/lit/ - Literature

>>16112094
Why waste time on corncobby chronicles?

I read wild palms and loved it so when I saw this in a charity shop a week later I was v excited.

I have tried on 6 occasions to read it and cannot get into it whatsoever.

>>16112304
This.

I read Sound and Fury and As I Lay Dying. Cool prose but he's so depressing that I dunno if I want to read more of him. It's always a doomed family of retards where the women get banged out and the men are mentally unraveling.

>>16112094
Before you read a chapter, read the Sparknotes summary. Faulkner is challenging, but so worth it. And it'll help you become a better reader.
If you don't want to get help from a study aid, but still want to read Faulkner, maybe start with some of his more conventional works like Light in August and then work your way up.

It's really hard to read I agree. There's no shame in having to re-read sentences once or twice when you get lost in them. I think it's worth the effort though, Sutpen is one of Faulkner's best characters and the book presents his legacy in an interesting way.

>>16112094

I like As I Lay Dying, and I *love* The Sound And The Fury, but I'm not a huge fan of AA. The style is just so convoluted and excessive; it all feels as though he's trying too hard. The fault might well be mine.

read it twice

>>16112094
I have this book. Almost picked it up once without knowing how difficult it was. I ended up reading The Sound and the Fury instead and that kicked my ass too but I loved it. Most of the plot came to ne but I had to still read explanation stuff for the timeline and some of the characters. Faulkner had to have been intentionally fucking with the readers by making two characters with the same name, but I respect him for it. I’ll get around to Absalom, Absalom eventually but I’m in no rush. I’ll read the easier stuff first.

>>16112922

Yeah, TSATF is so, so sad :( AILD is a bit more comic, though hardly comfy.

But Light in August has a happy ending (sort of).

>>16112094
>>16112304
>>16112872
>>16112901
>>16112960
>>16113365
>>16113409
>>16113415
filtered (ア衛ン)

even Kat has read absalom
>pic related

Stop reading old books just cause people meme them as cultured etc. It's just fart smelling

>>16115873
pre-filtered

>>16115873
>meme them as cultured
I've heard someone mention Absalom, Absalom! only once in my entire life, and it was in an english lit class while talking about his short stories

>>16115512
if you have only read Absalom once, you're filtered

Favorite book

>>16112094
It's my favorite of his, but definitely is difficult and the start is aggressively difficult, similar to TSATF. Absolutely worth it though, it's an incredible book. If you haven't read the Oresteia I'd recommend reading it first if you want to get the most out of it.

>>16112922
>where the women get banged out and the men are mentally unraveling.
That’s how life is, sport

>>16116033
i heard nick mullen mention it on cum town, and that's it

>>16116566
The Benjy section is one of the comfiest parts of the entire Western Canon

>>16116566
>If you haven't read the Oresteia I'd recommend reading it first
Dubs of truth. To fully understand most of the great Southern writers you really do need to have some familiarity with both Greek tragedy and the Bible.

What's the best place to start with Faulkner? All his better-known and frequently-recommended books sound like megalithic brain scorchers, and I'd want to acclimate myself first.

Stream-of-consciousness is one thing, writing in Faulkner's way is another. Scenes are dropped onto our heads in ways we cannot comprehend and actions are portrayed without explanation. And do you know the unfairest cut of all? Faulkner knows what he is trying to say, he knows all about these characters, he just isn't showing us anything. An example: originally there were no names at the beginning of the chapters. Yeah, no kidding. He just wrote this shit with no explanation of our speaker and expected us to figure it out. That is not genius. Writing is about making a connection to a stranger, bridging a gap of confusion to create understanding and to share an idea, a theme, an image with thousands or millions of people who you've never met. Faulkner writes in jargon he understands with little to no respect for the reader and I can't forgive him for it. If you don't believe me then write something. Write a short story. Write 3, or 4, or 5 pages. Flesh out the characters and their histories and their conflicts. Got it? Okay, now when you are writing a scene with multiple people use only the pronoun he. You will know who you are talking about - do we? Is that good writing? No, it isn't.

>>16118267
Is this you?

>>16118285
No but I did copy it from another review. To be honest I liked As I lay Dying but it was pretty hard to piece together the story and I don't think Faulkner's intentional obscuring made it better.

>>16118291
As I Lay Dying is a pretty easy read compared to TSATF or Absalom. I wouldn't really say that the plot was that obscure outside a couple autistic points of view. I still can't believe that Faulkner wrote the entire thing in a few weeks without going back to edit anything, though

>>16118251
Barn Burning

>>16116577
Lol. It's all a bit Gothic for me.

>>16118267
>An example: originally there were no names at the beginning of the chapters. Yeah, no kidding. He just wrote this shit with no explanation of our speaker and expected us to figure it out.
That would have been cooler, since each character has such a clearly different narrative voice accompanying them that ditching the labels would serve to filter only the lowest-tier plebes whose commentary is neither informed nor insightful.

>>16118308
>without going back to edit anything
This was 100% a line of bullshit from Faulky, I really don't believe it at all.

>>16119904
Except nobody could actually understand it without the names. You only think their style was enough to distinguish them because you already knew who was speaking. Cope harder.

>>16119961
Since the characters constantly interact with and talk to each other, addressing each other by name, I really had no difficulty at all. This is the difference between 120 and 140.

>>16112922
>>16112922
>but he's so depressing that I dunno if I want to read more of him
Faulkner's humor is way underrated. The scene in the Sound and the Fury where Jason drives by Caddy while holding little Quentin out the window is honestly the funniest scene I've ever read. Jason's whole section is hilarious.

>>16120112
You had no difficulty because you saw the chapter headings. This is the difference between delusional autist and normal person. Stop replying to me.

If you're having trouble with Faulkner just get a text to speech engine and have it read him for you. Faulkner drew heavily from the oral tradition of the Old South and it shows in his prose even when he's trying to do interior monologue or stream of consciousness

Some kind of timeline and genealogy in advance might be helpful, as with a lot of Faulkner’s work. There’s one big spoiler/surprise in AA that might be revealed with this but I don’t think that would ruin it for you.

>>16118308
>>16119910

Apparently Faulkner admitted to a translator that he often wrote drunk and couldn't remember what he meant when he sobered up, and I believe that.

>>16118251
Light in August is pretty stylistically accessible. Or you could just plunge brazenly into OP and see how it goes.

>>16115892
Post-filtered

>>16120112
People who claim to enjoy Faulkner are similar socially to schizophrenics, they think their enjoyment of it is based on some higher intelligence or inward ability to parse difficult writing when in reality its just that most realize eventually that Faulkners sole draw is the prose, and thus only the most autistic of autists claim to enjoy it in order to fulfill some inward fantasy of intelligence and superiority that they had yet been denied in life.

>>16120232
This. I thought most/all current editions of Absalom came with a map and chronology though? I remember I had a professor who insisted you shouldn't look at them because they were only added after Faulkner's publisher insisted they be included to help readers make sense of the book over Faulkner's objections. But I found them helpful nonetheless and don't think that they detracted at all from the book.

>>16120355
Seethe more brainlet

>>16120355
That you think of his writing as difficult is the tip of the cards here. Please don't feel the need to try and engage with works that are outside your cognitive zone. I am not being ironic or trying to dunk on you when I say that Faulkner is completely and utterly comprehensible, especially in comparison to (need I say it) Joyce, Pynchon, etc.

The loosely connected stories in Go Down, Moses make for a pretty good Faulkner starter volume.

Most of it - not all of it - is pretty accessible.

The first story, for example - Was - is *very* amusing and fun once you get past the first few pages.

>>16119836
This anon is right, and by extension it makes The Hamlet a good place to start too. The Hamlet is a comedy, and my favorite Faulkner. Another good place to start is Intruders in the Dust. It's still Faulkner with stream of consciousness, but it's a "murder mystery".