Rating: 
Summary: Worth the Work
Review: Yes, it's the greatest American novel ever written by the greatest American novelist.Yes, it's unlike anything anyone else has ever written.Yes, it will change your way of viewing literature and the world forever. But it will give you headaches. It will cause your friends to wonder where you learned to speak Swahili so fluently. It will make your family recommend medication. 500-word sentences. Shifting (to put it mildly) points of view. Insanity, insanity, insanity. If you're a good reader you'll spend an hour on certain pages. If you're obsessive it could take you a lifetime to get through each chapter. If you just want a good story ... well, have you considered 'Moby Dick'? 'Absalom, Absalom!' is the greatest reading experience -- EXPERIENCE! -- I've ever had, the only book that ever really made me sweat, the only book that ever made me want to stay with it long enough to sweat. It ain't easy, but I assure you: the effort is commensurate with the reward.
Rating:
Summary: A mythic tale of fate, tragedy, and hubris
Review: William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! is perhaps the most profoundly tragic of all his works, recapturing the ancient classical aura of fate and hubris, its fugual, non-linear style circling round and round the central, mythic figure of a man who defied the gods of his land. As always, Faulkner takes his readers into a realm beyond convention and realism, in order to question the most fundamental social laws and dictates, but more importantly to transform a story of revenge, sin, and decay into a symbolic depiction of human nature, its sublime potential and terrifying possibilities. Through the mouths of different narrators, Faulkner tells the story of a man, Thomas Sutpen, who defied the norms of his day in order to carve for himself an immortality of name such as that which the Greeks sought on the battlefields of Troy. The narrators follow the doomed path of this man, sometimes with horror, sometimes with sympathy, depicting the decay and fall of his family. Sutpen's fate is evidence in the last of the tragic dilemma of the South, caught between rival goods of culture and justice, law and right--a dilemma which mirrors that of all of humanity. Faulkner's style, which combines the voices of different characters, constantly circling around, retelling, and interpreting the story, is appropriate to the theme, and to the reality of a situation in which there does not seem to be one valid perspective or interpretation. It is also this retelling which lends the story its mythic quality, giving its characters the stature of ancient heroes no longer seen, but only remembered in stunning and apocalyptic dimensions
Rating:
Summary: The best book ever written (seriously)
Review: To attempt to describe this book is futile indeed.
From "the greatest writer in the world" comes what is easily the best book ever written. Perfect literature. Must-read is an understatement.
Rating:
Summary: A heart-wrenching tale of unrequited malice in the old south
Review: The intensity needed to finish this work is mind-boggling in the
least. The power and Passion behind Faulkner's staggering vocabulary
is breathtaking. Yet behind the brilliant prose and palpable visualizations
one can sense a heartbeat of despair in this classic tale. Depair over
a war that ravaged a nation and over personal struggles that ruined a family.
In any other setting the wild and fanciful occurences taking place
in this tale would be mocked in the very least. With Faulkner painting the
picture you just weep and learn. A brilliant introduction to the
literature of the old south.
Rating: 
Summary: "A puzzle that rewards the attentive, patient reader"
Review: Don't be afraid of Faulkner. This is the story of the young Quentin Compson, a young southerner attending Harvard who is absorbed the history of the South, specifically the decaying remains of Sutpen's Hundred, a massive Mississippi plantation fallen into physical and moral ruin. As Faulkner is wont to do, the book can be challenging with multiple narrators, points of view and a shifting narrative. Or, another way to look at the brilliant novel is to consider it a puzzle that rewards the attentive, patient reader. Faulkner presents some wonderful fragments of a story and asks that the reader help in the reconstruction of a grand, tragic American tale.
Rating:
Summary: The Sins of the Father
Review: The legacy of slavery is shared by all Americans, but it is among American Southerners that this sin and its place in American history is most intensely felt. One need only to have been born or raised in the South to have this legacy reinforced almost on a daily basis: the statue of the Confederate soldier in the squares of most Southern towns and cities, the remnants of the plantation system still visible in some parts of the South (and now tourist attractions), and most importantly, the descendants of those slaves who still live and work in the region that once legitimized (both economically and morally) the bondange of their ancestors.
To William Faulkner, living in 1930s Mississippi these signs of the past must have been much more intense than they are today and displayed an immediacy that can hardly be understood now. Surely, he must have known Confederate veterans as he was growing up and the history of the ante-bellum South and the war that brought it down was still fresh in the mind. It was with this background that he began writing his masterpiece. Faulkner had dealt with slavery and its aftermath in earlier works (Sound and the Fury and Light in August) but treatd the subject obliquely paying more attention to the malaise that afflicted his characters rather than to the source of that malaise. With this novel he is concerned with the cause.
To put it simply, this is his best work and probably one of the top three American novels ever written. It is a complex creation intermingling multi-character monologues with some of his most beautiful steam of consciousness prose; it is difficult and obtuse; it is undeniably brilliant and beautiful; and it's relevance is universal. Although the pivotal location of the novel is the north woods of Mississippi, it is applicable to any location where denial of humanity and the integrity of the individual is commonplace, whether this denial be based on religion, race, or on some artificially constructed idea (such as fear) where the intent is to divide rather than to unite. Come to think of it, given the political realities of the time, this book should be required reading.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: Whew! What a read! I loved it - especially the mesmerizing quality of Faulkner's prose. Hard to put down after you get thru the incredibly difficult 1st few chapters. Definitely has a very mythic feel to it. I loved the way he kept backtracking and repeating and filling in. Very much a "Rashomon" feel to it. Different narrators, different tales.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for wimps
Review: Although this is a tough book of Faulkner's--even more so than his usual tough reading--it is well worth it. The language, imagery, his style are all in top form in Absalom, Absalom! I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Faulkner. If you haven't read any Faulkner before, it might be better to start with As I Lay Dying or The Sound and The Fury for a slightly less complex read that will introduce you to the characters.
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