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/lit/ - Literature

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11988704 No.11988704 [Reply] [Original]

What's the most interesting thing about this novel for you? Why haven't you read it yet?

What were Jason III (the father)'s motivations behind his nihilism? Did he truly believe what he told Quentin?

>the strange thing is that man who is conceived by accident and whose every breath is a fresh cast with dice already loaded against him will not face that final main... until someday in very disgust he risks everything on a single blind turn of a card no man ever does that under the first fury of despair or remorse or bereavement he does it only when he has realized that even the despair or remorse or bereavement is not particularly important to the dark diceman
Is he talking to Quentin about his future suicide?

How come nobody talks about the greatest novel ever written?

>> No.11988862

>>11988704
Nothing it’s trash

>> No.11988866

>>11988862
That is a great passage though

>> No.11988882

>>11988704
I love Faulkner. I love this book.

As an aside, what is it about the "insane" style of writing that makes it so spectacular? (as it applies to other books like Ulysses or GR)

>> No.11988890

>>11988882
How did you love this book?

I appreciate they stylistic risks and the prose but other than that I kept thinking “ I really don’t give a fuck about these people”

>> No.11988994

>>11988890
>I really don’t give a fuck about these people”

if that was your impression, then faulkner is not for you.

but to answer your question, i think the writing is spontaneous and more alive than most anything i have ever read. it probably is the book that is closest to life that I have read.

>> No.11988999

>>11988704
it's talked about a lot here, it's just a shame that it's usually people who literally can't read talking shit about it.

>> No.11989004

>>11988890
not even quentin or benjy? what the fuck

>> No.11989009

>>11988704
He takes the phrase "God doesn't roll dice" a little to literally.

>> No.11989116

>>11988704
Best part? The way Dilsey wraps things up in the epilogue.

>> No.11989136

the most striking thing from reading this for me was the general aesthetic and emotional impression left from Benjy's part. I found the kind of half-realized, chopped up understanding of events really affecting.

>>11988882
I think TSatF (and Faulkner in general) hits harder because it's about immense amounts of human suffering and inter-generational trauma - Ulysses and GR don't really deal with the extremes of human experience in the same visceral way.

>> No.11989256

>>11989116
The last section is great. I think that without a doubt Quentin's chapter is the most profound and moving but there are extremely powerful moments in the last part (The preacher's sermon, Dilsey walking back home crying, the last scene with Lester, Benjy, and Jason). What particularly did you like about Dilsey in that section?

>> No.11989297

>>11989136
i dont think i made myself clear when i mentioned Ulysses and GR, when i said that the "insane writing" leant itself toward TSATF's greatness.

what i meant to ask is what is it specifically about this erratic and borderline non-sensical writing style that makes it so high-level?

>> No.11989312

What's the metaphor with Caddy? Every character looks at her in a way completely different than each other, and yet she's probably the most pervasive object in the novel. Even Dilsey and the dad.

Also, what the hell am I supposed to get out of this novel? That life sucks and is meaningless, we can't help but get all pent up and angry over it, and then we die? Is there beauty in that?

>> No.11989462

>>11988994
Did you ever read On The Road?

>> No.11989467

>>11989297
>what i meant to ask is what is it specifically about this erratic and borderline non-sensical writing style that makes it so high-level?

I think it's just part of the skill of the author, because I doubt all writing like that is very great. I think it has to do with conveying emotion and tone, at least in Faulkner's case. It's hard to imagine that any writing with conventional syntax could match Quentin's pained and furious desolation or Benjy's whirlwind of associations and impressions. Joyce uses it with a ton of other tricks like alliteration to produce beautiful lyrical prose that produces emotional effect for the reader.

IMO if it's done well it allows the author to reach emotion/tone that conventional writing couldn't hope to effect. That and it's an easy way to garner all sorts of viable interpretations with no easy way to discern which are intended and which are not (something which at least Joyce seemed to be interested in).

>> No.11989473

>>11989004
I hated Quentin almost as much as Jason.

>> No.11989541

>>11989473
Why? Quentin seems to me to be the most tragic character in the novel

>> No.11989553

>>11989473
how?

>> No.11989578

>>11988704
What's a good Read - Expected - Got for this novel? I have literally no idea what to expect from it except having a really hard time reading it

>> No.11989589

>>11989578
it's not really that hard at all if you take a quick look on the wiki before reading it.
the first chapter can be daunting, becuase it give you no warning about the jumps in time, but once you recognize the names it'll be easy.
people say that quentin's chapter is much more difficult, but i seldom had any troubles with it.
after that it's a breeze.

>> No.11989954

>>11988704
>What were Jason III (the father)'s motivations behind his nihilism?
If you read the appendix, Jason's father is described as a guy that would read texts from antiquity and get drunk, so I think it's at least somewhat fair to paint him as something of a stoic.

Jason III figured out somewhere along the way that the value system he grew up with was predicated on a way of life that no longer existed. So he distanced himself from it, because he knew what harm the changing world would cause to people holding these values (ie Quentin).

He attempts to save Quentin, who holds these values and is coming into immense despair because of it, by telling him that meaning and values have no inherent basis in reality and only exist insofar as the one holding them allows them to; "every man is the arbiter of his own virtues."

But humans are humans, and denies to let go and lighten up so to speak (something along the lines of "you will realize that maybe even she was no quite worth despair... I never will"). Even though Quentin knows what his father says is true (hence all the sections with his father in his chapter), he cannot find it in himself to change. He commits suicide.

So I think his motivations were just starting with the Greeks and then trying to save his son. I don't see any reason to think he didn't believe what he was telling his son.

>> No.11989998

>>11989954
So he's a mouthpiece character?

>> No.11990043

>>11989998
I know you're trying to meme, but yeah kind of. He's a heavy drinker like Faulkner too. Faulkner was also a big fan of the Greeks, and Jason III takes that a little further in Absalom, Absalom.

>> No.11990087

>>11988704
I literally jumped in blind and had to stop reading halfway through and check the appendix because they kept referring to Quentin as a girl and I was like wtf is going on.
After reading the whole thing I still had to go to sparknotes to get a full synopsis because my benjy-brain couldn't figure out who the fuck was who's kid and why each chapter was from a different fucking year.

I'll have to read it again sometime when I care more about the earlier days of American life in the south. Or maybe I'll shoot myself who the fuck cares.

>> No.11990121

>>11989462
by kerouac? no. i dont like the beats aside from early pynchon but im willing to give it a look if someone reccomends it well enough

>> No.11990125

>>11990087
>I'll have to read it again sometime when I care more about the earlier days of American life in the south.
That's the backdrop but it's so much more than that anon
>Or maybe I'll shoot myself who the fuck cares.
That's the ticket

>> No.11990783

Bump

>> No.11990830

>>11990087
>Or maybe I'll shoot myself who the fuck cares.
this is my general vibe with most of lit

>> No.11991418

>>11990121
The beats are shit, Kerouac is the king of shit

>> No.11991605

What is the significance of that fucking eye symbol in the last chapter???

>> No.11991613

>>11988994
why would you not be interested in watching a family stumble and disintegrate?

>> No.11991768

Faulkner's so fucking good at writing its scary. Weird that he didn't showcase it off as much as he did in Absalom

>> No.11993141

what's with the cover?

>> No.11993164

I always had some vague interest in it because, well, it's a classic. The other day an anon posted an excerpt of one of the stream of consciousness passages. That convinced me I probably won't find anything of interest there. But then, the only reason I'm interested in Pynchon is because his plots interests me, so.

>> No.11993194

>>11989256
I think it's the change in Faulkner's tone to readability. Quentin's chapter was always so difficult for me. Heck I never realized he'd been beat up when I first read it. Or that Benji had been a rapist. Or that the golf course was built on land previously owned by the Compsons. I remember the obsession at the beginning of his chapter with all the clocks and timepieces. Some great writing there.

>> No.11993276

>>11993141
People say it's a man wrestling his own shadow or that guy wrestling an angel, but after reading Absalom I think it may be a ghost holding down a man

>> No.11993540

>>11993164
What do you mean you wouldn't find anything of interest? That it's too difficult to bother with or just not something you'd like to read? It's not exactly a book you read for the plot so I can understand if that turns you off

>> No.11993544

>>11993164
*reads one page and judges an entire book based off that*
plotfags gonna plotfag

>> No.11994208
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11994208

>> No.11994296

>>11989541
Hardly... to me he’s a whining self absorbed Puritan. Caddy and Dilsey were the only characters who were decent I felt sorry for Benjy but that’s it.

>> No.11994298

>>11991418
Lol try harder

>> No.11994312

>>11993540
It’s not even interesting stylistically, it’s highly overrated. It’s one of the worst books I’ve read.

>> No.11994346
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11994346

>>11994312
>The other day an anon posted an excerpt of one of the stream of consciousness passages. That convinced me I probably won't find anything of interest there.
>It’s not even interesting stylistically, it’s highly overrated. It’s one of the worst books I’ve read.
what's wrong with this picture

>> No.11994398

>>11994296
Seems to me like you must have a drastically different interpretation of his section (and probably the novel) then. Can you expand a bit?

>> No.11994539

>>11988862
This unironically

>> No.11995354

I didn't know /lit/izens were such pseuds