pdedgar's reviews
65 reviews

Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Definitely fits the bill in terms of a kind of mystery novel—"Three unlikely heroes investigate a murder to exonerate the falsely-accused man who'll get l*nch*d if he's not proven innocent." This is Faulkner at maybe his raw-est and "trying to make a point but not doing amazing by 2021's standards"-est. Worth a read simply for the look into the Southern mind about the "race problem" in the immediate post-War period.

Content Warnings

Pylon by William Faulkner

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adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Pylon can be a fun read, if you're able to track with Faulkner's distracted prose, dense writing, jarring scene changes, and hopelessly obsessive and messed-up characters. In other words, it's early classic faulkner.

Content Warnings

The Book of the Dead by Muriel Rukeyser, Catherine Venable Moore

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challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

A deep, solid reflection on the industrial disasters and legal injustices to the victims that followed in the 20s and the Depression. This poetry is hard to read, and yet necessary because memory is that which we can offer in solidarity with generations of the hurt and protest against systems that deny justice to the poor and the victimized.

Content Warnings