Oh what a guy...Faaaaaaaulk-ner!

Me. Kind of.

"How can you read this? There are no pictures!" While not feeling precisely the same sentiment, I've suffered more than a few instances of staring at a page with furrowed brow and intense frown during this undertaking. A lot of these books are just plain hard to read.


So you can imagine my excitement when I began Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and...I understood it. Not the referencing-Shmoop-and-CliffsNotes-every-other-page kind of understanding, but actual, immediate comprehension of the words on the page. It's like that moment in Spanish class where "¿Dónde está la biblioteca?" ceases to sound like gibberish and actually becomes "Where is the library?" Oh happy day! And yes, that was also a Dodgeball shout out.

"That's me, taking the bull by the horns. It's how I handle business. It's a metaphor. That really happened though."

Now, some might say that Absalom, Absalom! just isn't as difficult to understand as Faulkner's other stream-of-consciousness, multiple-narrative-points-of-view craziness, and that's probably true. Nonetheless, I choose to believe that I am growing as a reader through this project. Just think how smart I'll be when I'm through. And if not smart, I will at least understand the humor in things like the The Reader's Drinking Game.


So here's my word to the wise: if you are going to attempt the Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! is a great place to start. It's not as convoluted as some of his other works and the story is pretty darn juicy. Secret pasts, sordid affairs, potential incest. This has all the makings of a daytime soap. But it's classic literature, so you can feel a lot better about yourself afterwards.


This is not to say the story is without meaning, because Faulkner Dearest packs quite the wallop of symbolism into the character of Thomas Sutpen. Sutpen's character represents the South and shows how ideals and dignity built on the suffering of other men ultimately lead to destruction. Deep. And if you're like me, you'll wonder what's up with the title, and you'll learn about the Biblical story of Absalom (or maybe you already knew it, in which case, good on you and shame on me!). The tale does contain some spoilers, so be ready for that.


Overall, Absalom, Absalom! gets two thumbs up from this gal. Now...onto more Forster! Even happier day!

Pssst...gotta admit, that exclamation point at the end of the title really upped my enthusiasm each time I typed it. What's adding a little extra punch of fun to your day?
Beauty and the Beast image here. Dodgeball image here. Forster image plus hearts by myself. :)

The Power of Choice

I have emerged! Somehow between planning our family reunion, hosting out-of-town guests, and doing more business at work in two months than we did all of last year, I've barely been able to read. Or blog. Or really even think straight.

I abandoned The Satanic Verses shortly after my last post, in favor of plunging in to Sophie's Choice. Back in the days of yore 7th grade, I performed a dramatic monologue piece from the novel, so I was familiar with the basic premise of the book and thought I might find it a little more compelling than slogging through Rushdie (Sorry Salman...sure loved your cameo in Bridget Jones though!).

I really enjoyed Styron's writing style and found myself eagerly reading chapter after chapter, despite the sometimes overbearing use of ominous foreshadowing. For those unfamiliar, the story is narrated by Stingo, a young would-be writer living in NY just after WW2 who develops a relationship with Sophie, an Auschwitz survivor, and Nathan, her lover. Stingo is from the South, and Styron often uses his character to draw parallels between Southern racial inequality and Nazi genocide.

This book is the second on the list to deal with the Holocaust (the other was Schindler's List, also very good), but where that story focused on the actual events that took place during the war, Styron spends an equal amount of time looking at how Sophie's life is altered afterwards. It is not an easy read. Even though I knew the outcome of the titular choice made by Sophie, I couldn't keep the tears from welling up as I read that passage.

As as adult, what has become truly frightening to me about the entire concentration camp system is realizing the sheer manpower needed to create and implement the systematic destruction of so many lives. I often wonder what the Nazi participants were thinking, how they could live with themselves after behaving so cruelly, and how could there have been so many of them. I think it's easy with the benefit of hindsight to say things like "Oh, I would never have supported slavery. I would never have been a participant in something like the Holocaust." Yet we constantly see headlines proclaiming that bullying is on the rise, bitter rancor increasing in American politics, and we can use all the various channels at our disposal to mock those that see/act/look differently than we do, ostracize them, make them the unimportant, inhuman "other." Consider that there is danger in doing so. Of course it's a huge leap to go from mockery to actually trying to exterminate a group of people, but those Nazi ideas started somewhere. At some point, tiny seeds of contempt and discomfort grew into full blown hatred, not just from a few, but from a shocking, terrifying, normal everyday many.

Okay, off my soapbox.

If you have the chance, read Sophie's Choice. And more importantly, if you have the chance, choose to be kind to someone else today.