Absalom, Absalom!

Name: Absalom, Absalom!
Author: William Faulkner

William Faulkner · 1936

Many critics rank it above The Sound and the Fury. Competing, contradictory narrators try to reconstruct the story of Thomas Sutpen, and the impossibility of knowing history becomes the subject itself. The style is nearly impenetrable and absolutely necessary.

The case against

on the style
“the style marred by hyphenated words, manufactured words, until you lose the sense”
Kirkus Reviews, 1936
on the first chapter
“so difficult that I almost gave up”
a book blog
on the Sutpen family
“most challenging aspect of this novel was deciphering exactly what happened in the Sutpen family”
a book blog
on fifty pages a day
“I had to put myself on a strict regimen of 50 pages a day”
a book blog