Absalom, Absalom!

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Summary: Tell Us About The South, Mr. Faulkner
Review: A California author with my debut novel in its initial release, I have always been facinated by ABSALOM, ABSALOM! I realize I'm an easy mark for this book. My Southern roots run deep, though my mother's side of the family. She grew up in a small town in Alabama, and I've always read Faulkner, to some degree, to gain insights into my late mother's life experiences and background. I believe ABSALOM, ABSALOM! is William Faulkner's strongest work, but there are many works that one could claim is his strongest. He is the greatest American writer of all time. ABSALOM, ABSALOM!, on one level, deals with the story of Thomas Sutpen and his attempt to build a dynasty on Sutpen's Hundred. Sutpen was born poor,and he dreams of greatness. He establishes a plantation. He desires sons to carry on his legacy, yet his sons impact his life in unexpectedly tragic ways. On another level, Faulkner deals with the issues of race, exploitation, and slavery. Sutpen's first wife has black blood. His son by this woman, hence, has black blood. Sutpen repudiates both and that repudiation comes back to haunt him. On a completely different level, Faulkner deals with Quentin Compson, a grandson of one Sutpen's friends, who uses this story to reconcile himself to his past, his life, and his history while he is a student at Harvard. And ABSALOM, ABSALOM! keeps growing deeper and deeper with significance on top of significance atop significance. Better books have been written in human history--perhaps three or four.

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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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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.


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Summary: WOW! where to begin?
Review: faulkner is an acquired taste. like brussel sprouts, you either like him or hate him, but he is definitely good food for the brain. his books are by no means easy reads, but they are a must for any true lover of literature.

absalom, absalom could have been a simplistic story of the sutpin family from thomas, the father, birth to the death of his youngest child henry. it could have been told in chronological order by an omniscient narrator that provided all of the usual insights and motives into every act. but it is not!

Faulkner tells the story through the eyes of 4 people, all of a different generation or background. the story is told somewhat haphazardly with many gaps which are not filled in until later in the book. the facts are viewed through the eyes of the different story tellers with parts further filtered through stories told to them by others. all of this makes an engrossing tale all the more fascinating. at the end we have a picture of the family that is part history and part saga.

this unusual approach to story telling is classic faulkner. you need to admire the style to really appreciate the ingenuity of the author.

the story is better understood by reading the biblical reference of king david's son as well as faulkner's sound and the fury which involves two of the same characters--specifically quentin compson.

this is faulkner's best novel. it is not for the first time faulkner reader. you need to work your way up to this one by reading as i lay dying, light in august, and then sound and the fury. the trip through these books will challenge even the best reader, but the rewards are well worth it. you will truly never read someone like faulkner again.

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Summary: Don't give up on this masterpiece . . .
Review: Faulkner is not for everyone, and this book is exhibit number one. I read half of it a year ago before going back and starting over, determined to finish it. I am certainly glad I did, and I will say without doubt I will read it several more times in my life, for this book is at the same time one of the most difficult I've ever read, and one of the most rewarding.

First, the cons: vocabulary that continually drives you to a dictionary; long, run-on sentences, with digression piled on top of digression, parenthesis within parenthesis within parenthesis; multiple telling of the same story. The reading is not easy, in other words.

But the pros: Faulkner is a master of "showing, not telling." He writes poetry without line breaks. For example:

** "a creature cloistered now by deliberate choice and still in the throes of enforced apprenticeship to, rather than voluntary or even acquiescent participation in, breathing"

** "battles lost not alone because of superior numbers and failing ammunition and stores, but because of generals who should not have been generals, who were generals not through training in contemporary methods or aptitude for learning them, but by the divine right to say 'Go there' conferred upon them by an absolute caste system."

** "and maybe they never had time to talk about wounds and besides to talk about wounds in the Confederate army in 1865 would be like coal miners talking about soot."

From these three examples alone, one can see that it's unfair to say that Faulkner's book is one run-on sentence without any differentiation in style or voice. Instead, they show a mastery of language, which Faulkner admittedly gets a little carried away with from time to time, but generally uses much like we use our lungs - without seeming to think about it.

What is most striking about the book is the similarity it has to the human experience. Walter Allen said this is the book in which Faulkner "most profoundly and completely says what he has to say about . . . the human condition." And what is that? That humans are weak and prone to lying, and more dangerously, prone to believing lies that are more comfortable than the truth. When we finish the book, we're still not sure about the details of the story. We don't know who twisted what in his/her narrative, and because the story is told from several points of view, we get conflicting interpretations from the characters about the meaning and cause of certain events. But as in real life, there's no omnipotent interpreter to sort everything out. Almost . . .

"AA" is particularly engrossing in the final half. Just when you think you pretty much know Sutpen's story, Faulkner reveals yet another detail -- coincidence turns out to be anything but, ignornance is shown to be willful, and many other facets which can only be called "plot twists" fall into place in the final 100 pages, and though the prose is anything but easy, it's difficult to put the book down then.

If you're not into "academic" books, stay away. If you're interested just in "a good yarn," steer clear. If you want to see an impressive effort at capturing in writing the frustrating experience of being a fallible, limited human, give it a read.

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Summary: Know what you're getting yourself into
Review: I can understand why this book has so many 5 star ratings. It's ideas on the decay of the South are pretty brilliant and perceptive, and the plot is devastating. However, the language, although poetic, is enigmatic and completely exhausting. What's more troubling is that every character in the book has the same way of talking, without ever stopping or completing a thought. Sentences literally go on for over a page. Apparently, that's how every single person talked in 1909.

"Not cowardice which will not face that sickness somewhere at the prime foundation of this factual scheme from which the prisoner soul, miasmal-distillant, wroils ever upward sunward..." This continues for quite some time. While an occassional sentence like this would add a sense of mystery and mysticism to the novel, when the whole thing reads like this, you get pretty tired. Another reviewer noted this sentence: "I became all polymath love's androgynous advocate." What?

I do like the narrative style though. You have a basic idea of the plot from the beginning, but pieces get filled in my different sources, leading to the overall picture of murder, decay, revenge. I didn't think the characterization was very good though, and that to me is the most important part of a book. Sure, you know who Sutpen is, but you don't really understand him. Ellen is called a moth, desperately clinging to the light but not understanding why. That's pretty a beautiful simile, but not incredibly useful, since we don't know why Ellen is a moth, just that she is.

Basically, if you're going to read this novel, know what you're getting yourself into, and read it slowly, or you'll have to go back a million times and re-read.

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Summary: My First Foray into Faulkner - Wow
Review: I probably would never have touched any book by Faulkner - the sentiment that seems to be unconsciously passed down from generation to generation is that Faulkner is dense to the point of impenetrability (is that a word?) - if I hadn't had to read "Absalom, Absalom" for a class on American literature. I'm glad I took the class; this book was a wonderful surprise. It brought me back to the pure joys of reading, the delight I feel any time I tackle something truly meaty. Admittedly, "Absalom, Absalom" is confusing, even schizophrenic, in its multiple narrators and its page-long sentences. You can't read it half-heartedly; I had to turn off the stereo and retreat to the quiet of my room to give it my full attention. And I was blown away. There is so much here for a literature lover to delve into. I won't even bother offering a synopsis - it wouldn't make much sense, and you should just read it anyway. I've heard people say that one shouldn't read "Absalom, Absalom" for their first Faulkner experience, and I can see why: this book is hard work. Still, it has inspired me to explore the rest of Faulkner's bibliography. And to read other books I was hesitant to read before. And it reminded me why I love to read. Not bad for a book I was dreading.

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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.

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Summary: The Deep South
Review: This was my first approach to Faulkner, and a very satisfying one, though experts advise on NOT starting with this one, as it is one of the most complex and obscure of his novels. However hard to read, it is very rewarding, since Faulkner's prose is so intense, dark and realistic. Clue after clue, the reader puts together the pieces of a nightmarish puzzle, a story of ambition, sin, revenge, envy, hard work, disappointment and tragedy. Indeed, it reminds of a Greek tragedy, one that takes place during several decades, in the torrid scenery of the Yoknapatawpha county in the American Deep South.

The story is totally phantasmagoric; it is the account and the reflection of the diverse -and improbable- narrators, who imprint their own passions and longings as they build the story. The Sutpen saga is a journey of madness and perversion, close in its own way to Russian classical stories. Just as in Greek tragedy, the main character is Fate. The most disturbing aspect of this novel is the ambiguity which characterizes the narrators.

Thomas Sutpen is a man of humble origins in the Appalachians, a man who has suffered rejection and discrimination. But he is terribly strong-willed and so he travels to the South looking for fortune. He dreams of building an empire and a dynasty that will prevail and avenge him for his misfortunes. He arrives at Yoknapatawpha and buys some land, which he, by virtue of hard work, turns into an emporium. But he is also a dark and violent man, who rejects his first wife and son for having black blood in their veins, an action that will come back to haunt him.

The main narrator is Quentin Compson, the son of a neighboring family, who years later recounts the story to a roommate in Harvard, so building a parallel story of drama and death.

Even if it is a challenging read, it is much worth it, since Faulkner develops a very powerful narrative with a strong prose and a great gift to create moods and sceneries. It leaves you with the sensation that you have read an epic of grand proportions, a "War and Peace" with much war and little peace, without balls nor nobility.

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Summary: A masterpiece by one of our masters
Review: When I was in college, wandering the aisles looking for a book for some other assignment, I would often find myself standing in front of Mr. Faulkner, and I would often find myself thereafter seated on the floor, flipping the pages of this book, marvelling at that first sentence that lasts for two pages. This book reads like Beethoven to me, and I'll admit that I'm in love with it.

First, it's not an easy or a light read. I've read this book three times all the way through (I've read chunks of it countless times), and I can't say that I understand everything. There are a few different narrators, and the narrators themselves will often slip into other voices - Quentin telling Shreve the story that he heard from his father of what Sutpen told the elder Compson twenty years ago - that sort of thing.

Let's talk about the basic plot. There's a chronology included in this edition (I believe) that helps. Yoknapatawpha County, of course, and a stranger moves into town named Thomas Sutpen. Brings a strange bunch of wild slaves, claims a hundred square miles, builds a house, and then tries to find a wife. Marries the daughter of a respected local man, has some children, and then the Civil War comes along. Eldest son rides off to war, happens to fall into communion with his abandoned half-brother, and chaos ensues. It turns out that Sutpen is himself not your average guy, and we hear some very interesting stories about his family, his history, and the lives of his children.

I wouldn't recommend this book to a first-time Faulkner reader. If you want a good Faulkner novel that isn't too dense, try Light in August, or maybe Sanctuary. Both are relatively straightforward. If you've read either of these, or if you just want to dive in, this one is probably his best.

What really "gets" me about this book is the way that we are made to admire, respect, even love the horrific creature that is Thomas Sutpen. He's a fascinating character, and the passages retelling his personal history are alive with tension. You can imagine this man barricaded in the home of a white planter, facing doom at the hands of a slave rebellion; you can see the weird light in his face when he puts down his rifle, opens the door, and steps out into the "darkness" to "subdue" the slave revolt. It's a kind of meditation on the nature of colonialism, tied into myths of patriarchy and gender, with a shot at Christianity stirred in for good measure. I suppose that sounds garbled - but believe me, the fact that Faulkner can effectively blend all of this into one story speaks to his genius. What a book.