Read about 50 pages last night. Got through Quentin's chapter. I'm mostly horribly confused. Did he have sex with his sister? Did they just talk about other people having sex? Is Caddy dead? Is she sending Quentin Jr. money? Why is Jason Jr. so angry? Is he the "Fury"? And always the threat of Jackson. Why did the father drink himself into the ground? He was alive when Quentin met the people of Absalom. And what's Anse doing working for the Sherrif? I'm' into the chapter written from Jason Jr.'s perspective, and his rage just stresses me out. I think after I went to bed I ground my teeth all night long.
I have a feeling like I've been talking in my sleep all night. It makes me tired. I can't wait to talk about it with y'all when I'm done. Maybe we could have a book club-ish meeting at my house this summer. I think Joe should come, too, because if I'm not mistaken, I think he has a picture of Faulkner in his office, and that must mean that he likes him. We'll roast a chicken.
I have to make sense of this book. I have come to some kind of conclusion. I'm halfway through and it's like I'm ready for it to start already.
So, after Sound, I may switch authors. I may switch to MOBY DICK. Yes, folks, I'm going to read about the whale and the man and the harpooning.
I'm hungry. What's for breakfast?
6 comments:
First of all, I love Moby Dick to no end. Don't listen to any nay-sayers and parade-pissers out there who are going to tell you "Arg!" and "Whuh?" and "That book is so blah blah blah!" It is a great and immensely enjoyable book. Keep this in mind when you read it: Ahab wants to kill this whale with a harpoon (so barbarically heroic); but Ishmael wants to "kill" the whale as well--with his mind. No, he does not have psionic powers. He is undertaking an equally heroic intellectual "quest." This is the way to read all the bit about the rope and the process of ripping blubber off and stuff.
But I should warn you with this: if you end up liking Moby Dick, you will be the first female person that I have ever met to tell me "I like Moby Dick." I don't know whether Blythe likes it. Joe (who you will remember is a male--so I am switching trains of thought here) certainly does not like the book--as I recall.
Now--Sound. It gets easier now--I think the first two sections really start to make sense as you get through the last two sections.
Jason is a prick and I get stressed out just thinking about him.
Did Q sleep with Caddy? I am not sure if the book answers this unambiguously. He certainly seems to have an... unhealthy fixation on his sister. And they roll around in the mud, so... you know.
The first time I read this book, the thing that stressed me out the most was that I didn't know what a flat iron was. Isn't that funny--all the impenetrable mysteries of that book, and my 19 year old mind was distraught by something that I could have looked up in a dictionary?
I need to reread that book.
Blythe is having the whole Fall '07 Literature class read Moby Dick, so it's safe to assume she likes it. Or, knowing Blythe, she may not, and want imput on it. I like when Blythe doesn't like something, she still gives it a chance, and wants feedback.
My whole dilemma is that it's hard for me to read books about killing animals. I know that it's just a book, and there are thousands of people out saving the whales, and that whale hunting is a milenniums-old cultural quest -- but I still don't really like hunting. I'm not out to impale anyone who hunts, I just don't like it. I couldn't finish Life of Pi because of the animal stress. But since Moby DIck seems to be more symbolic and a bit of a psychological journey -- I think I can hang. I'm already a Hemingway fan, so I've got one foot in the masculine pond, but who knows. I may not like it for other reasons. Something tells me that I probably will like it -- at worst I'm sure I will respect it a great deal. I do like the name Melville. It would make a good middle name.
Joe! You refuse to be predictable. When are you going to start commenting?
And as for the ambiguous nature of Quentin and Caddy's relationship, as a wise man once said, sometimes the threat of incest is more frightening than the actual incindent. You can exchange and word for incest -- anything that is terrifying, whether psychologically or physically.
Quentin has an acute sense of shame; shame enough, it would seem, for incest to be possible. It's certainly alluded to, and in Sanctuary, when you weren't sure something awful had actually happened to Temple, something beyond what you had imagined had taken place, something so much more distressing than virginity lost, something else, something that springs from a dangerous concoction of bad luck, boredom, and lack of acceptance, or a large dose of fanatical social expectations. What is one of the most interesting facet of Faulkner's writing is his use of the family unit and relationships in conveying chaos. Traditions and values are ingrained in the psyche in the home, within the family, and although Faulkner doesn't come out and say, hey this is what southern values and traditions were like and this is how people were affected by them -- but he gives some fuzzy setting, some scant action, and a literary tilt-a-whirl of ideas, memories, and concepts that superimpose to create a madness so real you almost recognize it as some nightmare from yesteryear. Having three brothers myself, knowing what kind of choas it is to exist with just enough family members to be close with all of them, and to scarecely feel that you are really yourself, and not a head on a sibling monster.
I'm thinking of doing something, like going on a retreat. I need to get away, and really think. I'd love to do a cleanse/meditation/quiet time/thing. I better do it now, when there's no children, right?
Melville is one of my all-time favorite authors, so Brandon can just go suck an egg, as my mother would say. I think Melville is hilarious and horribly sad and basically one of the biggest misfits I've ever "met" in a book. What kind of females do you hang out with, Brandon? Clearly not the #1 Coolsters like Brooke and me.
That said, I mostly prefer short stories over novels -- this is true not simply of Melville, but of almost every author who writes in both genres. There's something about saying a lot in a few words that really appeals to me. So although I do love Moby Dick, I have a preference for things like Benito Cereno and Bartleby.
I don't think Quentin does Caddy; I think he longs for her, but, of course, so do all three of her brothers, in different ways. She is the Absence at the Center of the text to drift over to deconstructionist terms. Quentin strikes me as too hung up with the intellectuality of things to have actually engaged in the physical act. But it is entirely, of course, up to one's interpretation. It is just that Faulkner's men tend to be so very impotent in one way or another -- geez, the one rape scene in Faulkner's work, as I remember, I believe, uses a corn cob. Joe Christmas gets castrated. Jason (horrible horrible man) just plays with his money....Clearly, given the complicated family history -- SOME of the men must do it, Colonel Sartoris does, of course, and incest is a reoccuring theme in Faulkner, but, on the whole, Faulkner's men are not very sexually adept creatures.
Anyway, my goodness Brooke, you need to keep track of your blogs and use them in papers and, especially, if you take Am Lit next semester with me, TURN THEM IN.
Oh, you. I'm still smiling from being a #1 Coolster.
I know. I need to get my head screwed on. I just watched the Daniel Johnston documentary today, and I was almost weeping at one point. When he sang so childlike about loosing his mind, I just about melted down.
Maybe I'll use, heck, I don't know, a calandar next semester. Or something.
And yes it was Temple who got raped with the dry corn cob by Popeye. That was intense, as was the lynching of the other man in Sanctuary who died for the crime.
By the way, have you seen Crispin Glover as Bartleby? It's/he's so good. It's excellent, but you have to be in the mood for it. You almost have to catch it by accident. Glover is perfect. He's one of those actors that I would love to interview, but I have the feeling that he wouldn't want to be interviewed by me. I would ask him a bigillion questions about the role of George McFly. I mean how did he do it? What was he, like 19 at the time? He's insane. Insanely good, that is.
I think Moby Dick is the greatest work of literature published before the Civil War. I can't imagine ever teaching 221 without assigning it. Each time I read it (and that's into the double digits now), I find something new to appreciate. It's rather like my feelings toward the film Casablanca. It just gets better and richer each time you encounter it.
By the way, I just checked and, yes, I am male.
Look who joined the masquerade! Hooray!
So, in the light of your confession of approval towards Moby Dick, you must chime in as we discuss.
And where are your thoughts on Sound?
You've got one foot in, let's take the plunge already.
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