As I Lay Dying.

[leondacter]

To my learned readers, few though they be...

Have you read much Faulkner? I'm struggling through Absolom, Absolom! at the suggestion of a friend (a very intelligent and well-read English major just graduated from Stanford) and finding his language tedious beyond the point of reason. I've changed my reading habits so much lately that I wonder if

Comments

[opheliareborn]

I haven't read it. I'm currently in a new fiction phase. I got burned out on the more classic stuff and am vacationing from it.

Ivory Tower of Babble.

[leondacter]

You should read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I'd be interested to hear your take on it, and though it's a National Bestseller, I don't know anyone else who has read it.

I think so much modern fiction has been separated as serious or not-serious that all a modern book's potential is spent in overthick attempts to mesmerize the reader or astonish with its unnaturally brash embrace of the subject matter. Everyone is clinging to a sense of greatness in the now, and it makes them write fustian bullshit that is so esoteric and self-involved it rarely rises above appreciation by those who have vowed to read it quasi-religiously.

Where is an honest character book like Catcher in the Rye nowadays? Holden would topple a government with his blog and quote the philosophical canon if the book were written today, and we would never know the subtle emotion of his sister Phoebe crying as he told her he was going away. Holden's character would be condescended to be written about, not portrayed with human faults and a nearly honorable

[pooperman]

Just a couple months ago I attempted The Sound and The Fury and, with extreme shame, put it down for the same reasons. I think the language barrier may be a bit like Shakespeare--one shouldn't try to tackle the first book alone and without guidance from someone who can help.

It's more than the language, I think. Faulkner wrote in this "stream of consciousness" form that is wholly unsettling if you're not accustomed to it, and probably still somewhat annoying if you are. I often picture pseudointellectuals praising Faulkner because "it was glorious and I haven't read anything better in my entire life" is easier to say than to mount a critique on a book where you've missed the point entirely.

At least it makes me feel better to think that anyone who claims they understand and appreciate The Sound and The Fury is full of shit and is covering for their embarrassed state of dissatisfaction with a "classic". It's probably not true...

Ah, pooperman! Is it Brian? Bruce? It's Bruce, I think.

[leondacter]

Thank you for the response. I don't think it's necessarily the stream-of-consciousness that exhausted me; I read Ulysses as a sophomore in high school, and felt I got a lot out of it, though I own it now and have found myself at 23 much more capable of appreciating the work of Joyce.

It's something in the prolix and vocabulary mixed thusly with Southern phrasery and words. I refer to passages like this, on page 4:

... Then in the long unamaze Quentin seemed to watch them overrun suddenly the hundred square miles of tranquil and astonished earth and drag house and formal gardens violently out of the soundless Nothing and clap them down like cards upon a table beneath the up-palm immobile and pontific, creating the Sutpen's Hundred, the Be Sutpen's Hundred like the oldentime Be Light. Then hearing would reconcile and he would seem to listen to two seperate Quentins now-the Quentin Compson preparing for Harvard in the South, the deep South dead since 1865 and peopled with garrulous outraged baffled ghosts, listening, having to

[uberdionysus]

Put it down and pick up one of Faulkner's other works. I've never seen the point in plowing through something just because someone else claims it's great.

[dayofthelocust]

I've read it, don't remember much of it except the more salient details of Sutpen's life and legacy. My memory has dispensed with Faulkner's flourishes and preserved the most titillating details of the story in a bold tabloid format. It was the most difficult Faulkner of the little Faulkner that I read. I recommend The Sound and the Fury and Sanctuary, the latter one being something of a pot-boiler.

Khmer Rock and Japanese spice appreciation week.

[leondacter]

Yeah, I've read The Sound and the Fury and I had more of a taste for it at the time, though I was quite young (I think it was late middle-school). Haven't read Sancutuary, but I was just having trouble believing that Absolom could be so unpleasant a thing, especially since the friend who suggested it to me is so incredibly smart and literate and generally highly intelligent without much of a taste for real pretension. I guess I was hoping someone had a paradigm shift to offer, but I don't know. I'll keep reading either way until I've finished and can really offer my own full opinion. I should have read it long ago when I first heard about the book, but my Faulkner affection is not too great

Re: Khmer Rock and Japanese spice appreciation week.

[dayofthelocust]

Yeah, pot-boiler. That's no insult either. I'm on an Ellroy kick this month. I like pot-boilers.

Please feel free to leave me any leads on the Ros Sereysothea article. I'm a little scared because the party who requested the piece has had it for a few days now and isn't saying anything about it, so I think it's getting cut. It was intended, I think, to spice up a nationally distributed magazine normally devoted to garage rock.

I was actually a little disappointed that the Paprika trailer wasn't a little bit more showy. I am totally devoted the director, Mr. Satoshi Kon. I recommend watching Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, or his Paranoia Agent mini-series on the double.

Do you know about the outdoor movies at Hollywood Forever Cemetery? You sign up for their email list and they tell you what's playing each week on Saturday night. They do some weekday screenings too. I believe tomorrow they are showing The Sheik in observance of the 80th anniversary of Valentino biting the big one. Incidentally, they project the films against the

Hollywood Forever.

[leondacter]

That's awesome; I saw The Sheik years ago at a film festival (loosely termed) at Washburn University. It showed after a bunch of William Hart silents.

I just got here a month ago, so I'm not particularly tuned in to all the happenings and showings yet. I checked out the Cinespia site and the schedule, and it looks awesome. They're showing Chinatown this Saturday, which I love.

I'll try to check out the Kon and let you know what I think soon.

As far as Ellroy, I've always admired his tale-spinning. I think my preferences run more toward Philip K. Dick, though, with his complex futuristic plot devices that are really contrived opportunities for elaborate psychodrama. That's part of the reason your suggestion of Paprika sounded so enticing.

[uberdionysus]

I loved it, but it's been awhile since I've read it. It takes awhile to settle into the language, but it's easier than Ulysses, Proust, Pynchon or The Waves, yet harder than any other book I've read by Faulkner.

I think As I Lay Dying is his most accessible and The Sound and the Fury is one of my favorite books of all time. Like In Search of Lost Time, it starts off difficult and gets progressively easier (after Quinten's section, that is). The book starts with the retard's story, and despite the simplicity of the language, the sentences, time, and meaning jarringly hop around and make is very hard to follow.

And I really didn't like House of Leaves. I thought it was poorly plotted, overly pretentious (lots of superfluous continental theory), and only adequately written. Great layout and idea, though.

Diddy-did!

[anonymous]

So, I have read Absalom! Absalom! and did not like it, but I think you would know I have little patience for the density of language. I had to read it as part of a Faulkner class. You may remember a few comments I had about it. I was taking the class when you and I were becoming friends and I showed you the books in the bookcase in my closet and told you I liked Faulkner, but only a little of what I had read. I have Go Down, Moses in paperback and really enjoy the stories therein. We examined them in the context of race, so I have a slightly different spin on them, but my prof was a Faulkner expert, so I took a lot from it. As far as suggestions...I would agree with the aforementioned suggestion of changing gears in your Faulkner transmission and shoot for something different. I think Absalom is so distasteful to me because it's not written as a narrative, but more like an accounting. I dunno. You are aware of my position on literary critiques. Gimme a call, you Communist.

Re: Diddy-did!

[leondacter]

First of all, there's nothing wrong with Communism. Major Funk used to say he was a Marxist, so there's some spit in your eye; I know Marxism isn't exactly today's incarnation of the communist movement, but seriously, I think you should really stop this Tailgunner Joe shit, because Communism has a long track record that proves its effectiveness and pretty much speaks for itself.

Face!

Also, I recall asking you for some 4-1-1 on the natural gas industry and its regulations for a script I'm working on, and I've yet to get any explanation. I mean, when I told Jen what I was reading up on, she said, "Why don't you just ask Brandon to explain it to you?" I did, I told her. He hasn't gotten back to me yet! Well, I don't need you anymore, big guy! I found this and this with only my good buddy, Google