Tocky on 3/6/2009 at 04:23
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
Currently starting Faulkner's
The Sound And The Fury which is going to be my introduction to stream-of-consciousness. So far so good though.
Bless your heart. That's a particularly dense word thicket to hack away at as an introduction. He isn't exactly known for concise what with page long run on sentences but the majority of that one is stream of conscious via cousin baby idiot. The end of a family line might be tragic but it comes off signifying nothing to me.
I do recall enjoying his discription of honeysuckle arbors which were common for courting in this area but he only alluded to thier use which was annoying. Anyway, I would have suggested "The Reevers" if for nothing more than the mule description as a starting point. Plus I know his world intimately so when he mentions his Sunday liquor run I know he is going to Motee Daniels house and follow along in my minds eye. Okay, now I'm streaming it.
Eh. The last thing I read was Clive Barkers "Weave World". I do not recommend it but it was forced on me with such insistence I could not say no and had to pick something good to say of it afterward. It did not make me want to burn my eyes out but I wish my friends had as excellent taste in literature as they do in friends.
I'm reading "Breakfast of Champions" now because this thread reminded me I haven't.
Namdrol on 3/6/2009 at 06:02
Kurt Vonnegut, now there's an American God
~s:a:n:i:t:y~ on 3/6/2009 at 08:58
Finished re-reading recently 'If At Faust you don't Succeed' by Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley. Now it's Stanislav Lem's "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub". I am half through the book and still having a hard time figuring what's the book is actually about. I love him and hate him for this.
Angel Dust on 3/6/2009 at 10:21
Quote Posted by Tocky
Bless your heart. That's a particularly dense word thicket to hack away at as an introduction. He isn't exactly known for concise what with page long run on sentences but the majority of that one is stream of conscious via cousin baby idiot.
I'm up to the third section now and I'm not finding the run on sentences too hard to follow, I don't try and understand every single thing, more just get the 'feeling'. The thing that can make it tricky is the complete lack of punctuation ie commas in some of those monster sentences.:p I quite enjoyed the passages from the point of few of the mentally handicapped man though.
Macha on 3/6/2009 at 11:17
Quote Posted by Namdrol
Kurt Vonnegut, now there's an American God
Good old Player Piano
hopper on 3/6/2009 at 11:26
Currently re-reading The Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time, though for the first time in a translated version. Before that, I read Grey Souls by Philippe Claudel, whose main plot is about the murder of a little girl in a small French town during WW I. The story and the characters are sometimes a bit overdrawn, and at times Claudel tends to get a little self-indulgent in his own art des belles lettres. But it's by no means a bad book, as these issues are rather small, and I quite liked the ambiguous resolution of the murder mystery.
demagogue on 3/6/2009 at 14:57
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
I'm up to the third section now and I'm not finding the run on sentences too hard to follow, I don't try and understand every single thing, more just get the 'feeling'. The thing that can make it tricky is the complete lack of punctuation ie commas in some of those monster sentences.:p I quite enjoyed the passages from the point of few of the mentally handicapped man though.
It's worth looking at a timelined version to keep things straight
(
http://www.usask.ca/english/faulkner/main/index.html)
What I liked about the first section was Benjy couldn't even speak coherently he was so mental, but his perspective and inner thoughts could be carefully described, almost as if there were another guy in there reporting on them on his behalf, saying "I", being honest to what Benjy is feeling, but still you wonder ... it's a fishy "point of view". But at the same time it's so interesting to have that such honest, inside access to a mind like that.
The Quintin section was also interesting to me.
