What am I in for?

good old fashioned southern incest

>>8710290
One of the best American novels and one of the best novels written in the last 100 years.

>>8710290
Finished it last week, it was surprisingly good.
Incredibly despondent southern Gothic family story with intermittent spatterings of deep universal truths and psychological insight.

I've read Sound and Fury and Absalom, how does it compare to them? I don't want to go in expecting something even better and experience a let-down. Absalom, Absalom was so amazing that I doubt Faulkner could say what he had to say in a better way.

>>8710816
I'd place AILD below TSatF, with A,A! above just about any single novel Faulkner wrote. It's very good, but somehow his earlier effort just seems better, more concise and better-constructed than AILD, although I think the format is interesting.

As a side note, Faulkner's Snopes trilogy is something you can't miss. Too often people focus on his more recognized novels and completely miss out on what I consider to be his late masterpiece. His short stories are also pretty great, with "That Evening Sun,' "All the Dead Pilots" and especially Go Down, Moses as his best in short fiction.

>>8710840
Not OP but thanks for this post. I have read Faulkner's four 'core' novels and was sort of wondering where to go from there.

>>8710794
>>8710805
Not OP but I'm about halfway through, is it okay I need to look up summary and analysis after every chapter?

>>8710816
As I Lay Dying is a comedy

>>8710816

The Sound and Fury is a better novel, but I like the Cubist-inspired form of As I Lay Dying.

>>8711983
bump

Fish

>>8711983
why the fuck would you care if it is "okay"? Okay by whose standards? Why do you care what their standards are? If you are too fucking stupid to read on your own, look up whatever you want. You probably need it because you're too stupid to realize how stupid of a question that is.Fuck

>>8710290
A brilliant novel written in POV with lots of Southern hicks.

>>8710816

Truthfully I'd say you read them in the wrong order then. As I Lay Dying is the easiest of the three and the most straightfoward in general structure. Absalom, Absalom is what I would consider to be the finale of his works.

That being said I prefer As I Lay Dying over the Sound and the Fury, along with everyone else I know. So I still recommend reading it simply because it is one of his best works.

>>8710290
I avoided reading this for so long and I regret doing so, it moved right to the top of my favourites list.
Vardaman's chapters are literary gold.

>>8711983

Faulkner probably wouldn't have given a fuck. I think with the Sound and the Fury he wanted a little guide placed in front of the book, along with annotations in the text to sort out the timeline. But his publisher said no.

>>8710290
Faulkner is a massive cuck but he's an excellent writer.

His writing has all the primordial stoicism and power of Cormac McCarthy's best work but applies it to the multifaceted subjectivity of human relationships rather than metaphysical madness.

My mother is a fish.

>>8710290

Apparently water is better from a cedar bucket.

>>8713800

What did he mean by this? I'm serious.

>>8714126
he was too young and didn't understand death. he associated his mother's state(dead) with the big catfish he caught(also dead) because it was the only death he's experienced. The smell of his mother's body affirmed it in his mind that she was in fact a fish.
I don't think anyone in his family ever sat him down and discussed it with him so he had to figure it all out on his own with what little means he had.
"my mother is a fish" was the best his mind could come up with to explain her being dead

>>8714154

Ok that makes sense.

I loved AILD, also read and enjoyed Light In August. But I tried SatF and I really just can't get into it/understand it properly. Is there anything I'm missing/should try to read alongside it or before it?

>>8714154

Faulkner is a master a capturing the confusing nature of youth and them trying to rationalize a world they can't understand.

>>8713380
this is the most underrated post i have ever seen on this board

File: vPAvtn2[1].jpg (9KB, 250x238px) Image search: [Google]

9KB, 250x238px

In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is.

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

>>8714276
Look up the characters beforehand, especially the black ones. With Benjy it's crucial you know which how the black people are related to one another, as it allows you to organize the timeline.

For example if he's with a person's son, you'll know it takes place later in the Compson timeline, or if he's with that person's father, it's earlier.

>>8714302

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

Honestly one of the most haunting lines in American literature.

>>8714276

Read the appendix first. It gives you a clear frame which to cling to.

>>8711983
Use every resource you need if it helps you understand the novel. Perfectly "okay".

It's a meme; Stream of consciousness is a meme.