My title is controversial, I'll admit, but after close consideration of the other major candidates (and I don't exclude great novels that have come to be considered unworthy of academic "canonization"), and after teaching it (or attempting to) on three separate occasions, this is not only the Faulkner work but the single American novel that remains in tenaciously ensconced in consciousness, continually vibrant, informing the reader about him or herself as well as American history past and present. But even on the two occasions when I taught a class that "seemed" incapable of staying the course, students continued to remain attentive, practically insisting I tell them the story through a teacher's "translation." Also, Faulkner's short story "Wash" can be very useful in conveying the fate of Thomas Sutpen in concise, clear terms that do no serious injury to Faulkner's narrative idea and thematic purpose, especially in the novel's last half. The following analysis is necessarily dense and a trifle abstruse, at least initially, for an author whose primary "ostensible" subjects are language and race, but if the reader simply approaches the story as a good yarn--perhaps with the aid of a bare-bones break-down or outline at her side-the novel should prove highly accessible--admittedly difficult at times, but it's an "earned difficulty," repaying the reader many times over for the investment of time and work (I've never subscribed to the notion that reading literature has to be "fun." Moreover, it's hard for me to believe that those readers who complain about the "Absalom's" difficulty have as yet tackled the work most often used to represent Faulkner--"The Sound and the Fury.")

As physical beings we exist in that spatial-temporal order designated as "nature." But as humans we also exist in an exclusive realm of "consciousness," which might be described as a vast, collective energy field made up of the signs, i.e. "language," by which we try to make sense of existence. This field is beyond the grasp of any of us, not only its vast and oceanic proportions but its dynamic, protean flow resisting ownership by a single instance of consciousness. Perhaps one individual has tapped into this immense reservoir more completely, directly, and vitally than any other--William Shakespeare. Who else even comes close to harnessing the stream and containing the flood long enough to permit the rest of us some sense of its unlimited potential?

Despite the Bard's uniqueness as the fountainhead, the matrix, the mother of modern Western consciousness (I tend to agree with Harold Bloom's assessment on this point, at least), a handful of succeeding language-bearers have proven capable of tapping into the same source. In American literature, and certainly literature of the 20th-century, Faulkner is the chosen one, the Promethean genius who affords the rest of us an opportunity to ride the stream.

As a preceding reviewer has suggested, there's no way to summarize "Absalom, Absalom!" without misrepresenting it. The "themes" are the mere toeholds Faulkner offers to readers who try to mount the surfboard and stay with the churning, changing syntax and shifting referents of his 500-word sentences long enough to reach the beachhead. Even getting thrown (which is inevitable on many of the more torrential tidal waves) is, to say the least, a heady if not visceral and energizing experience. Despite the unique achievements of "As I Lay Dying," "Sound and the Fury," "Light in August," and "Go Down, Moses," this is Faulkner's most impressive and most rewarding novel. It's likely to frustrate, but don't quit on it. It's capable of paying more dividends than perhaps any other American literary work. Compare Faulkner's story about Thomas Sutpen and his "Grand Design" to any similar stories about the "American Dream"--by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolf, Steinbeck--or to any of the subsequent writers said to be "Faulknerian" in their style. The others are suddenly diminished, and the singular achievement of this Southern, uneducated, probably possessed, alcoholic becomes all the more remarkable. in many respects, Faulkner's narrative structure is closer to Orson Welles' in "Citizen Kane" than that of his literary contemporaries or forbears (though Browning's "The Ring and the Book" adapts a similar technique of gradually exposing what is true through ever tighter circles drawn by a succession of different narrators).

Most of us would do well to write more simply and concisely ourselves and to bring suspicious minds to verbiage that seems disproportionate to its actual content and meaning. But there's no need to be suspicious of Faulkner's story or storytelling style. Simply trust it. The style and meaning are a match, a perfect fit. Faulkner's meanings about the tragedy of a "grand design" gone wrong become significant because of our underlying sense of one that is going right.

As others have pointed out, the novel can be read as an allegory of the rise and fall of the Old South. But it's at least equally absorbing in its probing into the recesses of individualized human consciousness. Much has been made of Faulkner's psychological portrayal of Addie Bundren through her sole monologue in "As I Lay Dying." But it quickly pales when compared with the unexpected yet exquisite and supremely rewarding journey into the psyche and heart of Rosa Coldfield, who is suddenly transformed from caricature into a woman of infinite complexity, possessing depth commensurate with her heart's capacity for desiring.

As for the novel's heart, it's as big as its creator's--compassionate, humble, loving of all creatures born equal under God. A key question posed by the story is: what is the difference between the "illegitimate" offspring of a white plantation owner/black slave relationship and the "despised" child of an octoroon? The answer to that question is one of the novel's great epiphanies, a moment in which the reader recognizes his own place in the narrative and is one with Faulkner's world. It's an insight that is better "earned" than explained. After seeing so many of Faulkner's characters paralyzed, crippled, and destroyed through stubborn, incestuous adherence to the pure and abstract ideal of achromatic "whiteness" (not simply Southern supremacists like Sutpen and Old South reactionaries like the Compsons but Northern Puritans like Joanna Burden), the reader suddenly apprehends Faulkner's profoundly simple moral lesson: "blackness" is humanness.

This is a dark, convoluted, complex novel written in a stream of consciousness text that can easily confuse and scare the casual reader away. For the serious reader who is willing to put the time and effort into this work of art you will not be let down. First, however, you must read The Sound and the Fury (SAF). If you work your way through that novel and you "get it" and love it, then Absalom is a absolute must. But be prepared. T.S. Eliot once said of the book that it communicates before it is understood. Typical Faulkner. It takes some fortitude and a little background. Let me help with a little background. For starters, The title comes from an the Old Testament (2 Samuel 13). Absalom, one of David's sons kills his brother Amnon for raping their sister Tamar. Hence the title and a clue. The book is full of clues and in a sense can be taken by the reader as detective story full of mystery and revenge, suspense and gothic drama. This is the story of Southern tradgedy and the fall of the House of Sutpen. The central character is Thomas Sutpen who is the fountainhead of the southern, self-reliant man seeking to reach the American dream through creating a grand design of dynasty. To pass his dynasty on to his eldest legitimate son is part of the design and part its downfall. The story takes place before, during, and after the Civil War and issues such as race, miscegenation, class, economy, worker's rights, women's rights are all spun into the story that is a portrait of Southern realism. The story is told by four narrators: Quentin Compson (from SAF), Quentin's father, Quentin's roomate Shreve, and Miss Rosa Coldfield. Quentin however is the central narrator and by reading SAF one can better understand the issues facing Quentin and the reason he struggles so much with this story. Absalom is very much the story of Quentin's hatred for the bad qualities in the southern country that he loves. Much of the story as told by Quentin and Shreve is purely imaginative construction of what could have been as they speculate on the enigmatic drama that unfolds. In the back of the book is a genealogy and chronology which is extremely helpful as the story often jumps from one time period to another and from one character to another. Work on keeping it straight and reread if necessary. The book doesn't get any easier as it moves toward the conclusion. Do trust Faulkner. If you pay attention, he pulls it together and you will discover why this novel is, in my opinion, the greatest American novel of the 20th century.

I was unprepared for the writing style. Incredibly long sentences full of side thoughts and repetitions. No clue what was actually going on or who these characters were.

I complained to a friend and she advised me to quit trying to understand and just let it all wash through in a flood of vivid pictures and powerful words.

I started over with a new mind set and what an awakening that produced. Eventually, a plot and themes came together. The beauty of Faulkner’s prose equaled the intensity of the plot. The four narrators relate the story with some differences in their recollection of what happened, much like what happens in real life with eye witness accounts.

It is a splendid book and I’m grateful that I reached out for help and persevered.

As William Faulkner handed his finished manuscript of "Absalom, Absalom!" to his friend to read, Faulkner said something along the lines of 'this is the best American novel written yet' (I paraphrase). I first saw this brazen statement upon finishing the novel, and while I truly loved the book and everything about it, that statement still irritated me: why would anyone ever say something so pretentious? However, once I looked at the publishing date, and gave it some thought, I concluded that Faulkner's statement, however pretentious it might have been, was completely accurate. "Absalom!" is my fifth favorite novel, and the only novels that precede it are either not American or written after 1936 when "Absalom!" was published. Thus, yes, it IS the best American novel written before 1936; it's that good.

I've read Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying," both of which were excellent in their own ways, and I've heard respectable cases stating that either of those novels are his best. But they're really not. "Absalom, Absalom!" is, without a doubt, Faulkner's best novel. His most intelligent characters, originating from "The Sound and the Fury," (Quentin Compson, Shreve, and Jason Compson Sr.) return to this novel, narrating a tragic story that sums up the decay of the South and its clinging people. People. Yes, this story is about people: what they do and why they do it. Thomas Sutpen's tragedy is seen indirectly through the eyes of several characters--whether Miss Rosa or Quentin or Mr. Compson or Shreve--and the reader has to find a way to trust these characters on the information they provide.

Ultimately, it's Faulkner's incredibly powerful style that pulls the entire novel together. Often using page-long sentences to express ideas and thoughts, Faulkner is able to communicate with such descriptive language that the reader becomes engulfed entirely in the work. "Absalom!" is doubtless Faulkner's magnum opus, comparable in quality to Steinbeck's "East of Eden" and Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov." There are only a handful of books in history written better. I adore the book and encourage any fan of modernist literature to give it a try. You won't be disappointed: anyone intelligent would agree.

To read Faulkner and to then contemplate the freshly read sentences is to say that having a cavity-filled wisdom tooth extracted without the benefit of anesthesia is not painful; the final result, however, is worth the pain and journey. Faulkner is either loved or hated, in my mind, by most readers. I, however, love him. He is an acquired taste. I did not appreciate him in high school or college, but then I had not experienced a 25-year Dalwhinnie Single Malt Scotch either. I wouldn't have like any Scotch then. Faulkner to me is that fine Scotch that is appreciated more after years of experience sampling others that just don't hit the mark.

The story of Sutpen and the Coldfields is a complex one that is not easily unraveled by Faulkner's writing. But then again that complex writing make the story all that more compelling. And, after all that, and one must go through all that, the last two paragraphs provide the most satisfaction. The reader must not cheat! The ending will be more provacative and more revealing if one survives all the preceding pages.

Sara Robinson, Author: Love Always, Hobby and Jessie

Having read three major works by Faulkner, I never thought Faulkner's prose to be THAT long and convoluted until I read this one. The sentences go on and on, sometimes for half a page, sometimes for an entire page, strung together with clause after clause, requiring the reader to really focus and remember what the subject of the enormous sentence is, though retaining and figuring out what all the clauses are referring to is often times hard to determine as you get lost in that meandering prose that keeps burgeoning like this, sometimes ignoring grammar altogether, sometimes even omitting commas when listing euphuistic obscure poetic little adjectives, punctuated with long parenthetical asides (kind of like this, making it hard to follow the gist of the sentence and causing momentary amnesia whereby the subject of the sentence you tried so hard to retain throughout the long serpentine sentences is almost completely obliterated, sometimes made more complex by an insertion of another parenthetical aside inside of it (like this, you see?) compelling you to go ALL THE WAY back to the beginning and skip the asides altogether and re-read the entire damn thing again to wholly understand what the hell it's saying), the inexplicable semi-colon followed by a dash -- the dash long and imposing, confusing and unnecessary, enclosing more clause after clause in this fashion, severing the subject from everything else that is relevant and instrumental in understanding the sentence as a whole;-- the dash further elongating and compounding the sentence, and all those "not only...but" constructions that are sometimes embedded in or juxtaposed with a negative clause, making it outright ANNOYING (here it is, just CHECK this out) not because they are unpoetic (it can be at times) or stylistically uninteresting (because sometimes - just sometimes - it is) but not only because they are unnecessary and time-consuming to read but because they are just damn confusing!

So if you made it this far in my review and took the time to understand what I said above, you should be able to handle Absalom, Absalom!. Or maybe not. Though there are ups and downs, the entire book is written in this convoluted style. So know what you're getting yourself into before tackling this difficult work.

The story, on the other hand, is interesting. Though 90% of it is really telling and not showing at all, it's generally interesting enough to impel you through the dense, clattered prose and understand the story of a mysterious and impeccable man bent on building a dynasty of his own. In a nutshell, it's a good Shakespearian tragedy (the son destroying the dynasty) with a good Southern twist (in particular, racism).

Overall, despite my parody of his style, I did enjoy the unique experience of reading Faulkner at his most convoluted. An interesting (yet hard) read.

I have to say that I have enjoyed many Faulkner novels, but this is not one of them. That is not to say it is not a great book and deserves to be read, but in truth, I did not find it enjoyable to read.

I hate to admit when I must determined and focused to fully appreciate and digest a book, but Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! is one of those books. This masterpiece explores some dark territory, and does especially well in conveying our complex relationship with the past. Faulkner blurs all distinctions of good and evil, as the American Civil War ravages the rural south and along with them; the moral compass of the people living in those times. He creates distrust of accounts of the past, when seen through various accounts of different people with different motivations. He creates the character of Thomas Sutpen, a man who may never have had any compassion or humanity, but abandons it in his determination to achieve worldly status. Faulkner doesn't make this character a full-tilt Satan figure; but slowly reveals details which begin to explain this man's actions. A reader will never forget this book, or the accounts of things which took place out on Sutpen's Hundred. The author's vivid descriptions anchored in all-too-familiar flaws and behavioral tics of the characters leave an impression.

示された表紙と同じ本を受け取りました。嬉しかったです。ありがとうございます！

Mon premier Faulkner.

Un style bien à lui mais un grand écrivain.

l'histoire de la reconstruction d'une histoire, celle d'un homme, construite autour du témoignage de différents personnages.

Très bien écrit, facile à lire (par contre lire avec un 'ternary rhythm').

Great characters and very full story

un libro che subito vuoi bruciare nel fuoco. ma dopo piano piano ci entri dentro - il modo di scrivere di Faulkner ti fa pensare e ripensare e dopo aver finito di leggere ti senti una parte di quel mondo li e ti senti un'altro.

Ein für mich im Englischen schwer zu lesendes Buch weil ungewohnter Erzählstil; inhaltlich jedoch fesselnd.