Rating: 
Summary: Told backwards like the movie "Memento"
Review: To characterize this novel as a stream-of-consciouness tirade of wayward thought is not entirely fair. True, Faulkner pencils together one idea after another in an endless series of commas, hyphens, and other grammatical devices save the elusive period (which affords the reader a brief rest). But to me "stream of consciousness" means thoughts spilling from the mind of the narrator-ideas that drift about much like own's own mind does-a pattern of thought better kept locked inside one's own skull than spewn forth on the printed page. But Faulkner's endless narrative is not just ambling thoughts-rather it is a detective story-albeit a much more difficult detective story than Faulkner's "Sanctuary"-where subtle clues and obvious facts are planted deep inside this jumble of sentences. So it's not just musings but is a tightly woven narrative albeit short on periods, white space, and paragraphs. For that reason the reader better read carefully and not miss a word."Absalom, Absalom" reminds me of the recent movie "Memento". It is a tale told backwards. We have the ending given first and then we are given various pieces of the plot from different character's points of view. We know what happens at the end of the novel before we get there. But we are not sure why the novel ends as it does until we get to the end. More accurately, we are given greater clarity to the events that have happened as various narrators and events make other events more clear. In that regard it's much like "The Sound and the Fury". In that novel the story is made clear only when the final narrator has her say. As other reviewers have already pointed out, Quentin Compson was also a character in that other difficult Faulkner novel. Lile other reviews have said read "Light in August" before you read "Absalom, Absalom". It's style is a good primer for "Absalom, Absalom" which is, of course, a much more difficult read. Also I would recommend a proper book of literary criticism such as Alfred Kazin's work on Faulkner. That will help you understand the plot and be able to distill the important themes therein.
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Summary: Of Fate, Slavery, the South, Pride, and Story-Telling
Review: Review Summary: Absalom, Absalom! is a book that you can easily underestimate. Your persistence will be rewarded with pleasure if you are patient, and assume that something magnificent will appear that is different from what you expect. The story is a cross between a Greek tragedy, King Lear, and the oral tradition of story-telling. As such, it strikes the deepest chords of human connection and ambition. The primary settings are Mississippi and the West Indies from the Antebellum period through Reconstruction and into the early 20th century. The themes touch deeply on Southern tradition, slavery, and social class. This is a challenging book to read, and will appeal primarily to those who like difficult books that are full of allusions. For most, having read other Faulkner novels will make this one easier to access and understand. As I Lay Dying is a good precursor for this novel. Reader Caution: A six-letter word beginning with "n" to describe people of Afro-American descent is used frequently in this book in ways that will offend many people. The use of the word is consistent with the beliefs and the historical moment of the characters who utter it, and does not reflect racist beliefs by the author. Review: Absalom, Absalom! is certainly one of America's greatest tragic novels. Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi in middle age with a burning desire to establish a magnificent plantation and a dynasty with a leading role in society. To accomplish this, all he has available is his passion, a French architect, some slaves from Haiti, and a huge tract of land that he has somehow swindled out of the Native Americans. From the mud, his dream rises. But his very determination to accomplish his dream causes counterforces to rise that drag his dream into the mud again. The story is told in a most unusual fashion. Almost every major character's perspective is captured through the device of recounting prior conversations with other major characters. Most of the characters are missing major elements of the "why" of the story, so you need to keep adding the stories together to begin to understand what was happening beneath the surface. The book eventually relies on a conversation with a nonparticipant in the events to explore why they might have occurred, where no direct evidence is available. In this last regard, the book takes on a little of the mystery-solving tradition involving logic that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. This conversation-reporting story-telling device makes the book both remarkably recursive and potentially maddening. If you are like me, you will wonder at times what else could possibly be covered in the book. And then, Faulkner pulls new dimensions to his story out of the hat. Faulkner's point is that we can almost always know "what" has happened in terms of major events, but without great investigation and thought we unlikely to ever understand the "why." You come to appreciate this point by seeing your understanding of Sutpen's life change as you learn more about him and the events that preceded his arrival in Jefferson. I ultimately came away intrigued and inspired by the book's structure. You could easily have the opposite reaction. The book is a rich source of concepts and observations about the contradictions inherent in slavery and Southern notions of gentle behavior during the 18th and 19th centuries. You only find these contradictions as well laid out in Thomas Jefferson's writings and biographies. After you read this book, you should be in a good position to ask yourself some basic questions about what you are trying to accomplish with your personal life and your work. Are your goals any more worthy than Sutpen's? What dangers are you exposed to as a result of having this focus? In what ways are you an innocent in your pursuits? In seeking respect and esteem, remember to give it to others even more generously!
Rating:
Summary: Worthy of Aeschylus
Review: After the death of the three great tragedians of the fifth century B.C.E., the comic dramatist Aristophanes wrote a fantasy called "The Frogs" in which Euripides and Aeschylus appear before the god Dionysus to decide which shall return. For a peer to this Faulkner, we want Aeschylus brought back (as we should want Faulkner brought back). Aeschylus's difficult Greek verse and Faulkner's dense English prose may dismay the reader at first, but both have their purpose and eventually catch the reader up. You should read this Aeschylean novel.
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Summary: Absalom Absalom-Absolutely Amazing!
Review: There is no question that this is one of Faulkner's greatest and most challenging books. Faulkner's symbolic and engaging story of the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen (representing the rise and fall of the old South) is an absolutely fascinating read. Similar to The Sound and the Fury, the story is summed up in the first chapter, leaving the reader both confused and curious to find out more. I would definitely recommend the re-reading of chapter 1 upon completion of the book to bring it all together. And for those who just want to sit back and dully rea through a book, you may wnat to ignore this one. This is for the reading hobbyist who is up for both a challenge and an emotional reading experience. Having completed the book 3 days ago, I am unable to get it out of my mind. It is that powerful!
Rating:
Summary: Spectacular: engaging and complex
Review: Although I've read several of Faulkner's books, this was the first to leap out at me as indicative of his genius. The work that must have gone into it is staggering. Absalom, Absalom! is Southern tragedy at its very best, replete with dark meditations on the South's Civil War legacy and a story so fascinating, so magnificently plotted that it leaps out at the reader despite Faulkner's often mind-bending prose and endless parade of parentheses. Thomas Sutpen is the type of tragic character Shakespeare would have written had he been alive and living in Mississippi at the time--a self-made man whose ruthless, myopic vision of forming a family dynasty is destroyed through chance and his own grave mistakes. Faulkner unravels this dark tale with perfect timing, leaving the most tantalizing, informative details to the very end. The whole novel possesses a kind of brooding atmosphere which lasts to the closing words. I would not suggest this as the first Faulkner book to read--better to spend some time on the less important works in order to get a feel for his style, otherwise you will miss too much. And even then, it helps to keep a finger on the family tree at the back of the book to get the characters straight. But it's well worth it--this is one of the finest, most introspective and fascinating American novels I have read in a long time.
Rating:
Summary: There are many reasons to read this book
Review: This is one of the great classics of American literature although it can be a struggle at times to work through. However, the work is well worth it. There are a thousand interwoven themes in this book, and the texture is achieved entirely through the personal memories and speculations of the (relatively few) characters about each other. The major themes and approaches to this book include: the death of pre-Civil War southern culture and its continued haunting of the people who lived on afterward, the ever-present issue of race, slavery and racial inter-mixing (a Faulkner favorite) and the social dysfunction accompanying them, the southern sense of bearing a unique historical burden/curse following the Civil War, and much more. Faulkner's unique style requires getting used to, but it is an awesome vehicle for the complexity he seeks to convey. For those who are interested in this aspect, the most exciting points are where the language becomes so frenzied that distinction between prose and poetry break down. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: like watching muhammad ali's footwork
Review: i just finished reading the chapter on thomas sutpen's doomed ambitions, and i couldn't wait to finish the book to express the absolute awe that faulkner's writing engenders in me. the blinding speed with which he switches point of view is literally breathtaking. it's like watching a great boxer like ali or sugar ray leonard shuffle their feet: you see it happening, but you can't imagine how anyone does it. i fear that everything after faulkner will feel ponderous and plodding. i counted, just on pages 280 and 281, a total of four different pov's: shreve's, quentin's, sutpen's, and wash jones'. i'm sure if i went back and read it over more carefully, i would find even more. simply incredible. think of this: a writer often works throughout the course of a lengthy novel to establish one finely crafted point of view, and if he is both talented and lucky, he may succeed in creating a great one. in not just one chapter, but in only two pages of one chapter, faulkner creates perhaps four of the most outstanding and memorable points of view ever to grace the page. this is to say nothing of the entire novel, which i eagerly anticipate finishing. i can't wait to move on to some of his other work such as light in august.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: I had heard much praise for this novel, so I expected it to be a great,intriguing read. This novel turned out to be one of the worst pieces of literature I have ever read. It was slow, unappealing, and could have been wrtitten far more laconically. This is the first book that I had to force myself to read, just so I could get through it. Although there were some vibrant parts, overall it was extremely bland.
Rating:
Summary: Quintessential Faulkner
Review: At the heart of this novel is the story of one man's attempt to make a place for himself in the class and race stratified society of the pre-Civil War South.
Thomas Sutpen arrives in Faulkner's Yoknaphtawpha County with a wagon filled with slaves, a captive French architect and an endless supply of personal energy and determination. In his mind is a "design" which he intends to carry out. "I had a design. To accomplish it I should require money, a house plantation, slaves, a family incidentally of course, a wife. I set out to acquire these, asking no favor of any man." Sutpen is more concerned with the status such a plantation could give him than with any wealth. His is a quest for respectability and social acceptance. While the heart of the novel is Sutpen, its emotional center is Quentin Compson, a Harvard student. Hailing from Yoknaphtawpha, Quentin's grandfather just happened to be Sutpen's only friend. It is Quentin who attempts to make sense of Sutpen's story, with help from his Canadian roommate, Shreve, and Sutpen's own son, Henry. Absalom, Absalom! is the story of the creation of the myth of Thomas Sutpen. The novel is told by a variety of narrators at a variety of times. Untangling these various narratives will be the primary difficulty for any reader, just as it is for Quentin and Shreve. Yet, it is the use of these varying, conflicting narratives that gives this novel its power. Were it told in a simple and linear style its tremendous emotional impact, coupled with the sense of a Faulkerian decaying South, would cause it to be far too melodramatic, perhaps even Gothic. There are, however, holes and spaces in this narrative that force the reader to participate in the anguish of its revelations. For most readers, Absalom, Absalom's greatest hurdle is that so much of what is related is only inferred or invented. Some critics have even gone so far as to say that many points of the narrative are, in fact, unknowable. As in many of Faulkner's novels, the key developments are introduced in bits and pieces, fragments, suppositions or brief glances. The reader is thus put into much the same position as Shreve, who remains somewhat of the skeptic, lacking Quentin's intimate connection to both the Sutpen saga and the old South. The thematic heart of the novel is mankind's ability to rewrite history and arrive at new truths. The reader must, therefore, avoid both Sutpen's and Quentin's mistakes. This is just a part of the genius of Faulkner. His novels, while not the most linear or the most accessible, allow both his characters and his readers, even modern ones, to discover new views and truths about life and mankind.
Rating:
Summary: Can I give this book more than five stars?
Review: This is a bit like reviewing the Bible, but here goes. This is the finest novel ever written. Forget the people who say it is "difficult." If you grew up in the south, if you listened to relatives tell the same story over and over again, each time changing the details slightly, always making the old material seem fresh, you will have no problem reading this book. When I picked this book up at age 16, I literally could not put it down. I read it on the bus, in class, between classes, late into the night. The ending is especially effective and poignant, so be sure to read all the way through.
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