Reading Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom!

Reading Faulkner Series

by Joseph R. Urgo

Absalom, Absalom! has long been regarded as one of William Faulkner's most difficult, dense, and multilayered novels. It is, on one level, the story of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him." On another level, the book narrates the tragedy that befalls the entire Sutpen family and that tragedy's legacy that continues well into the twentieth century and beyond. The novel's intricate, demanding prose style, and its haunting dramatization of the South's intricate, demanding history make it a masterpiece of twentieth-century American literature.

Reading Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom! offers a close examination and interpretation of the novel. Here difficult words and cultural terms that might prove to be a problem for general readers are explained and keyed to page numbers in the definitive Faulkner text (Library of America and Vintage editions). The authors place Faulkner's novel in its historical context, while also connecting it to his other works.

Genres: Literature, Nonfiction

207 pages, ebook

First published February 2, 2010

Reviews

[Searnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work provided the valuable classroom lectures that were not available to me. It is very helpful both in its discussions on themes, keeping the plot course clear and it provides a useful bibliography/further reading list.

[Tom Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, “Absolom! Absolom!” Is not east to read. Like the Quentin and Benji sections of “The Sound and the Fury”, there are many voices in the novel. And they make appearances randomly! To sort them out takes effort, but, once the readers "gets it” the novel unfolds like an ancient scroll. I read it first in college. I kept closing the book, in frustration. But, with the guidance of the professor of the course (Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Mailer) the lights began to glimmer, clearly. One has to read it once, then again, with a textual explication such as this one, to help. Carefully, like a stubborn mango peel, the authors of this tool kit have broken it apart, line by line, sometimes word by word, to show the reader a way to understand the voices, and, more importantly, to decide what voices to trust. Any Faulkner fan should read this work. Five stars

[J M-B · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vintage International edition of ‘Absalom, Absalom!’ that I read contains both a chronology and a genealogy written by Faulkner. An editorial note discloses that both “have been corrected in several instances to agree with the dates and the facts of the novel” (p. 305). Oddly enough for a volume that advertises itself as “the corrected text”, nowhere is the editor identified although she, he or they (according to the publisher’s note) worked under the supervision of Noel Polk.

The fact that the editor chose to correct Faulkner’s chronology and genealogy suggests that it was originally intended to offer the reader some assistance in navigating this difficult novel. (A small pamphlet was published to help readers of the first edition of ‘The Sound and the Fury’, after all). I am happy to acknowledge that the complexity of the novel, in particular the unreliability of the competing narratives, threw me back repeatedly on the chronology and genealogy to get my bearings and to find some ‘solid ground’ separate from the recollections and speculations offered by Faulkner’s characters. In Urgo and Polk’s guide to reading ‘Absalom, Absalom!’, however, they point out that the relationship between the novel and its chronology and genealogy is problematic as “they contain information that both does not appear in the novel proper and that contradicts the information in the novel proper” (p. 197). A key instance of this is the claim in the chronology that, in 1831 - “Charles Bon born. [Thomas] Sutpen learns that his wife has negro blood, repudiates her and the child” (p. 305). As Urgo and Polk point out, this is scarcely supported in the text of the novel but is critical to how the reader interprets the central theme of the novel, blood and whether that was what made Sutpen’s first wife unsuitable for ‘his design’.

This is a really useful commentary to read after a first reading of the novel and an excellent book to have on hand for the required second or third reading.

[Lark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is such a helpful readers companion to Absalom, Absalom. It breaks down Faulkner's complicated prose basically line by line explaining double or hidden meanings as well as situating point of view and explaining less common words and phrases. Definitely recommend to help read or teach the novel. Only reason it's not 5 stars is that I would appreciate a little more sourcing of where they draw evidence and criticism from.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually have mixed feelings about books like this, but found this one very helpful. It is a line by line discussion and commentary on the novel. I found it helpful to get a chance to think further about passages in the text, and see what others had to say about them. I tend to read and not think much, with this book the thinking is essential, to figure out what is happening.

[Abby Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy cow, what a lot of words. Great story but endless thinking.