I’ve never read any Faulkner. I’ve heard very mixed messages about his novels. But, it is only time that I will spend.
So, where should I start?
I’ve never read any Faulkner. I’ve heard very mixed messages about his novels. But, it is only time that I will spend.
So, where should I start?
I love him. There is something about the way he tells a story that I connect with, maybe because I experience the world in a way similar to how he relates it in his stories, with lots of sensory memory, non-linear storylines, and multiple points of view. I acknowledge that he’s not for everybody, but if you connect with his work, I think you will find it deeply affecting.
My favorite novel of his is As I Lay Dying. I think it’s pretty accessible, if you can handle multiple first person narrators. It’s about a dysfunctional family in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, which is where many of his stories take place. In fact, he has a cast of characters going back generations that show up in his novels regularly.
Many people consider The Sound and the Fury his best, but it can be pretty confusing, as one of the narrators is autistic (maybe) and tells events out of chronological sequence. A Light in August is also very good.
Have you ever read his short story “A Rose for Emily”? I think it’s his best-known work and gives you a feel for the kind of storyteller he is.
He’s great if you need to fall asleep.
READ READ READ!
Excellent author.
Essential if you’re serious about American literature. Not so much if not so much.
Well, there are several authors who are widely read that I had hard time reading. Thanks to the SDMB, I’ve spent time reading Dickens and Melville.
We read Light in August in 12th grade – it’s quite accessible, has a number of vividly memorable characters (Joe Christmas and [my favorite]Gail Hightower), and the writing is just fantastic. I’d start there.
You have to read Faulkner. If the rest of us had to read the boring son of a bitch, so do you! Only fair.
I liked some of the short stories and I liked *The Unvanquished *enough to reread it after high school, when it was assigned. That novel is loosely tied to some of the short stories.
I loathed Light in August, though.
Obviously, YMMV!
I hated what I read of his. For one thing, he plays really free and loose with grammar, which annoys me unless there is a reason for it and it’s done really well. Like he’ll have a long, meandering sentence that never gets around to having a verb, or he’ll use the same pronoun (like “he”) to refer to different people in a sentence in such a way that you have to read it three times to figure out wtf he is talking about. It is very possible to use “he” or “him” to refer to different people in the same sentence and have it be obvious–“He saw the dog was napping, and he was wagging his tail in his sleep.” There isn’t a lot of confusion there, so you can get away with it. With Faulkner, not so much. I read it a very long time ago but I remember it driving me batty. It was also boring as crap.
There is a reason for it. I don’t think Faulkner is a sloppy writer. His stuff is pretty experimental, but that was the era for it, and he’s got nothing on Joyce for seeming incoherence.
Hey, dale, just pick up As I Lay Dying from the library and give it a shot. It’s only 250 pages or so, not a huge time investment (IIRC, A Light in August is twice as long). If you don’t like it, at least you read on of the classics of American literature. If you do like it, then you can venture into some of the weirder stuff.
I can’t really say much as I read it when I was probably …19? 20? a long time ago, anyway, and I don’t actually remember the work so much as remember my opinion of the work. If I read it today, that opinion might be different–who knows?
I gave Faulkner a shot when I was in high school. I think we read “A Rose For Emily” at some point and I thought it was cool.
I read As I Lay Dying and really enjoyed it. Then I read The Sound And The Fury…or attempted to read it, at least…and that was enough Faulkner for me
I haven’t yet read “As I Lay Dying” and I probably won’t, but your other choices are excellent writing. I would point out that “The Sound and the Fury” is very, very difficult to follow because one of the narrators has a mental illness. Faulkner’s short stories are generally much more accessible. “Barn Burning” is a good read as a short.
Yeah, if you start Faulkner with The Sound and the Fury, you might want to save the first chapter (Benjy’s chapter) for last because it’s extremely challenging reading. I barely made it through without throwing the book against the wall, but then the second chapter (Quentin’s chapter) is, like, one of my favorite things I’ve ever read ever, so I’m glad I stuck with it. Don’t let that first chapter scare you off.
I adore Faulkner, but genetically I probably have to, considering I’m also a Mississippian. Anyway, I’d recommend checking out an anthology of his short stories to start with. Faulkner writes very densely – I have to reread a Faulkner story 2 or 3 times to grasp everything’s that’s going on.
If you’re going to read The Sound and The Fury, try the color-coded version. Benjy’s chapter, and to a lesser extent Quentin’s, are incomprehensible without it.
I read Go Down, Moses for a college English class. I remember enjoying it although we discussed it quite a bit in class, that might have helped me understand what might have otherwise been more confusing and impenetrable.
From what I remember it is a group of separate stories that follow members of an extended family over a long period of time. Many of the chapters could pretty much stand on their own as short stories.
Ah, Faulkner. Leading light of the Southern Life Sucks school of literature.
He’s not that hard to read and the things his characters get up to really can’t be described as boring (horrifying, disgusting or pointless, yeah, but not boring). Just don’t expect a resolution or an explanation or sunshine.
Faulkner is from that modernist school of novel writing that believes that the reader has to work towards understanding. It’s not like reading Stephen King or John Grisham. It’s a puzzle and you really have to engage with it, put in some effort, to get it on all its levels. I understand that a lot of people don’t want to do that. If you’re reading strictly for leisure or escapism, he’s not the man for you. Beach reading he ain’t. He does reward the diligent reader, though. You have to be in the mood for it. It’s great stuff.