Ironically, this is one of Faulkner’s most accessible novels! But it is still challenging and very rewarding. Great work of southern lit. Absalom, Absalom is well worth your attention if you enjoyed this book!

I agree. It is a masterpiece.

I just love seeing that people are actually making the effort to tackle Faulkner. He's not an easy read, but I find his writing to be very rewarding. He's been one of my favorite authors for decades.

It is amazing.

Some of the darkest and most delicious humor ever.

My mother is a fish

> I will be thinking about this one for a long time to come!

I read this in like 2007 and I still think about it regularly

This was perhaps my least favorite read of my entire life.

I absolutely hated it.

We read this in high school. I remember thinking it was a good book, but short and utterly ruined by us having to discuss it in excruciating detail for what felt like two months.

>How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home.

Goated quote in this one

Doesn’t get much better..

I’m sorry if this is annoying, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to! But what about his work is not easy? Is it the language or is the plot confusing?

The plots aren't very confusing. His sentences and prose are very dense and you'll have to reread things occasionally, but there's just so much you get out every book, his stuff is so amazing in my opinion, and As I Lay Dying is his best work

My favorite English teacher in college was from Oxford, Mississippi and he would see Faulkner all the time around town but especially on the main square around the courthouse where Bill would stand for hours staring at the building and sipping from a tall glass of whiskey. He was actually writing, in his mind, as he stood. Everyone knew who he was and even the children knew not to bother him. My teacher went on to be a Shakespeare scholar and a Faulkner scholar. He filled up two blackboards one day with family trees of F’s characters and the interesting intermarriages between them.

Sorry, I know this doesn't have much to do with your story there, but your post reminded me of it. I met my new dentist two weeks ago, he said I looked like an English teacher. As a creative writing major, this was a nice compliment.

Learn the proper numbering system of the teeth and discuss them that way and he’ll think you’re a genius. It was perceptive for him to identify you that way but dentists do have the advantage of studying people closely. I should finish my master’s in Eng but even if I did nobody could guess from my appearance which is like an old truckdriver which is not wrong.

The sound and the fury, light in August, and Absalom Absalom were also excellent reads, but as I lay dying is my favorite Faulkner that I've read so far. Excellent book!

Yeah I didnt enjoy this book very much in high school

fun screamo band too

Read this in 1993 and still have it bouncing around my noggin more that stuff I read last month.

Sound and Fury sounds similar, only one I’ve read and was wowed by it.

It’s been many years since I read this in high school but I still think about that line.

Just read that this semester for my American Lit class, it was great! I want to read more Faulkner

The dark humor got me. The auger scene in the beginning and the ending of the book just seem gratuitously cruel. I know some people love dark humor but it was too much for me!

Otherwise I can appreciate the book for what it is and what it does. Gorgeous writing and interesting topics but just not handled in a way I personally enjoy.

Faulkner is goated. Nabokov was brilliant but him saying his works are hillbilly hogwash is a shit take

My favourite passage is from this book.

I said You don't know what worry is. I don't know what it is. I don't know whether I am worrying or not. Whether I can or not . I don't know whether I can cry or not. I don't know whether I have tried to or not. I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.

>Gorgeous writing and interesting topics

I see people say things like this, but I don't get it in even the smallest sense. I found the writing to be execrable. Inane and pointless. Reading it I felt that Faulkner was pointing a pen of disdain at his audience. As if to brag to his fellows, while thoroughly drunk, "See what drivel I can set down in print, and they'll lap it up, the dogs they are!"

Nabokov was great but his ego was a bit much.

Yeah, Tim Lambesis sucks though lol

Faulkner is the greatest author of the 20th century and beyond. Dude is unreal.

I compare it to swimming in honey. It’s a bit tough to do, but oh man does it taste sweet

Out of curiosity, what’s your fav book you’ve ever read? Also, I trenchantly disagree with your take on Faulkner, but to each their own.

Do it, you won’t be disappointed

Many English Lit professors teach students to hate books by discussing them ad nauseam.

I found it to be well-written, but I hated all of the characters so much that it was not an enjoyable read

I can't answer what my favorite book ever was. Not like "ooh, there's so many," just like I usually don't keep track of them in my mind that way.

One recent read that struck me very favorably was The Death of Ivan Ilych.

I can only read Faulkner if I am on a long vacation where I can read for several hours at a time. It takes me 30 minutes to get into the prose and the language (kind of liking listening to Shakespeare).

Its not like you can pick up one of his books and read for 5 minutes at a time, that's for sure.

I read it in school but i can’t remember it! I think maybe i didnt read it just skimmed through. I should re read it as an adult.

Have to agree with you. Not sure how he is put in the same category as McCarthy or Melville. Did you find any of his other books worth reading?

Oh see I hated the death of Ivan Ilyich, to me it was extremely dry and straight to the point. I didn't even really understand why it was written because the point was so straight forward/I didn't have to really think deeper to understand it.

Faulkner is on the opposite end of the spectrum, he writes through implications and pastoral descriptions. I still remember the chapter where the daughter went to get an abortion and her little brother waited outside. The reader isn't directly told what's happening but we all figure it out in a way that a careless writer wouldn't have been able to pull off. Same with the ending and dad getting his new teeth, the reader can imagine what happens next and what happened leading up to it without it being explicitly explained.

It's definitely written in a way that looks clumsy but that makes the relevant information that much more hard hitting.

I read another of his books, it might have been The Sound and the Fury.

I don't remember details but I remember not liking it much.

It wasn't anything like the feeling of angry disgust I got from As I Lay Dying, though.

This kind of reminds me of>!"Where are my breasts? Where are my breasts?"!< from Myra Breckinridge.