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siria 's review for:
Absalom, Absalom!
by William Faulkner
I thought this book would be perfect for me, with its recursive and elliptical structure, the crafting of the prose, and above all its emphasis on the unknowability of history (And no way to know what happened then—/none at all—unless, of course, you improvise:) since that is one of my very favourite themes, but I found it to be the complete opposite.
It is incredible stylistic, true, but I thought it was too obtuse. I could find no way in, I kept bouncing off so many characters who seemed cyphers rather than people, and after a while, that became maddening to me, especially since I think the style of the novel may have been better suited to something mostly prose than something mostly dialogue. I only kept reading to the end because I refused to admit that the book had defeated me, especially since so many people who are smarter than me rate Faulkner so highly—and that's not really a terribly good reason to keep reading a book. Let's chalk up another one to the inadequacy of my brain—I dread to think of the final tally.
It is incredible stylistic, true, but I thought it was too obtuse. I could find no way in, I kept bouncing off so many characters who seemed cyphers rather than people, and after a while, that became maddening to me, especially since I think the style of the novel may have been better suited to something mostly prose than something mostly dialogue. I only kept reading to the end because I refused to admit that the book had defeated me, especially since so many people who are smarter than me rate Faulkner so highly—and that's not really a terribly good reason to keep reading a book. Let's chalk up another one to the inadequacy of my brain—I dread to think of the final tally.