Rating: 
Summary: Revisiting the ghosts of the old south.
Review: In the incredible novel Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner creates, rather, reveals the tragic southern saga of the Sutpen family and how issues of ambition and morality bring about their downfall. Beyond the many thematic offerings of the "legend" and its telling however, a much larger picture looms. That the traditions of a society founded on shaky ground, by opportunistic ancestors created a people whose entire vision was veiled by the oppresiveness of the caste system and who, when war finally removed the veil, found that they were not the strong, honorable stock they thought they were. Two generations later the ghosts of the old south continue to haunt Quentin Compson who can no more seperate himself from them than his roomate Shreve can understand what it means to have been born in good old Yoknapatawpha County.
Rating:
Summary: HARD HARD HARD AND GREAT!
Review: Let's be honest: you're not reading this one to let your mind go to butter. It's so damn hard that I spent an entire afternoon reading and re-reading twenty pages, just trying to work out the details. But I proimise this: after you're done with this book, going back and reading the first chapeter again is one of the most rewarding literary experiences you can have. Hints: don't let the structure fool you. The events are not complicated. But not every caracter knows Thomas Sutpen's story, and the beauty in this book is watching the characters piece together the myseries surrounding the collapse of his family. So read and read and re-read this one and I swear you'll never look at books the same way again (and that'll be a good thing!)
Rating: 
Summary: An excelent account of the decaying South
Review: If you can make through Faulkner's endless flow of words you are left with an accurate account of the Southern plantation owners downfall. Faulkner also sneeks in a bit of fourtune telling about the mixing of races. We are left to decide if his predictions become true.
Rating:
Summary: Faulkner At His Best. Faulkner At His Worst.
Review: An amazing, infuriating, incredible novel in which one of the masters of American writing goes for broke. Often difficult, even more often brilliant, it contains the best and worst of Faulkner. You will find fifty pages of the most brilliant prose you will ever read, followed by fifty pages of sheer self-indulgent nonsense. Every bad habit Faulkner ever had is on full display in Absalom! Absalom! The reader who just gets fed up with all the convoluted sentences and over-portentous prosifying cannot be blamed. Luckily, all of Faulkner's virtues are here as well: unblinking exploration of evil, the comedy, and the sheer style and brilliance of Faulkner's writing.
Rating:
Summary: worth the effort
Review: this book is a typical fualkner challenge, but it pays off in spades, the descriptive text and stream of conciousness narrative are brilliant. cherrs!
Rating:
Summary: This is Faulkner's Best
Review: As a Mississippi native, I fell in love with Faulkner at an earlier age than most. I have read many of his novels, specifically his best works during the thirties, and most of his short stories. Many acclaim the work of Sound and the Fury as his best piece; the accolades are well founded. Yet, Absalom, Absalom as an experiment in fictional writing is unparalleled in his Yoknapatawpha Tales. Also, it offers an interesting, if not sordid continuation to the saga that the Sound and the Fury began. It is a must read for serious lovers of American fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Faulkner's finest
Review: I will state this simply: Absalom! Absalom! belongs among a very small collection of literary masterpieces such as, oh, the Bible, the collected works of The Bard, Plato's Republic, Thoreau's Walden, Melville's Moby Dick, Joyce's Ulysses, Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Faulkner's own The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August.
Rating:
Summary: Sheer Brilliance
Review: Faulkner is an artist. I use present tense for, like the best artists, his work lives forever and in the work lives the man. "Absalom, Absalom!" stands, perhaps, as Faulkner's crowning achievement. Headache-inducing at times, yes, but only because it requires the reader to use his mind at an unprecedented level. In this day of Stephen King and John Grisham, it is extraordinary and eye-opening to come across a writer of such talent and imagination, a twentieth century authors long-forgotten to many of today's readers, but, perhaps, on par with very few. Only Proust springs to mind as a companion on the hilltop. What makes this book so frustrating is the very thing that makes it so succesful. His use of flashback without announcing it as flashback, his use of foreshadowing that appears to be simply the black mark a tree has made on the ground, thrown there by the sun through no fault of the tree, unless, of course, you consider the tree guilty for simply being there. I consider "Absalom, Absalom!" to be not only Faulkner's greatest work (challenged, perhaps, given my mood fluctuations, by "The Sound and the Fury"), but one of the great works of this century. This book is not for everyone, though. Be prepared to read and re-read in able to come to grips with the full brilliance of this novel. It is not something to be skimmed through, but rather a fine wine to be tasted slowly and savored.
Rating: 
Summary: Unreadable.
Review: I know it's not PC, but Faulkner's books are unreadable. IguessFaulknerfellasleepduringEnglishclass
Rating:
Summary: Even the title is something to think about
Review: Sheer phenomenon. Impossible as hell to read. Sentences take hours and pages take days but this book is just an experience waiting to be had. I hate the idea that people are turned off because of the involved style he uses. He captures the myth of the south in a way that's really hard to believe, and he gives and takes point of views from his characters in a way that on the surface seems vacillating or capricious but is actually unbelievably intentional. The decline of the Sutpen family is a grotesque study in decadence and decay and the fall of the southern plantations. The image of Thomas Sutpen wrestling with his slaves while the children watch wide-eyed from the rafters will remain with me for the rest of my life.
| 
