AUTHOR: William Faulkner
CATEGORY: Adult
PUBLISHED: 1929
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
PREMISE: A book detailing the various tragedies of the Compson family.
MY THOUGHTS: Oh boy, where do I begin with this one? Full disclosure: I hate this book. I understand it was experimental fiction. According to literature snobs, this book is genius. Me...I just think it's a confusing mess. This book is a perfect example of pretentious as hell.
I'm sorry writers, but if I need some sort of key or code to understand your book...you did not write a very good book. Someone on Goodreads explained it perfectly: this is a book that makes people feel smart if they get it, so they decided that meant it was a masterpiece. All of this is not even going into the rampant sexism and racism in this book. Faulkner was definitely a man of his time and so that stuff is everywhere in this. Again: I know, it was written in the twenties. Again: DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY and definitely does not mean I have to like it. I also frankly did not care for the way Faulker messed with writing style in this. I assume there was some sort of reason he kept changing up whether or not he was going to use apostrophes on things like don't or won't, but really all he succeeded in doing was making me want to take a big red pen and correct my book.
This is yet another classic that I just could not get into. Do I get what the author was going for? Sure. Is it brilliant writing...well...I don't think so but writing is very often in the eye of the beholder. I think this book is kind of a product of its time and hasn't aged terribly well. Perhaps I will try his other books (I hear they're all kind of different from each other) but...don't hold your breath.
WHO SHOULD READ: Literature fans, Faulkner fans, Hemingway fans
No comments:
Post a Comment