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    Absalom, Absalom!
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    Absalom, Absalom!
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    Absalom, Absalom!
    Audiobook12 hours

    Absalom, Absalom!

    Written by William Faulkner

    Narrated by Grover Gardner

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    ABSALOM, ABSALOM! tells the story of Thomas Sutpen, the enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson township in the early 1830s. With a French architect and a band of wild Haitians, he wrung a fabulous plantation out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness.

    Sutpen was a man, Faulker said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him." His tragedy left its impress not only on his contemporaries but also on men who came after, men like Quentin Compson, haunted even into the 20th century by Sutpen's legacy of ruthlessness and singleminded disregard for the human community.


    From the Compact Disc edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateDec 18, 2007
    ISBN9780739325414
    Author

    William Faulkner

    William Faulkner (1897-1962) is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all American novelists and short-story writers.  His other works include the novels The Sound and the Fury, The Reivers, and Sanctuary.  He twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and in 1949 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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    Reviews for Absalom, Absalom!

    4/5

    1,184 ratings47 reviews

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    • 4/5
      (Original Review, 1981-01-12)It is sometimes uncomfortable reading things from other eras - for example I´m a big fan of William Faulkner who was in many ways ahead of the curve on race for his day - if the average KKK member had been more into modernist avant-garde fiction than I imagine they were, he´d probably be having crosses burned outside his house left right and centre - but definitely a bit weird about women at times.Or take for example Dante - who as a medieval Catholic believed in all kinds of things I´m deeply opposed to (though it´s interesting the parts in Inferno when he expresses more sympathy are often precisely the parts a modern reader might also have more difficulty accepting the person´s fate - compare how sympathetically he views the homosexuals or suicides compared to the corrupt priests orthe violent for example - but like everyone at that time he just accepted certain things as fact that nowadays we don´t, namely that God would condemn them all to hell.But in many ways it´s precisely reading thing written by people who believe in values or have experienced a world totally different from our own that makes it worthwhile. It broadens our understanding of the human condition and how people react to it, helps us see what´s constant and what is more fluctuating and impermanent.Values are very much impermanent - they can´t be shown logically, they can´t be proved empirically, and are just shifting products of social circumstances. People can only be judged by the standards of their own time. Who knows what any of us would think or feel had we grown up in a different time with different customs and more limited sources of information? Realising this is in fact the key to genuine tolerance rather than the enforced "I find this offensive so let´s ban it kind" of "tolerance" which is not what the author is in fact arguing for.The fact that some people on the left, and note I say "some", do feel that their own values are permanent and can be applied to all eras, is for me just nostalgia for religion, a form of existential angst. People resist the idea that their values are not particularly solid, it´s part of rejecting our human freedom and our capacity for self-defense and free-thought. In this some of the more rigid PC thinkers show a lot in common with religious conservatives on the right, who also mistake their rather modern literalist interpretations of religion for something eternal and unchanging. In both cases it´s quirk of personality rather than a properly though out philosophical position I feel. It´s fascinating how religiosity, ease of offence, literal mindedness and humourlessness so often go together as a form of syndrome, making me wonder if there is some underlying cognitive variable, such as intolerance towards ambiguity or inability to grasp metaphorical thought....Meanwhile, the rest of us will carry on reading things from other, less "enlightened" times (and how will our own look to "those who will consider this time ancient", as Dante put it?), reading critically when necessary and with some discomfort, but still reading and learning and gaining enjoyment from them.....
    • 5/5
      It's Faulkner
    • 2/5
      Hoewel ik Faulkner heel erg waardeer, is dit boek me een brug te ver: de constructie van het verhaal vraagt gewoon teveel van de lezer; dit is alleen nog genietbaar voor literatuurwetenschappers. Dat neemt niet weg dat enkele passages zelf van een ongelofelijk hoog niveau zijn.
    • 4/5
      Incredible, stylistically.
    • 5/5
      In my top ten !
    • 2/5
      Hoewel ik Faulkner heel erg waardeer, is dit boek me een brug te ver: de constructie van het verhaal vraagt gewoon teveel van de lezer; dit is alleen nog genietbaar voor literatuurwetenschappers. Dat neemt niet weg dat enkele passages zelf van een ongelofelijk hoog niveau zijn.
    • 4/5
      Well this book was difficult as faulk. Sure I questioned if there was a plot at times, but I loved Faulkner's writing style. I also picked up two things with this novel: one that is connects with his other novels, mostly Sound and the Fury, and this book is about having love for the South. This novels other claim to fame is having one of the longest sentences in literature (well this might be different now, but it's a long sentence still: 1,288 words). If you attempt to read this novel be warned the paragraphs, sentences and the 9 chapters are long. I would defiantly not recommend this to virgin Faulkner readers. However, if you're a fan of James Joyce's Ulysses this book will be right up you alley.
    • 4/5
      Finally, I finish a Faulkner with comprehension
    • 5/5
      One of the books I want with me on a deserted island. A flawless masterpiece of English literature.
    • 4/5
      Incredibly dense, convoluted, and penetrating. I see now why for the generation in which he wrote, as a southern writer Faulkner had myriad ghosts to choose from to write about. Great descriptions and a strong sense of place there is no way any one could be so direct. His insights were numerous but blacks and ex-slaves were mostly secondary or only part of his stories.
    • 5/5
      Faulkner tells this story of a driven man and his family as of 1910 but the beginnings go back to the antebellum period and the main focus is around the Civil War years. There are several different narrative voices and the story does not follow a clear timeline. Rather, it seems to follow the story as told to or learned by the master narrator, Quentin Compson, the grandson of a Civil War general who was friendly to the main character, Thomas Sutpen, and to whom Sutpen shared his confidences. Sutpen achieves great success but is brought down by his tragic flaw-- racism.
    • 4/5
      Memory. That is remembering the past, your family, the culture of family and place. That is in and of the essence of this memorable novel. We find it in the wisteria:"Do you mark how the wistaria, sun-impacted on this wall here, distills and penetrates this room as though (light-unimpeded) by secret and attritive progress from mote to mote of obscurity's myriad components? That is the substance of remembering---sense, sight, and smell" (p 115)This is a story of a man, Thomas Sutpen, and other men and women whose lives formed the history of a place and a time--a sometimes dynasty, as told by several narrators including Miss Rosa Coldfield and Quentin Compson (whom you may remember from The Sound and the Fury).The memory of the events surrounding the ferociousness of Thomas Sutpen is told through fabulous stories, conjecture, discussions, and arguments. It encompasses the history of generations, the strength of women to survive, and the impact of slavery on their way of being.Told with the poetic beauty of Faulkner's magnificent prose this is a novel to be read and reread; savored as you meditate on the meaning of these people and events and how they resemble those you may remember from Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. Above all it is about Faulkner's idea of the South and that of his characters, especially Quentin, the young Harvard student who proclaims:"'I don't hate it,' he said. I don't hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark: I don't. I don't! I don't hate it! I don't hate it!" (p 303)
    • 4/5
      Every town has their legends; the stories passed down from generation to generation. The Mississippi town of Jefferson has the story of Thomas Sutpen and his "Sutpen One Hundred." All told, Thomas Sutpen was seen as a strange, mysterious and even evil man. When he first arrived in Jefferson no one knew his story. He bought one hundred acres of land and then disappeared, leaving the townspeople to talk, talk, talk. When he returned again he had a crew of slaves, materials, and a plan to build a mansion, a legacy. All the while he continues to be secretive and uncommunicative causing the townspeople speculate as to what he's really up to (as people are bound to do when left to their own devices). The gossip subsides only a little when Sutpen finishes his beautiful home and marries a respectable woman. Quietly he starts a family when his wife gives birth to a son and a daughter. But the chatter can't escape him. New rumors crop up when word gets around of Sutpen encouraging savage fights between his slaves. There's talk he even joins in for sport. And that's just the beginning.Ultimately, Absalom, Absalom! is a story of tragedy after tragedy. Faulkner described it as a story about a man who wanted a son, had too many of them & they ended up destroying him.
    • 5/5
      Poetic and hypnotizing. Unfortunately my experience was somewhat ruined by reading it on my phone's Kindle app. Now I know ebooks fuck up more than just pagination. Paragraphs do more than structure and pace a narrative - they provide waypoints and shelter for the eyes - and in a book where paragraphs can go on and on for page after page the arrival of indentation is something akin to a desert oasis. So when that same book is divided across 1000s of phone screens, each of which is a huge square block of text, indentation becomes something even more startling. It takes on the significance of a chapter break. And it can't be anticipated, counted on, because I was only able to see a sentence or two ahead at a time. I literally became lost in a sea of words. I was unable to recognize the winding-down of a paragraph as a new one approached – sort of like reading a complex sentence stripped of its punctuation. It was kind of interesting, I guess, but I don’t think I experienced the book the way I was supposed to.
    • 5/5
      My second most favorite Faulkner (after _The Sound and the Fury_). The family that is portrayed resounds on many levels. Faulkner's use of the English language to portray characters and unique situations is astounding!
    • 2/5
      Yet another Faulkner book that, although it has some good parts, isn't overtly remarkable.
    • 3/5
      William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" is definitely one of those books I can appreciate the merits of, without particularly enjoying reading it. All of Faulkner's half-finished sentences, crazy italicizing and general wordiness drove me nuts.The story takes place in the Deep South, where a poor named Thomas Sutpen sets out to establish his legacy. Varying people give pieces of his story, which unfolds slowly layer by layer.The story itself is pretty interesting and Faulkner's slow unveiling is also good.... but it was just a struggle to get through his due to the style it was written in.
    • 4/5
      i only got halfway through this. i'll finish it sometime.
    • 5/5
      This is NOT an easy read, on the contrary, it is difficult in that it is structurally archaic, not that I'm complaining: I'm NOT! His prose are so embedded, and his sentences so long, that one must SURELY concentrate, no disturbances, and focus on the plot at every moment. But if you do, you will find a terrifically told story about the old south before, during and after the war; the conventions of the southerners, what they indicated in their behaviors as to what was right and wrong, and how family as well as strangers were dealt with. I LOVED this book, if for nothing else, for the sheer complication and elegance of the language. But the story is beautifully told, not by one narrator, but various narrators/characters in the book. You MUST consider reading it with an open mind, and a concentrated intellect, and then understand Faulkner's writing as purely romantic prose of the south. The plot, being told by a number of different characters makes it a bit difficult to decipher what is going on at times...for me, mainly because I got lost in his lengthy sentences, but I find myself wanting to read it again (and again!) because I imagine him speaking and telling the story in his style of prose...I loved it.
    • 4/5
      Block out all distractions before attempting to read this book. And don't be tired. And no wine! Just focus!
    • 5/5
      A southern Gothic novel by William Faulkner, written in 1936. The story is set just before, during and after the Civil War. Thomas Sutpen, born poor, decides he will have what it takes to tell someone to use the back door and he does accomplish his goal 'sort of' only much of his past is still a part of his present person and it ends up destroying him and all he hoped to achieve. The story is told mostly through the Quentin, a grandson of the man who was a friend of Thomas Sutpen. There is also a portion told by Rosa Coldfield, and Quentin's father and grandfather. Quentin and his Canadian college friend, Shrevlin, interpret and reinterpret the story. As they tell and retell the story, you learn more and more of the details of this ill fated family. The title, Absalom, Absalom! is from the Bible and references one of David's sons, a son born of a non Israelite woman, a daughter of a king. Absalom rises up and nearly destroys his father and his father's family. Faulkner's stories are allegories of the South. This book is a companion to the Sound and the Fury which is a bout the Compson Family and Quentin is one of the main characters. I like Faulkner's writing for its richness but it is exhausting work.
    • 5/5
      I LOVE this book!! stream-of-consciousness is totally my thing. First book ever to depress me though. And I had to create my timeline.
    • 5/5
      i wouldn't start here, with faulkner, but this is probably as good as it gets, and arguably his great american novel

      reading was more like seeing, and once done, it was like i'd experienced it all myself

    • 5/5
      There is a lot I don't understand about this book, but my instincts tell me it's justifiably a classic. I liked the language and structure a lot. Maybe the characters are more symbols than three dimensional, but they're pretty interesting symbols. Faulkner's descriptions of black people are highly racist, but I /think/ he's trying to comment on it rather than perpetuate it... need to find out more about that.
    • 5/5
      This is incredible. I'm dazed.

      Review to come later. I need to lie down.
    • 3/5
      This book is not for the faint of heart. It's probably one of the hardest, more confusing books I've ever read.
    • 5/5
      I would compare it to a nightmarish journey into the world of southern gothic writing. Long sprawling sentences, multiple layers of families, and interwoven tales told through the eyes of an old embittered woman. Good stuff, but it is a literary workout. Expect to be emotionally exhausted after spending time reading this unique, poetic, and tragically beautiful novel.
    • 5/5
      "You can't understand it. You would have to be born there."

      "Would I then? Do you understand it?"

      "I don't know. Yes, of course I understand it. I don't know."

      A seductive dreamlike death-whisper of the South.
    • 5/5
       What drives the dreadful ambitions of Colonel Sutpen? After hundreds of pages of human agony, frustration, loss, and suffering, we are given the answer. Once, when a young boy, Sutpen was told by a Negro house slave to go to the back door of the house he was attempting to enter. He never recovered from the sense of crippling social humiliation this episode inspired in him. Never have the depredations of racism and class been explored with such devastating gothic force.
    • 5/5
      I have read As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August. However, Absalom, Absalom! is by far my favourite Faulkner. Indeed, without hesitation I would put it among the greatest books I have ever read. I feel Absalom is almost neglected behind As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury, the former of which I still consider a stunning piece of writing, but neither contain the towering, epic and biblical passages of which Absalom is entirely constructed. All the things I love about Faulkner come together most completely in this book and resonate so deeply and heavily: Mythical characters of the South that embody its underlying filth and decay; the scenery and landscape which you can feel sweltering and shimmering around you; the grand passages of such intense writing that builds up and up so confidently without faltering it shows no sign of collapsing under its own ambition. Most clearly in Absalom is the style Cormac McCarthy is so overtly influenced by, which through his career he worked and moulded into his own. The overall structure to Absalom's story also bears resemblance to One Hundred Years of Solitude (another of my all-time favourites), in that it details the rise and fall of an empire of sorts, told in the style of a legend. Utterly recommended to anyone serious about literature.