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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"He had learned that there were three things and no more: breathing, pleasure, darkness"
Wow what a ride this book was. It certainly wasn't an easy read, jumping from really diverse perspectives, confusing timelines, and unreliable narraators, but it was worth it. This book does so much. We see an allegory of the South, before, during, and after the war, all through this family. From taking power from the land and control of people, to the pride and hubris during the war, to being cast aside and being brought to equals with all men after the war.
There was so much symbolism all throughout the novel. From the whole story being setup like a Greek play, with the town being the chorus, Rosa being the muses, and then Sutpen being the tragic character. Then making Rosa this false unreliable narrator by calling her Cassandra, who in Greek myth was cursed to tell the truth but have no one belive her.
Then comes the religious symbolism. From the sins of the father tropes between the characters having to both repent for what their father has done as well as falling into the exact same sins that he did. Then a character asking as a Jesus like figure and being "sacrificed" to fix the issues. Sutpen acting as a God like figure in his little world.
Then you have the reference of the south. From the poor white folk being able to look down their noses and say well at least I am free to having to deal with those same people now being free and being at the same level as them after the war. You see how the landowner structure took Sutpen as poor kid from western Virginia who had never seen slavery before and warped his mind into thinking that that was the only way to get power and ahead in the world.
Overall while a difficult read it was well worth with.
Wow what a ride this book was. It certainly wasn't an easy read, jumping from really diverse perspectives, confusing timelines, and unreliable narraators, but it was worth it. This book does so much. We see an allegory of the South, before, during, and after the war, all through this family. From taking power from the land and control of people, to the pride and hubris during the war, to being cast aside and being brought to equals with all men after the war.
There was so much symbolism all throughout the novel. From the whole story being setup like a Greek play, with the town being the chorus, Rosa being the muses, and then Sutpen being the tragic character. Then making Rosa this false unreliable narrator by calling her Cassandra, who in Greek myth was cursed to tell the truth but have no one belive her.
Then comes the religious symbolism. From the sins of the father tropes between the characters having to both repent for what their father has done as well as falling into the exact same sins that he did. Then a character asking as a Jesus like figure and being "sacrificed" to fix the issues. Sutpen acting as a God like figure in his little world.
Then you have the reference of the south. From the poor white folk being able to look down their noses and say well at least I am free to having to deal with those same people now being free and being at the same level as them after the war. You see how the landowner structure took Sutpen as poor kid from western Virginia who had never seen slavery before and warped his mind into thinking that that was the only way to get power and ahead in the world.
Overall while a difficult read it was well worth with.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
To further complicate the nonlinear narration of Absalom, Absalom!, my reading progress through the novel followed a staggered and irregular path. After about 70 pages initial progress, I left my copy at work and with my job requiring me to report to various locations day to day I would not get my book back for a week. In that gap, I had started and finished The Comedians and started Catch-22. I wasn't going to interrupt good reading progress through Catch-22 so I elected to chip away at Absalom on the side. This is the worst book on which to try something like this. I would be plenty challenged to comprehend this novel under normal conditions. With these circumstances, the text was virtually unintelligible to me at times. To be fair, I chose not to rate this book. I did the same when I read Joseph Conrad's Nostromo a year or two ago.
What stands out most, at least to me, is the nonlinear narrative darkened in added mystery by means of multiple speakers. Late in the novel, the most significant portion of the story is told by Quentin Compson from The Sound and the Fury (by the way, this goes a long way in explaining his meltdown in that book and is therefore a brilliant link to earlier work) to Shrevlin or "Shreve" his college roommate who can't resist inserting his own inventive and speculative additions to an account (he has never heard) of events (he did not witness) which unfolded in a cultural setting he understands little or nothing of. On top of all this, Quentin is summoning up all of this from the hazy memory of what his grandfather told him. Yeah. Unreliable narrator times a thousand. What the reader gets are shuffled fragments of a complicated story spanning about four generations with a ton of refraction. It compares to viewing one's reflection in a mirror in scattered shards on the floor. This gets weighed down by the stifling gravity of the darkest themes. Gruesome infanticide, searing racist language, and incest...it's all there. I had to backtrack to be sure I was understanding Faulkner correctly at times.
As much as I prefer a clean linear narrative, I can appreciate the merits and strengths of one like this. At some points, I was troubled because I was reminded of my attempts to read Thomas Bernhard ("where are the paragraph breaks? and when does this sentence end?"). The story drops the reader in the middle of an event sequence (I guess any point in time could be a middle) which is the mysterious 1833 arrival of Thomas Sutpen in Mississippi. The story then unrolls in both directions, past and future, and each timeline feeds the other. The earlier mentioned connection with The Sound and the Fury is ingenious. The explosive unraveling at the conclusion makes all the head scratching worth it. The good and bad seem rolled up into the same rug. At the end, I felt torn in an ambivalent indecision...I marveled at it yet was thoroughly glad it was over.
What stands out most, at least to me, is the nonlinear narrative darkened in added mystery by means of multiple speakers. Late in the novel, the most significant portion of the story is told by Quentin Compson from The Sound and the Fury (by the way, this goes a long way in explaining his meltdown in that book and is therefore a brilliant link to earlier work) to Shrevlin or "Shreve" his college roommate who can't resist inserting his own inventive and speculative additions to an account (he has never heard) of events (he did not witness) which unfolded in a cultural setting he understands little or nothing of. On top of all this, Quentin is summoning up all of this from the hazy memory of what his grandfather told him. Yeah. Unreliable narrator times a thousand. What the reader gets are shuffled fragments of a complicated story spanning about four generations with a ton of refraction. It compares to viewing one's reflection in a mirror in scattered shards on the floor. This gets weighed down by the stifling gravity of the darkest themes. Gruesome infanticide, searing racist language, and incest...it's all there. I had to backtrack to be sure I was understanding Faulkner correctly at times.
As much as I prefer a clean linear narrative, I can appreciate the merits and strengths of one like this. At some points, I was troubled because I was reminded of my attempts to read Thomas Bernhard ("where are the paragraph breaks? and when does this sentence end?"). The story drops the reader in the middle of an event sequence (I guess any point in time could be a middle) which is the mysterious 1833 arrival of Thomas Sutpen in Mississippi. The story then unrolls in both directions, past and future, and each timeline feeds the other. The earlier mentioned connection with The Sound and the Fury is ingenious. The explosive unraveling at the conclusion makes all the head scratching worth it. The good and bad seem rolled up into the same rug. At the end, I felt torn in an ambivalent indecision...I marveled at it yet was thoroughly glad it was over.
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This is my second attempt at reading William Faulkner. I'm sorry to say, I'm just not a fan. It's probably because I'm not that intelligent. While I really enjoyed the story and getting to read everybody's points of view, the writing is just so hard for me to understand. It helped that this was a book club book and a few members of the club are fans of this book. The discussion about this book was insightful and made me really wish I liked reading Faulkner.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
After quite some time, I finally finished Absalom, Absalom! It's not an easy read, but it's definitely easier than The Sound and the Fury. Even though it can be challenging, the story itself is gripping. What made me keep reading was the mystery and all of the narrators involved in the creation and unearthing of this mystery--their own interpretations of and their own attachment to the story. The reason I read Faulkner is because he writes about the American South with such skill. The way he uses fiction to examine the very real issues of slavery, racism, and the Civil War is pretty masterful. I'm still looking forward to reading his other works such as Light in August. But after accomplishing the feat of finishing this novel, considered by many to be his magnum opus, I'm taking a Faulkner break.
I don't think I knew what I was reading until I finished the very last page. The dark, twisted history of the demons that lived in the south was so entertaining and thought provoking. The different perspectives of the same story that brought everything full circle made reading an exercise but one that you are glad you finished. Putting it on my TBR a second time list.
This book was hell in a hand basket. I felt like I was reading someones dream. It was fun in the beginning but by the end I wanted to wake up from this nightmare. As a student of literature, I appreciate the Modernist technique of erasing filters between reality and literature, because Faulkner did an excellent job in that sense. But as a reader who just wants to have a good time, this novel made me want to die. It was like trying to run in a dream but being stuck in the same place. I read this for my Modernism and Postmodernism class.