so-soThis turned out ok. It‘s a lot like The Town, a later Faulkner novel narrated by Charles McCaslin and Gavin Stephens. Personally i hated The Town. This is better. A simple story, with race-relations exploration. A mixed-race man is charged with a murder he didn‘t commit. Everyone is waiting for a lynching. But it‘s Faulkner, so wordy, thick, and slow, with some deep soul searching by the well-educated always wrong Gavin.
pickIt anyone were to scroll down my thread, they will notice a post on my starting this 5 months ago. Well, it didn‘t take 5 months. I put it down, paused my Faulkner reading, and started again. I found it unexpected, going ways i did not anticipate. But exceptionally powerful. A rewarding if difficult book. It includes The Bear, a famous Faulkner short story that is novel-sized in the contents. That story does a lot. (But it‘s not my favorite part)
This is a single sentence. 😳 (Struggling slightly to get through this book.)
#Faulkner #1001books
r/classicbookclub announced their next group read. Talk to me, Mr. Faulkner, I‘m joining in.
“I am in awe of Faulkner‘s Benjy, James‘s Maisie, Flaubert‘s Emma, Melville‘s Pip, Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein—each of us can extend the list.... I am interested in what prompts and makes possible this process of entering what one is estranged from.” —Toni Morrison
so-soHmm. Does it work? This novel is actually two separate stories in each in a kind of distinct contrast. Chapters alternate. One is a medical student who abandons his career to run off with a married woman. The other is a convict who gets lost during the 1927 Mississippi flood, and finds himself floating alone in a small boat with a woman in labor.
These stories are ok, but really only for Faulkner completists.
I‘ve been working through this as i‘ve had time. I might have finally gotten to the point of enjoying it. The first 150 pages were not all that fun.
pickMy 13th Faulkner book, here a collection of linked stories, was also the easiest Faulkner to read. It was a nice break after Absalom. These stories cover the civil war from the perspective of two boys at home in Mississippi, one white and one a loyal slave. Told in 1st person, it reads like a document of an era, although it‘s not clear what Faulkner‘s sources were. Could have been his own imagination. Anyway, possibly a good intro to Faulkner.
My current book. The first easy to read Faulkner… (this will be my 13th Faulkner)
so-soA lot of deep Faulkner readers say this is his best book. I found it hard - 4-min/pg hard. It propels itself. But it didn‘t leave me in awe. Just exhausted. My 12th Faulkner novel, and by far the most difficult to read.
