A great many aspects of my body are frail and delicate. Due to this, what might seem insignificant to others can hold the utmost significance for me. For example, in my late teens, there was a truly terrible incident. I was exerting excessive effort for my high school exams and caught a dreadful cold. Being in the final year of high school and burdened with the stress of college entrance, I felt guilty about resting. So, I went to the hospital, received a ringer (sodium lactate solution), and took the IV fluid pack home. It seemed like a brilliant idea. Sodium lactate solutions are an excellent way to rapidly heal the body, and moreover, I could receive the injection at home while studying. It was the most productive healing experience I could have hoped for!

However, the ringer episode came to an end 6 hours later. With half of the IV pack still remaining, I was crying out in agony due to the intense pain in my veins. I had to ask my mother to pull out the needle. I had not anticipated that my veins had weakened over the past two years of high school and could not endure a quicker injection. Ever since then, the word 'ringer' has always triggered a series of anxiety attacks in me.

A more casual example of my weak, fragile, and overall nuisance-like body is drinking coke. Coke is a wonderful drink, especially on a hot, sweltering, and blistering summer day when you can almost taste the dryness on your exposed skin. Yet, the inner palate and lining of my mouth and throat are so frail that I find it difficult to swallow, let alone gulp, coke through a straw. But because I have a craving for sweetness and the taste of coke, what ultimately happens is a compromise. That is, I leave the coke out in the open for a sufficient amount of time to allow the carbonic acid to fizzle out.

Reading Faulkner felt like a combination of receiving a ringer and drinking coke. Individually, ringers and coke are great - something that many people need and enjoy drinking, respectively. Similarly, from a literary perspective, Faulkner is a highly skilled writer. The constant time jumps, his masterful control of adjectives that create a unique 'atmosphere' of the Sahara desert-like Southerness in his novels, where you can almost feel the dryness in your mouth, on your skin, and in your lungs, as if you are burning from the inside out, coupled with the way his characters from different novels are interconnected, enabling the reader to explore the fictional county he constructed... However, there was something about his writing that didn't quite resonate with me. 'Swann's Way', which I read along with this book, felt like my element. Water is what I envision makes up my spirit; Proust felt like a river flowing through my veins. Faulkner, on the other hand, felt like a fire attempting to extinguish my water and my spirit.

In conclusion, I gained valuable writing advice and creative techniques from Faulkner. Objectively speaking, considering its literary importance and creative style, this would be a five-star rating. Yet, I am uncertain whether I will attempt to read another of Faulkner's novels in the near future. I have chosen to leave this unrated.

Wow! What a remarkable book!

It presents a deeply sad and incredibly powerful story that is told in a most difficult and challenging manner.

This is not a book for the faint of heart or for those who prefer light and easy reads.

It delves into the darkest corners of the human experience, exploring themes of pain, loss, and redemption.

The author has masterfully crafted a narrative that will leave adult readers with a profound sense of emotional turmoil and a newfound appreciation for the complexity of the human condition.

It is a book that demands to be read, pondered, and discussed, and it will surely have a lasting impact on all who have the courage to pick it up.

Well, well, well.

It's now the turn of one of the greatest books of all ages, masterpieces and eras, to be chosen for the analysis of Faulkner's factories, namely Absalom, Absalom!

First of all, I will provide information about the title of the book, then move on to the story of the book, and after that, I will mention the characteristics of Faulkner's pen, and finally, I will briefly examine Mr. Hosseini's translation.

1. What does Absalom, Absalom mean?

Absalom (Ab meaning father and Shalom meaning peace) is actually the Hebrew name of the third son of the prophet David. He kills his own brother Amnon because of his violation of his younger sister Tamar, but later he is forgiven by his father. However, Absalom does not accept his father's forgiveness and rebels against him and claims the throne, and a war breaks out between them. In that war, Absalom is defeated and during his escape, he is caught by the long beautiful hair he has and is captured by David's soldiers and killed. And when the news of his death reaches David, "David cries out loudly: O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (Second Book of Samuel, Chapter Nineteen).

The precise choice of the title by Professor Noyed gives a historical epic story that comes out of the womb of ages and history and leaves the poor reader stunned and confused.

2. Whose story is Absalom?

Faulkner portrays three generations of the white and black Yoknapatawpha County people who are broken and destroyed in one of the most complex forms possible over a period of about 100 years. The core of the story revolves around a man named Thomas Sutpen who, because of an incident that happens to him in his childhood, decides to become one of the great landowners and planters. He escapes from a backward, poverty-stricken town in the mountains and goes to Yoknapatawpha County, buys black slaves, marries, and has children and descendants. Faulkner's story is the story of this man and his descendants in the time period from 1810 to 1910 AD, with the backdrop of the Civil War and its impact on the defeat, humiliation, and life of the people of the South. A humiliation whose brand is burning on the foreheads of the people of the American South and their families, especially the blacks, women, and the poor, and there has been no mercy for them.

3. What are the characteristics of Faulkner's pen?

Faulkner has used many elements to describe his story, and the most important of them are as follows:

a) The correspondence of the characters in the story with the narration of the Old Testament of David and the traditions of the New Testament.

As I said, Faulkner uses an Old Testament story. He uses the themes of jealousy, betrayal, possession, adultery with the forbidden and fratricide in the story of David and describes his story and characters based on these themes. The characters of Sutpen, Henry, and Judith have the closest resemblance and proximity to the narration of the Old Testament of David. At the same time, Faulkner also pays attention to the New Testament and its traditions. Themes such as love, kindness, compassion, altruism, and Christian ethics. A place where it is most evident in Rosa Coldfield or Clytie and Quentin. Just as in the religious culture of America, there is a contrast between Ab and Yahweh, that is, the contrast between the merciful father God and the vengeful God, in this ancient story, the contrast between the head and the heart (reason and heart) is also seen, which affects the decisions of the characters.

b) The connection with the elements of the tragic myths of the Greeks.

In addition to these resemblances, the characters in the story are also close to the tragic personages of the Greeks.

For example, Rosa Coldfield, like Cassandra, has the power of prophetic flight, and even like her, who shoots an arrow at Apollo out of love and Apollo curses her, she also shoots an arrow at Sutpen (love?) and becomes a recluse. Quentin directly refers to this in the first chapter: "..the mood and manner of children who have the law of the rattle in their feet and are condemned to the windows of the great, complex, and unnecessary stupidities about the sum total of human behavior - the mood and manner of Cassandra and the martyr and the prophet, which was fragile and ineffective and had no proportion with the age and childhood that had not lost the flavor of youth." p. 31. Or for example, Sutpen, the rational, dry, and self-interested and merciless character of the story, has the mood of Agamemnon. He also sacrifices his daughter and wife like Agamemnon to achieve his victories and conquests.

c) References to the fictional creatures of the folklore of Persian stories and Shakespeare's Hamlet and Macbeth.

The respected professor has not even refrained from drawing the feet of some of the fictional creatures, sometimes even demonic, in his story and has referred to them, which has caused his historical story to become darker and more gothic. There is a place where Rosa Coldfield compares Thomas Sutpen to an ogre. An ogre is actually a giant, powerful, and terrifying monster with a big belly whose food is mostly human flesh, especially children and women. Mr. Hosseini has equated the word "davalpa" (which has an eastern root and there are stories about it in the books of One Thousand and One Nights and Sindbad the Sailor) instead of the simple and equivalent word "ghoul" to preserve this reference.

"Daval" means a hook, and "davalpa" is a small, human-like creature of the old Mamluks who sits on the side of the road and, under the pretext of needing help, rides on the back of others and immediately stretches his feet like a hook and sticks to them and feeds on them. Here, too, the demonic and cruel Sutpen feeds on the bodies of his hosts until he reaches his goals, which is not similar to davalpa, although it is closer to an ogre. In another place, Rosa compares Sutpen to Bluebeard. Bluebeard is a rich man in the Persian fairy tales of France who kills his wives.

In addition to these, in different parts of the book, we also encounter the dialogues and monologues of Macbeth and Hamlet, and we hear the voices of "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" or "To sleep, perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub" which, like a sigh from the womb of some of the characters, suddenly takes our minds to the subject, character, and speech similarities of the story with the tragedies of Shakespeare.

d) Non-linear narration with four unique narrators.

Faulkner has considered four narrators for the narration of his story:

Rosa Coldfield, Mr. Compson, Quentin Compson (Mr. Compson's son), and Shreve (Quentin Compson's roommate). Their narrations are intertwined, and the beginning of the story is vague and unclear, but as we move forward, the correct pieces of the puzzle stick together, and the knots of the story are解开.

The main burden of the story's narration is on Quentin and Shreve. In 1910, about 25 years after the disappearance of the last of the Sutpens, Quentin tells Shreve, a Canadian, on a cold and snowy winter night in Massachusetts, about the stories that his father has told or that he himself has heard from Rosa Coldfield in some parts of the story. In another part, Shreve takes over the thread of the story and reviews Quentin's story and arranges the small and fine details of the story together to summarize the story and draw conclusions and discard some of the guesses and speculations. On the other hand, some parts of the story belong to Rosa Coldfield and Mr. Compson, who both tell other parts of the story in a different time and place in their own way.

Some parts of the story remind Quentin of the post-war, mutilated, and defeated September moon, and his father, among the smells of the old furniture, the smoke of the cigar, and the chirping of the crickets and the buzzing of the insects around the lamp, tells the story of this war-torn, punished, and tortured generation, the result and final outcome of which is written on an old piece of paper with a spidery, chicken-scratch handwriting, and until the end of the story and the completion of the narrations and the occurrence of events and the solution of problems, this paper remains unread and incomprehensible to Quentin.

e) Interior monologues and stream-of-consciousness narration.

One of the most important characteristics that has made Faulkner's pen very difficult to read is the stream-of-consciousness narration. Faulkner constantly piles up descriptive passages one after the other, and he does not finish his sentences, which causes the narration to flow like a stream, making it difficult for the reader to read and even causing the reader to read a sentence or phrase several times. We also encounter interior monologues in parallel, where the narrator of each chapter constantly moves from one specific time and place to another and creates a fragmented and layered narration that is sometimes written in italics to be separated and identified from the main stream of the narrator's narration so that the reader can better understand the events. Because reading and understanding it requires memorization and attention to distinguish the narrators and third-person pronouns.

4. Mr. Hosseini's worthy and excellent translation.

Mr. Hosseini's translation is highly desirable and admirable. Mr. Hosseini has been able to convey the heavy and cumbersome literary burden of Faulkner's pen and its complexity to the reader without creating a gap in the understanding of the story for the reader. In addition to Mr. Hosseini's mastery of the English language, he also has a remarkable and extensive mastery of the Persian language, which is very clear and excellent in the choice of words and terms. I can say that at the end of the book, there is also a family tree of all the characters in the story and a chronology of the main events of the story, which is very helpful in understanding and comprehending the story.

Final points: Absalom, Absalom is considered the most poetic and perhaps the most difficult-to-read work of Faulkner. If you have not read any of Faulkner's works until now, I do not recommend it for entering the world of Faulkner, and my opinion is more towards other works of Faulkner such as The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying. The Sound and the Fury has a linear and simple narration, and there is no stream of consciousness in it, and its prose is more fluent, and As I Lay Dying has good and enjoyable short stories that are considered a better choice for starting to read Faulkner. But if you like the complex plotlines of a story, non-linear narrations, stream of consciousness, and these historical and literary references like me, or if you have enjoyed Faulkner's pen in a frenzy, anger, and hysteria, it may be a good choice for you. Faulkner, the master chef, has used all the spices and seasonings that make the food delicious and has prepared a meal for you, my dear! You will also eat your fingers with it.

P.S: Now, after finishing the book, I can admit that I am completely in love with an Alabama story, and as the saying goes, if you know, you know :).

21/06/1403

I usually don't encounter such great difficulty when it comes to writing about my reaction to a novel. However, this particular one has truly defeated me. What an incredibly complex and layered work it is!

I've been sitting in front of the computer for approximately an hour now, continuously writing and deleting sentences, attempting to analyze my feelings towards it, yet I simply can't quite find the right words.

The narrative, which skillfully weaves back and forth in time, centers around Thomas Sutpen. He arrives in Mississippi accompanied by a group of "wild" slaves, driven by his obsession to establish a dynasty. He constructs a large estate, marries a local girl, and has two children. Years later, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Sutpen's daughter's fiancé is tragically killed by Sutpen's son, who then vanishes without a trace. Herein lies the mystery that lies at the very heart of the work - how and why Sutpen's past comes back to haunt and ultimately destroy him.

A significant portion of the complexity of this work stems from its structure. Sutpen's story is told through a series of intertwined third-person accounts. Years after Sutpen's death, his sister-in-law relays part of the story to 20-year-old Quentin Compson. Quentin then receives additional information about Sutpen from his father, who in turn had been informed about Sutpen by his own father. Quentin subsequently tells the story to his Canadian roommate at Harvard, Shreve, who adds his own speculations about Sutpen to the narrative. None of the narrators possess exact knowledge of what truly happened. All of them engage in speculation about the facts, and the text is replete with words such as "probably", "possibly", "may have", and "must have". The cumulative effect of all this uncertainty is disconcerting, and Sutpen's true story remains elusive, which, I presume, is part of the intended point.

The themes explored in the novel are also deeply unsettling: Faulkner delves into race and class relations, incest, and miscegenation. In effect, the novel serves as an allegory of Southern history. This may be the reason why I struggle to articulate precisely how I feel about the work. I am an outsider to that history - much like Shreve in the novel - and I'm not entirely sure how to respond to it. What I can say, however, is that I found this work to be both moving and haunting. This is an extraordinary novel, and I am in awe of Faulkner's remarkable writing.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Grover Gardner, and it made the work far more accessible than I had initially anticipated. There was something about hearing the rhythms of the characters' speech that managed to overcome the inherent difficulty posed by the long sentences and the complicated structure. I simply cannot give this novel any less than five stars.

I say this based entirely on my own free will.

There is no doubt in my mind that this could be the best book ever.

Every page seems to be filled with captivating stories, profound insights, and beautiful language.

The author's unique writing style draws me in and keeps me engaged from beginning to end.

It's not just a book; it's an experience that takes me on a journey through different worlds and emotions.

I can't imagine a better book existing.

This one truly stands out and has the potential to become a classic.

I highly recommend it to anyone who loves reading and wants to be inspired.

It's a book that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page.

Trust me, once you pick it up, you won't be able to put it down.

What is this? Hey, go Falkner, hey! You ate me bite by bite... dragged metal on metal, we got tired, and we're dispersing to our homes :).

This simple description seems to tell a story of an experience. Maybe it was a tiring day filled with some kind of activity that involved metal. Falkner is mentioned, perhaps a person who was part of this. The act of being eaten bite by bite could be a metaphor for something wearing them down. As they got tired, they decided to go their separate ways and return to the comfort of their own homes. It makes one wonder what exactly led to this situation and what kind of emotions they were feeling during and after it.

Overall, it's a short but somewhat mysterious account that leaves room for the reader's imagination to fill in the details.

Rereading this was definitely the right decision.

On a second reading, a book that had been knotty and confusing became crystal clear. It was perfectly constructed, as Faulkner proved to be holding all the threads firmly within his hands.

The book is constructed like an onion. Faulkner skillfully pulls apart layer by layer. All the passages about Quentin and Shreeve around the table are mere narrative interludes, intended to allow the reader to regather himself before beginning the assault on the next section. It has a remarkable turnaround, a peripeteia of character more than of plot, and a chilling and profound conclusion.

Many books peter out 20 or 50 pages before the end. This one seemed to, but in fact, does not. It climaxes at 80%, and the anticlimax, the final assault on the peak, occurs on the final page. It is a work of genius and a modernist book of great achievement.

Now I feel ready to begin the Snopes trilogy. I read a portion of it (The Long Hot Summer) twice on a long, hot, non-stop bus trip from New York to LA close to 40 years ago.

I began reading fiction in 2011 after a 30-year hiatus. One of the main reasons for taking it up again was that I regretted not reading much Faulkner. I started with the usual ones like Sound/Fury and As I Lay Dying and was disappointed until I got to Absalom, Absalom! It captured me, and I read it in a rush. Now, planning to read some later Faulkner, I've decided to start by rereading Absalom, Absalom!

My reading has improved a lot since then. My speed has increased, and I can now read in a week or two what took me a month or two to finish three years ago. Of course, with term on, there are many external forces, more than I can discuss in a polite forum, but so it goes.

The book feels like a masterpiece. Having read it, I feel like I hardly know it. It is light years beyond Sound & Fury and As I Lay Dying. There, I felt the story was often just a function of the language. Here, everything, the brilliant language, the originality, the intensity, the intelligence, the structure of the plot, and its very amorphousness, is subordinated to the central theme(s).

Muazzam! Muazzam kere muazzam!

Abşalom Abşalom is one of the best novels I have ever read in my life. William Faulkner is already a very good writer, but here he has outdone himself. The story of the Sutpen family (which is actually full of clichés, a story similar to what we have read and not very interesting) is told through different people in such a way that we are affected by each stage separately. Of course, due to the change of narrators, it is not easy to follow and form a whole. Especially until you get used to the narrative style, you feel like you are reading the same thing over and over again, but when you are patient, the big picture is completed and the story of the Sutpen family, full of ups and downs, is completed. Since it is not a very easy text to tell or describe, I don't know what else to say. We understand how many different faces the truth has from the narrators. Every time the perspective changes, another dimension is opened about the family. The cause-and-effect relationships of some actions are also established in this way. This is, in my opinion, an amazing narrative skill. It definitely requires some effort, but "The Sound and the Fury" was a much more difficult text for me. In short, I got more than my money's worth for the effort I put in, and Abşalom Abşalom is a very impressive novel. I was once again amazed by William Faulkner's talent.

Come si fa a commentarlo?

I had read "Light in August", epic, grand, biblical. It is much less difficult compared to "Absalom, Absalom!". This novel forces one not to be distracted, to pay the utmost attention to the temporal leaps that take one back and forth in time, that forces one to read without taking a breath the very long sentences interspersed with inserts and parentheses within parentheses, with a very rich, lyrical, vortical writing that wraps the reader like the cobra is charmed by the fakir, and every time one goes back to reread, every time one tries to identify who the narrator is, from whose point of view the story is told, and then one finds oneself rereading about the same character and the same events that the writer had already anticipated pages before.... In short, it was a very great effort to read it, compensated by the wonderful feeling at the end, that of having read a masterpiece.

At the end it is clear: it is blood that binds every character in the Sutpen saga, the diseased blood that is genetically transmitted starting from Tomas Sutpen, the head of the family who came from the mountains of Virginia from a poor Anglo-Scottish family and arrives in Mississippi with a single purpose, to create a breed that reproduces his immaculate blood. Through the events of Tomas Sutpen, on whom a sense of tragic fatality weighs, and of his family, of the children Henry and Judith, of the enigmatic Charles Bon, who will only be discovered in the final as one of the most tragic characters, the one who reminded me of Joe Christmas in "Light in August", in whose blood the different genes that compose him also carry a host of contrasting emotions, we experience the palpitating and violent passions of unforgettable characters, like the protagonists of the Greek tragedy, doomed to defeat, because the blood that flows in the veins of the Sutpen breed is a corrupted blood, now putrefied, dissolved just as the old world, that of the American South, was dissolved after the tragic secession war.

An endless, unclassifiable book, of which one can equally say "beautiful" as "but who made me do it"; undoubtedly a great work of art.

Fokner is evaluated one or two months after reading his work for a reason known only to the lovers of his prose. So now it's immediately a five because I once evaluated As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury with a four, and then it was unpleasant for me a few months later because of that.

William Faulkner's works are complex and often require multiple readings and a deeper understanding to fully appreciate. His unique writing style, use of stream of consciousness, and exploration of themes such as race, class, and family make his novels and short stories a challenging but rewarding read.

When evaluating Faulkner's work, it's important to consider not only the initial impression but also how the story and characters develop over time. Sometimes, a work that seems mediocre at first can reveal its true depth and beauty upon further reflection.

In conclusion, Faulkner's writing is a testament to his genius and continues to be studied and admired by readers and scholars alike. While his works may not be for everyone, those who take the time to engage with them are sure to be rewarded with a rich and unforgettable literary experience.

   "Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”

Our social systems, especially capitalism, are structured in a way that certain qualities like bravery, courage, hard work, physical strength, cunning, and intelligence are rewarded. However, the softer qualities such as compassion, kindness, and honesty not only go unrewarded but also come at a price for those who possess them. In fact, the only incentives, aside from a clear conscience (which is often overlooked), are other-worldly, as promised by religions in the afterlife. In such a society, people like Thomas Sutpen are discouraged from holding onto these softer qualities, unless they have an extremely strong conscience. As a result, we have a society that is prone to doom. Nietzsche was critical of soft qualities, but Faulkner believes that the lack of these qualities led to the failure of the Southern States. The story of Sutpens serves as an allegory to illustrate this point.

Another reason for the downfall of the South is the medieval sense of honor. The need for a son to continue the family name, the sense of racial purity that prevents them from marrying people of color or their children, and the belief that they are disgraced if one of them is homosexual or if one of their women loses virginity (or worse, gets pregnant) before marriage all contribute to a highly vulnerable and insecure sense of honor. Unfortunately, much of this is still true in many regions of India.

Now, all of this is interesting, and there is some beautiful prose, after all, it is written by Faulkner. However, the problem is that it is written by Faulkner. While he may disagree with Nietzsche on the importance of soft values, he is in complete agreement with something else Nietzsche later said: "I obviously do everything to be 'hard to understand' myself." For example, the first sentence contains 122 words, and it is not an exception. The exclamation sign in the title is a warning. This book holds the Guinness World Record (I'm not kidding) for the longest sentence in all literature - 1288 words, and the sentence is still incomplete.

There are more of these Faulknerisms. The same story is told by different narrators, each focusing on different aspects, and they are all biased and often end up in speculation. In fact, much of it is speculation by people who had little or nothing to do with the characters. There are times when you don't know who is talking and times when you don't know who is being talked about. Names are given without introduction. And, no offense, but if people in the South spoke in sentences as long as they do in this book, they deserved to lose the war.

There are also repetitions, like in "The Sound and The Fury," where there is an example of two brothers in love with their sister.

However, the telling of the story by different narrators is not without merit. It shows how true stories can never be told objectively due to the biases of the narrators (a perfect theme for Faulkner to write about). It also shows how a listener modifies the story for their own benefit in retellings. Most importantly, it shows how stories, in turn, affect their listeners. Quentin's (the same character from "The Sound and The Fury") disillusionment with Southern values is a prime example. At first, he believed in and was proud of Southern values. However, if those values were so perfect, Thomas Sutpen or the South should never have failed. It is only by thinking about Sutpen's story that he is able to discover the truth. And by the end, he is struggling not to hate the South.

  
“I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!”

Absalom, Absalom!

Chronology
Genealogy

Absalom, Absalom! is a renowned and complex literary work. The story unfolds with a rich tapestry of characters and events. The chronology within the narrative provides a framework for understanding the sequence of happenings, while the genealogy adds depth and context to the relationships between the characters. Through the exploration of these elements, the reader is drawn into a world filled with passion, conflict, and tragedy. The author masterfully weaves together the past and present, creating a sense of history and legacy that reverberates throughout the story. As we delve into the chronology and genealogy, we begin to see the patterns and connections that shape the lives of the characters and drive the plot forward. Absalom, Absalom! is a captivating and thought-provoking work that invites us to explore the human condition and the power of family, history, and memory.