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A review by lee_foust
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
5.0
Surprisingly, this characteristically overwritten Faulkner masterpiece reminded awfully of George Perec's Life A User's Manual. Why? Because, although this novel's protagonist's project is based on a childhood trauma of the discovery of class difference and prejudice rather than Perec's facetious whim of a rich but aimless Englishman, it's principally about a man who envisions a pattern for life and then sets out to complete it--both novels, trying not to spoil either too much, feature pretty predictable entropic outcomes for such chimeras, Perec's in a kind of clever puzzle-ey way and Faulkner in his own inimical racial-historical-apocalypse of entropy way.
Also both novels are at least equally abut story telling itself: Perec's in a clever mathematical (again) puzzle-ey way and Faukner's in a super messy non-linear crowd-sourced series of local legends way. In this both authors meld theme and form brilliantly and create similar masterpieces despite their having wholly different tones and settings.
Beyond the tragedy of Thomas Sutpen's childhood trauma, his vigorous attempt to then construct himself a gentleman who can do unto others as he was done unto, and the series of tragic disasters that the process manufactures and sees to (unto the third generation!) is also a kind of parabolic narrative correlating to the fatalistic U.S. South, unable to look the original sin of slavery, racism, or even simple classism in the eye, doomed to a self-loathing that usually carries a confederate flag and sports a tragically false boastfulness. Thus the ending of the novel, so poignant, so perspicacious. How do you read your family's and your nation's story, your history? What does it make you feel?
Also both novels are at least equally abut story telling itself: Perec's in a clever mathematical (again) puzzle-ey way and Faukner's in a super messy non-linear crowd-sourced series of local legends way. In this both authors meld theme and form brilliantly and create similar masterpieces despite their having wholly different tones and settings.
Beyond the tragedy of Thomas Sutpen's childhood trauma, his vigorous attempt to then construct himself a gentleman who can do unto others as he was done unto, and the series of tragic disasters that the process manufactures and sees to (unto the third generation!) is also a kind of parabolic narrative correlating to the fatalistic U.S. South, unable to look the original sin of slavery, racism, or even simple classism in the eye, doomed to a self-loathing that usually carries a confederate flag and sports a tragically false boastfulness. Thus the ending of the novel, so poignant, so perspicacious. How do you read your family's and your nation's story, your history? What does it make you feel?