It enables Faulkner to throw everything he has into each page, put his heart in every paragraph, and make each sentence piece of his soul. Although she hasn’t been there in forty-three years, she is adamant that someone is in that house. Locke was determined that Absalom would follow his rules, Absalom disagreed...ExcerptAt dusk Joel Locke came home from the university where he held the chair of psychonamics. Quentin chooses this story to tell about the South, linking it, in allegorical terms, to the whole rise and fall of the South. Absalom Absalom!- Review. To make his story into a myth, which hasn’t been told, Faulkner employs several devices. True to its own mythic character, it’s not clear who Absalom could be: Henry, Charles, Thomas, or Quentin — they are all lost sons. The first part of the story is being told by the elderly Rosa Coldfield to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was the best friend of Thomas Sutpen. His style is dense, sometimes fragmented, wordy and difficult to read. Further, in 2 Samuel, the rape and revenge murder occurs in chapter 13, but the title comes from the father’s, King David, cry in 2 Samuel 18, which is like nothing in the novel. is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. He has the longest sentences and the longest paragraphs of any other writer. Absalom, Absalom! He drives away his male friends and proposes to a town girl named Ellen Coldfield. So very interesting, Carl. The title Absalom, Absalom may present another accessibility issue, while it raises the work to biblical and mythical levels, it also misleads a hurried, less Bibically versed, reader. Without regret, Miss Rosa Coldfield says — (Save by her) Yes, save by her (And by Quentin Compson) Yes. Sutpen’s grand design is foiled because he won’t recognize someone that could be an eighth or sixteenth black. ( Log Out /  For years after the house is built, Thomas Sutpen entertains a band of his male friends with wild hunting and drinking parties and wrestling matches, until the day arrives when he decides he wants to acquire respectability in the form of a wife and children. When Henry Sutpen is grown (or almost grown), he goes away to college in Oxford, Mississippi. Instead it needed a quick strike, preferably on Washington — a city below the Mason & Dixon, with low natural barriers, and a sympathetic populous. by William Faulkner My rating: 4 of 5 stars The potential problem with someone like myself reviewing a novel of such distinction – according to some to be the greatest work of Southern Literature – is that I’m a total outsider when it comes to Faulkner’s work and hardly have the English major’s tools of analysis to dissect the nuance and depth of his prose. 13,319 Views . Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. With the hearts of Israel on his side, Absalom violently rebels against his father. Change ). Faulkner’s myth encompasses the South and Civil War and goes further, with elements like: the tragic hero destroyed by his weakness, the rejected son, the lost son, the anguished father, the bride left at the altar, and grotesque manifestations of repressed homoerotism and the shadow. The southern man’s strength and valor enabled him to hold out for so long for his lost cause, but his honor without pity doomed him from the start, a lost cause indeed. Absalom, Absalom! There's a Faulkner market — no question of that. Faulkner later suggests more than just simple friendship between the two, especially on Henry’s part.) In chapter five, Rosa comes back to narrate, not later that evening, but in a letter Quentin receives months later while at Harvard. Shreve’s drawn in. Absalom! And married her sister Ellen and begot a son and a daughter which — (Without gentleness begot, Miss Rosa Coldfield says) — without gentleness. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. His works are deep, cerebral, rich and complex. Slavery, its accompanying racism, moral filth, class system, sense of entitlement, and its aristocracy over meritocracy doom the South from the beginning. William Faulkner (1897-1962) is arguably the best American novelist of the twentieth century, the supreme literary stylist. The three principal male characters (Thomas Sutpen, Henry Sutpen, Charles Bon) all find themselves in battle. The Bible’s Absalom saga, retold in 2 Samuel Chapters 13–18, has several elements that may resonate in the novel, but the novel is not a reworked version of the saga. William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Myths contain just enough facts to pique our interest, but not every detail is given — so we have to provide them. shares certain characteristics with classical tragedy, and Faulkner uses Mr. Compson to make the connection clear. “And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him [Absalom] to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him. Search all of SparkNotes Search. Rosa Coldfield begins the story, for two chapters, on a hot late summer afternoon. The South parallels Absalom, the South took up arms in rebellion against the United States. Because as Rosa Coldfield says in the first chapter it was made up of men like Sutpen: “men with valor and strength, but without pity or honor”. The Dark House refers to Sutpen’s grand plantation house, around which the action begins and ends. Faulkner engages not by disclosing the full details of the events in question, but by bringing the reader into the rooms, woods, and roads of these characters. Like the best parables, myths welcome us to put ourselves in the roles of several characters because the characters are archetypes and reflect our collective consciousness. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Faulkner makes a strong point about the South’s caste system resulting in poor leadership. courtesy of CliffsNotes. Pink Roses says: January 12, 2021 at 9:39 pm. Short Stories, Reviews and Vintage Miscellany, Dysfunctional Family Story ~ An Anthology, Skive Magazine ~ Farewell Issue, November 2013, The Grey Wolfe Storybook 2014 ~ An Anthology of Poems, Essays, Stories, Typehouse Literary Magazine, September 2014, Issue 3, Write to Meow 2014 ~ Anthology of Stories, Poems, Essays, Write to Woof 2014 ~ Anthology of Stories, Poems, Essays, Phineas Gage ~ “The American Crowbar Case”, Seventy Years Ago ~ The Coconut Grove Fire, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, “Babylon Revisited” by F. 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Will he propose to her or won’t he? The novel’s title is taken from this verse — it’s a visceral lament by a father for his deceased son. T here’s malice in the royal palace when King David’s hottest son, Absalom, decides to stage himself a little coup de tat. In Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner examines the relationship between man's past and present actions through the complex character Thomas Sutpen and the legend of his rise and fall in the American South. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. shares certain characteristics with classical tragedy, and Faulkner uses Mr. Compson to make the connection clear. The novel begins in another dark house with Rosa Coldfield and her old fashioned thoughts about how to stay cool in the Mississippi summer, so there is a cute play there. In the meantime, between him finishing the letter and the reader finding out what happens that September night, Quentin re-tells the Sutpen story to Shreve, who also takes a hand at narration and adding detail. Usually my favorites change every once in a while – you know you read a book think it’s the best you’ve ever … Contrary to high school teaching, the South didn’t have the better generals. I read one of the HARDEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN!!! The Confederate States of America were exactly that — a confederacy of states. Through the power of the myth, generations reverse and Faulkner cries for the land and a people like a father cries after his son’s tragic death. Who came out nowhere and without warning upon the land with a band of strange n — — s and built a plantation — (Tore violently a plantation, Miss Rosa Coldfield says) — tore violently. Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp. It’s just realism—about everything. So, it’s critical that this novel be read and that the reader take the necessary time and patience with Faulkner, consult secondary sources sparingly, wait until the end to go back and try figure it out — like history, the novel is clearer in hindsight, but never crystal clear. Upon hearing the news, David issues one most anguished cries in all of the Bible: “And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Taking the uninterrupted time to place yourself in the novel, in the myth, will take you to places you’ve never been: like a confederate officer’s tent on a Carolina bivouac in the hard early spring of 1865 having walked backwards for a year, a thousand miles from Oxford, Mississippi; or into the grand library room of Supten’s mansion all decked out with holly and mistletoe for Christmas eve in 1860 — the last time there may have been joy in that house or the whole South; or the grand funeral pyre lit as the ambulance charges up the driveway; or in a posse surrounding the squatter’s cabin searching for the old rusty scythe of the grim reaper; and you’ll never forget taking out on a joyless Christmas day in 1860 in the iron cold through the rutted, frozen, empty North Mississippi woods in-route to the River, and all while sitting in the cold Harvard dorm room where the two boys, fifty years later, Quentin and Shreve, bring the missing scenes to life. However, Sutpen is far from a one dimensional demon of a romantic tale. To make sense of it, Shreve finds details left out that he, the listener, must provide. ( Log Out /  Without impacting the story, changing the title to Absalom, Absalom gives the novel the mythic quality Faulkner wants. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Overcoming his initial cynicism, Shreve takes the first jump in placing himself in the story, soon the reader does too. Far from renouncing his birthright, Absalom attempts to take his father’s throne by force and deception. To hold that wars are won and lost based on moral righteousness is an Old Testament concept. Be An Action-Oriented Ally to Black People…, Ho-Hum…Another Killer Cop Kills An Unarmed Black Woman, Spiritual white women: burying your head in the sand is hurting not healing, How to Be a Good Friend to Your Black Colleagues During Traumatic Times, Black women are the only ones showing up for black women.

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