Thoughts on this book?

>>8855610
Don't really have any. I haven't read it.

had literally zero fucking clue what was going on in the river-crossing scene

havent read it, or any faulkner

sage

>>8855610
I love it, read it very quickly.
Characters are absolutely visceral, Faulkner's characterization and psychological examinations are on par with Woolf and Dostoyevsky.
He managed to make characters both uneducated but spoke with incredible prose while retaining believability.
Genuinely thought provoking, I find myself thinking about his little philosophical bits often in my own life. I went in not expecting much (it's considered the starting point for Faulkner here) but was absolutely blown away. I like it more than The Sound and The Fury.

>>8855620
ty for the input.

it was incredibly enjoyable and so brilliantly written, it knocked my socks off
the character were all great, and i loved the shifting style for each pov
and the style was so vivid and descriptive

>They stand in rigid terrific hiatus, the horse trembling and groaning. Then Jewel is on the horse's back. He flows upward in a stooping swirl like the lash of a whip, his body in mid-air shaped to the horse. For another moment the horse stands spraddled, with lowered head, before it bursts into motion. They descend the hill in a series of spine-jolting jumps, Jewel high, leech-like on the withers, to the fence where the horse bunches to a scuttering halt again.

like this passage, this description of a guy getting on a horse. it's fucking amazing to me. who else could describe a guy getting on a horse like that?

I just finished it, loved it.

Does anyone else get really depressed after finishing a great book? I feel like I lost access to a world that brought me so much comfort/enjoyment. I don't know what to do with myself.

>>8855610
stream of consciousness is garbage

>>8856183
can u tell me y?

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>>8856191
The prose is too superfluous and takes away from the plot, which, in this case, isn't very robust.

>muh family struggles
>muh mom's a fish


Shit's weak, yo.

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Pretty fucking amazing, it's seriously incredible how well he switches between writing styles.

>>8856199
How is it "superfluous"?

>>8856199
>Reading for the plot
>Reading for any other purpose that philosophical insights or beautiful language

If the plot is what you're interested in, why not just read shitty super-market-paperback-tier novels of YA, they tend to have more engaging and exciting plots anyway... or why not watch a movie or something.

>>8856199
You can pretty much boil down any book into:

>muh struggles

And sometimes with Faulkner, his prose is the way it is because he's playing around with the way words sound in terms of metering, tone ect. Sometimes writing isn't just solely about the plot, and if that's just what you look for in a book then that could explain why your criticism is so superficial.

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>>8856243
>>8856246

>reeee you can't dislike what I enjoy reading

>>8856276
Go back to /tv/ if you're incapable of having a discussion.

i thought the ending was hilarious

It's superior to The Sound and the Fury imo

>>8856243
>philosophical insight
Read actual philosophy

>beautiful language
Read poetry

Im a total pleb when it comes to fiction, can someone explain to me /lit/'s aversion of plot in literature?

>>8855620
>>8855639
Circling the fucking drain is what this board is doing

>>8857533
They don't have an aversion to the story, but the story is only an element that makes up the totality of a work. The story is used to do something more important than the story itself, it is instrumental. /lit/ dislikes works that are only story because they are vapid.

>>8857774
This my dood. Bad writers have nothing to say

>>8855610
M Y
M O T H E R
I S
A
F I S H

>>8855610
My mother is a fish.

I twice tried to read the book but failed. Thankfully I had to try again (it was an assigned reading for class) and third time was the charm.

It is a really tough book, and you have to be the kind of person who enjoys the challenge, but it is extremely rewarding and it still remains in my mind as one the clear examples of what makes good literature. Perhaps the greatest American Novel.

>>8858746
The only thing tough about it was getting through finishing it, not the work itself.

I went into it with high hopes but now I'm not looking forward to reading the other work of his that I have.

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>>8858746
>Perhaps the greatest American Novel.

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>>8858746
>As I lay Dying
>A challenge
All you have to do is to keep track of a few characters for the first twenty pages before you know who the important ones are. It's a pretty easy novel by Faulkner's standards.

>>8855629
Yeah man, fuck. That scene is confusing. Read it this summer and I can only remember impressions of things--somebody's drowning? Smelly body, conversation between people, did the body fall in the water? Etc.

Really enjoyed the book overall although I've only read this and Sound. Gonna tackle Absalom in the next few weeks.

>>8855610

I thought the chapter from the mother's perspective was absolutely heartbreaking. The ending was genuinely hilarious and disturbing. I guess the father reminds me of most the male adult figures in my life (incompetent, selfish, pathetic).

>>8860045
Shit, yeah. The mother's chapter is the best in the book. And by far has the best language:

"So I took Anse. And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it. That was when I learned that words are no good; that words dont ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not. I knew that fear was invented by someone that had never had the fear; pride, who never had the pride. I knew that it had been, not that they had dirty noses, but that we had had to use one another by words like spiders dangling by their mouths from a beam, swinging and twisting and never touching, and that only through the blows of the switch could my blood and their blood flow as one stream."

That chapter has the most underlinings in my copy. Fucking killer.

>>8858746
It definitely isn't that challenging man, no offense. you probably approached it weird. with Faulkner you have to disregard plot completely and view it simply as character motivation. you also have to be accepting of the fact that you might not have a full grasp of what is happening because Faulkner tells the story from within the character's mind, not viewing them from outside. I think Woolf is a bit better at that sort of writing.

except for this >>8855629 shit lmao.
they kinda filled in the blanks when they looked back on it, but fuck me if that wasn't awful narration.

>>8860045
Her chapter was incredible. It stuck with me the most, her thoughts on words and feelings. Her quote, something like "for people to whom sin is just words, salvation is just words too." That stuck with me more than anything else in the novel.

>>8855610
Fucking hilarious. The pharmacist who rapes Dewey Dell is fucking great. Love his attitude.

I mean, despite the rape.

>>8855701
I loved how unbelievably stupid and horrible all the characters were. I mean, fuck, cement for cast?

Not to mention, "Bury the bitch so I can false teeth."

>>8857774
>vapid
Not to mention, shallow.

>>8859990
Well to be fair, it's pretty challenging try to work out what's happening off-page. Dewel Dell's boyfriend, for example.

>My mother does not smell like that. My mother is a fish.

Teared up a little at this part, NGL.