What's so terrible is that I should be reading Hard Times, by Dickens, but it's just so..Dickens. I used to think I was all about English Literature. Maybe it comes and goes in waves. We WILL be reading Mrs. Dalloway, one of my favorite novels, and things could get much more interesting then -- if 75% of the class weren't ding dongs, and that one girl didn't have that strange made up accent all Madonna-ish and talking down her nose. But I need them. They make me look good.
Absalom, Absalom!
Responses
From the get go, I'm like okay, Absalom. Wasn't he the usurper of David's throne and the incestuous beast that raped Tamara? Not particularly well liked, and I believe executed at some point. I need to go check it out in Kings to get my facts straight. Previously, on blog, I mentioned that the first chapter was so brilliant with its setting. I love the things that Faulkner wants us to notice, like the sparrows which "came now and then in random gusts" to the wistaria vine by the window. I like how Faulkner doesn't use proper, or usual, grammar for dialogue. I like this because the reader is not sure whether what is being said is in the storyteller's mind or coming out of their mouth. I believe that I have figured out that the text in italics is Quentin's voice, mostly.
Chapter 1
I know that the story is complicated enough -- Faulkner's signature tone and language, but to complicate it even further, he names these people confusing and similar names. No wonder he got them so confused when asked in conferences about his novels. Compson, Coldfield. I love the phrase "frock coat." (Is it a phrase? I'm not sure.) I want an entire wardrobe of frock coats.
Chapter 2
The story has this chaotic (!) time line. This is the second novel that I've read by Faulkner, and I keep having to go back and re-read. This is so his genius. And have I told you that I have this thing for red-heads? Not a thing like a thing with a sly look and a wink and a shimmy, but this thing that is not socially acceptable, Almost like a prejudice. I am, of course, willing to give any and everyone with red hair a chance, or even chances. But something about natural red heads makes me a little woozy. So, Sutpen (what kind of name is this? It's like an Egyptian Pharoah, or an anagram for sputen, which sounds like some kind of awful mucus.) is a red-head, and a red-beard, and pale-eyed, and blotchy. Already I'm like, eehhh. Mr. Compson is the narrator in the second chapter. I need to re-read to find the real slant of his storytelling -- so far it has only been that he paints Rosa as less imposing than she herself does with her strong and judgemental voice; when she speaks, she makes the story ten feet tall, but when Compson tells it, there is a macho slant on Sutpen that makes him almost herioc and Rosa, (and most of the women he discusses) small. I really like the imagery concerning Sutpen building Sutpen's Hundred. I love how Compson talks about it like it is a macho Eden with naked men building and camping and hunting and boxing. It's like the Bower of Blisse, by golly. Plus I love the French Architect. He reminds me of a Decemberists song and I love manacles. I say.
Chapter 3
I got into chapter 3, but fell asleep without finishing it, so I'll have to re-read it (suprise!).
This is going backward, chaps, and it's like learning, no, not a new language, but a new way of walking, or watching Memento, or thinking, really. I do tend to "think back" a great deal. So, it's more like trying to learn how someone else thinks back AND keep up. Faulker demands that you get immersed.
4 comments:
So I created a blog so that I would not be anonymous. I do not feel empowered by anonymity, as some do.
Faulkner joined the British airforce via Canada. He never even left North America though because he was hurt while training. Then he was sent home and the war ended. He told everyone that he hurt himself at war. It was years before people knew the truth. So, yes, I think he had war-envy.
Tough Faulkner, like Absalom, is good reading, but great re-reading. I had a policy when reading tough books for the first time. I never re-read passages until I have finished. Even when I am totally lost, I just keep turning pages. Usually--if the book is good and tough, not just tough and tough--I will have an epiphany near the end of the book, where I start to get it.
Absalom was David's son who had long beautiful locks of hair. He tried to overthrow his father and nearly succeeded. He demonstrated his puissance by sleeping with David's wives. Then one of David's "mighty men" chased Absalom out of town. His delicious hair was caught in a branch and the horse ran off, leaving Absalom dangling. He was driven through with a spear. David was sad, and cried out "Absalom, Absalom!"
At least that is how I remember it.
By the way--I will be teaching the bible as literature class in teh fall. What fun.
I've been wanting to take the Bible as Litertaure. If I have to come back next Fall and it works out schedule-wise, I may. Is it a 200 class? I forget.
I see it was Amnon who raped Tamar, and Absalom was the avenger. Ambitious, to say the least.
You're a dear for creating an account. I read puissance "pussy-ance" at first. Damn contemporary American culture! Oh, the irony you impose upon me!
How is your hair, by the way?
I was about to display my Biblical knowledge to full effect, but Brandon (damn him damn him) beat me to it. The cry comes from the heart of David's soul, so to speak; despite his betrayal of his father, Absalomon was the "child of his father's heart," so to speak. Most of Faulkner's work, to my mind, is about the loss of the beloved -- whether it is a person, a region, a self.....
Yes, how the psyche reacts to loss.
So far Rosa has been confronted with loss from her birth. Her unwanted birth caused her mother to die and her father, aunt, and sister abandon her. She cuts her aunt's dresses down to size, to fit her. The whole time she is writing poetry and sewing lingerie, listening at shut doors, and hardly connecting with anyone. But there's something in her, a Southern Lady, apparantly. Maybe this is her divine core. There's a little of the Song of the South in here, a little bit, the loss of South -- but not so much. The townspeople don't seem to change from the cynical and suspicious people they have always been, but I'm only a little ways into things. The war hasn't changed much except Henry being gone (is it just me or is anyone else waiting for Henry and Charles Bon to be in love?), and Rosa's father locking himself up in the attic to die. That part reminded me of Cold Mountain when the boys get shot in front of their mother. The things I will watch just to see Jack White. But yes, I know about his feelings about the loss of self. I find it odd that so far, even though Rosa has been through so much, she seems like a rather empty character (but she's not at Supten's Hundred yet). Setting me up, I'm sure.
I have purchased The Sound and the Fury from the local used bookstore, and am now on chapter 4 in Absalom. I'm trying to get this done Floerke style -- reminding me of the Nanowrimo approach -- forge ahead, don't look back, and take no prisoners. I read aloud the first part of chapter 4 to Todd, and he was like, that's weighting down my brain thoughts, yo!
I love this. Although you all have already read it, it's like being in a book club, with my favorite learned instructors. It's like cupcakes and new shoes and copper petina.
You rule. You know this.
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