, tedious and intent, poring, making sure that you have forgotten nothing, made no miscalculation; you bring them together again and again and nothing happens: just the words, the symbols, the shapes themselves, shadowy inscrutable and serene, against that turgid background of a horrible and bloody mischancing of human affairs.”
That’s what this book feels like: reading an impossibly intricate but barely comprehensible story about some of the very worst of humanity until you realize that there’s no deeper meaning beyond that we’re all terrible.
“They are there, yet something is missing; they are like a chemical formula exhumed along with the letters from that forgotten chest, carefully, the paper old and faded and falling to pieces, almost indecipherable, yet meaningful, familiar in shape and sense, the name and presence of volatile and sentient forces; you bring them together in the proportions called for, but nothing happens; you re-read, tedious and intent, poring, making sure that you have forgotten nothing, made no miscalculation; you bring them together again and again and nothing happens: just the words, the symbols, the shapes themselves, shadowy inscrutable and serene, against that turgid background of a horrible and bloody mischancing of human affairs.”
That’s what this book feels like: reading an impossibly intricate but barely comprehensible story about some of the very worst of humanity until you realize that there’s no deeper meaning beyond that we’re all terrible.
Super boring, I want to love Faulkner, I really do, he influenced so many of my favorite authors. But I really can’t see why this book is so celebrated. There’s lots of beautiful language but I could not get into the story whatsoever. I had a similar problem with As I Lay Dying. I don’t know maybe I should try another Faulkner work, but as it stands now I’ll stick with my Steinbeck and Fitzgerald.
2.5/5
2.5/5
Eh. One of my least favorite Faulkner stories, but it is still decently written.
An infernal American masterpiece, probably the best of the Faulkners I've read so far. Doesn't only explore mythology from an observant perspective but actually Becomes Real Myth through its structure and telling, the first half of the novel's obliquity is so well-justified by the way every domino falls into place perfectly in the second half that the whole thing is retroactively enriched once you've read the entire thing. Faulkner does this really weird thing of every voice sort of blending into one another, in a way that at first made me wonder why all these Southerners of different race/class/gender backgrounds were as loquacious as the author, but Faulkner makes it work; it ends up feeling almost ritualistic, like these characters are being possessed by the story being told [and essentially, they are], and thus they are being "possessed" by their own author. It's a story that truly feels like it could have been told thousands of years ago as much as it is told specifically about the post-Civil War South, and its themes of the unrelenting and inescapable haunts of the past are refracted well with the way the book explores the creation of myth to help us understand the brutal chaos of the universe. This is by no means an easy puzzle to suss out but once everything begins to click, there are few novels I've read that are as narratively compelling. Unlike Faulkner, I can't write for shit, so just read the book.
A lot of people are immediately turned off of Faulkner because of the unbearably long sentences and the racism you’ll hear so much about if you even begin to read about the man. But I’ve found that you quickly fall into the habit of reading the long sentences until it hardly seems to phase you anymore at all. You can read a paragraph that lasts an entire chapter and not bat an eyelash by the time you finish Absalom, Absalom! As for the racism, there’s some truth to it. Faulkner didn’t mince words, and with this novel racism is a huge issue. But I’d argue that Faulkner uses racism in a way that is even milder than what it probably was at the time the book takes place, and perhaps even milder than when Faulkner himself was writing. It’s still disgusting, the way the characters speak of other human beings, and although it was just as disgusting at the time, I don’t feel as if Faulkner made it any more so.
Absalom, Absalom! is a book that delights in revealing one tiny morsel of information at a time. It will go over huge chunks of the story in one single line, but in a way that leaves you so confused you don’t know you’ve already gotten the entire plot. Then Faulkner leads you back through the same details, more and more minutely, until the big picture begins to come into focus. Absalom, Absalom! is expertly written.
Absalom, Absalom! is a book that delights in revealing one tiny morsel of information at a time. It will go over huge chunks of the story in one single line, but in a way that leaves you so confused you don’t know you’ve already gotten the entire plot. Then Faulkner leads you back through the same details, more and more minutely, until the big picture begins to come into focus. Absalom, Absalom! is expertly written.
This is the quintessential Faulkner. Verbose thoughts streaming across the page, filtering between past and present, thought and voice, character and character. We become lost and we must become lost to understand. We must untangle the web of words and search its storytelling that transcends storytelling. This is the myth of the South, embodied in the fall of the House of Sutpen. This is a tale that grows in its telling. With each subsequent version, we learn more of the past while moving away from what we may truly want, answers, definitive and without question or prejudice. Instead, crawling through the narrations, is the truth, lost and contrived, waiting for us to decipher and find our own meaning.
His method of storytelling is like no other. Were I able to pay better attention, i.e. sitting alone in a dark room and only able to see the words on the page, I would doubtless have given this book five stars.
This book was good and I have rated it highly. I will need to reread it again to fully get it.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes