My experiment to read old classics has back fired. Instead of finding a story that was mesmerizing, and intriquing I have to proclaim, that my latest read by William Faulkner is a giant bunker-buster. It took me three days to read through the chapter titled ‘Bear’, and it made no sense at all. I am reading words but comprehending zero. I will finish the read this week, but I will also give it one star because, after several chapters the story line is still not clear, and the characters not very well defined. The spoken language of niggerese only adds to the confusion. Maybe it is because I am not that familiar with the history of the period but this story is leaving me empty. I cannot recommend Go Down, Moses to anyone. At this point I will never recommend anything written by William Faulkner. */* * * * *
Faulkner’s writing style is to write a line then to define the scene by several more lines in many different ways. It is a pattern he uses throughout the story. He does well by his first showing of the idea but then goes overboard by redefining and reiterating the same scene in so many intellectual ways as to become boring. Most chapters could be just as effective by cutting them by two thirds. I had to look in my dictionary several times to define the words he used. He is a master of finding words to define explicit ideas, but in my case he left me wondering if I was so deficient in vocabulary as to not be worthy of this level of story telling. * / * * * * * Boo Hissss!
Filed under: Biography, Book Review, Fiction | Tagged: Faulkner, Fiction, Years 1800-1900 |
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