Ok, so everyone has for years told me how great a writer William

Lmao true

>>9823233
P R E T E N T I O U S

>>9823233
t. goodreads

>>9823233
t. YANKEE

>>9823233
I'd really like to see this person's reaction to The Sound And The Fury.

>inb4 Faulkner pales in comparison to Robert Jordan, a true world builder!

Kill yourself.

Recently read a review from a guy in his early 40s saying that he thought Faulkner was a genius when he was 20, but now he realizes that he was a "pretentious racist and misogynist". I thought you were supposed to go through your social justice phase in your 20s and then settle down, but I guess this guy had some kind of political Benjamin Button syndrome.

>>9823815
This isn't even about social justice so much as it's about understanding context. Kids these days would say Bob Dylan was racist for saying "nigger" in a song. never mind the context or meaning, the fact he said it is enough to indict him. Not that Dylan ever gave much of a shit about black folk, beyond what he could monetize.

>>9823774
>Implying this person would even understand The Sound and the Fury
They couldn't even understand As I Lay Dying, apparently. I have no idea what kind of stereotypes they're referring to when it comes to the characters in that novel. They were all rather unique and well fleshed out.

>>9823899
I bet they couldn't get past the accents.

>>9823899
That was the point of my post. They clearly didn't understand his work as is, so what drivel they'd say about his most complex book would be hilarious.

>>9823233

Well, obviously you haven't read the one about Tomey's Turl, to wit "Was" in Go Down, Moses.

You can't beat the characters in that, nor the comedy.

Nor the sheer, down home wisdom:

>I gonter tell you something to remember: anytime you wants to git something done, from hoeing out a crop to getting married, just get the womenfolks to working at it. Then all you needs to do is set down and wait. You member that.

And the rest of the book. Because I'm being a little facetious about "Was," although it made me laugh my ass off, and it does have some great characters. And "The Bear," particularly the long version in this book, is one of Faulkner's great stories. And the book as a whole may not be Faulkner's best, but it's very rich and deep. (I really don't see how you can say Faulkner has "no real strengths at characterization"; his characters leap off the page in my reading, with the freshness and strangeness and delight of encountering a living human being. I think of, e.g., "The Fire and the Hearth," also in Go Down, Moses, and all the characters in it - i.e., *all* the characters, from Lucas to the salesman, to the briefly glimpsed Chancellor and the even more briefly glimpsed clerk - all of them, vivid and alive.)

There's a reason people think he's a great writer. It's not just their imagination, and it's not just mental masturbation, it's because Faulkner's achievement is so large and wide it's awesome - it boggles the mind, it's god-tier.

Now, will he survive the test of time? Will he be recognized as good or great 100 years from now? 300 years from now? I don't rightly know.

It's an interesting question, but not as interesting as reading Faulkner's fiction in the current year.

>>9823233
Supreme b8, m80.