I Deserve a T-Shirt or Something

One of the popular types of t-shirts people like to wear are the ones that announce, "I Survived (fill in the blank)." Well, I ought to get a t-shirt that says, "I Survived Absalom, Absalom."

Ok, I'm joking. I will admit, there were a lot of times when I thought I'd taken on more than I wanted to chew. Faulkner's stream-of-consciousness style makes for difficult reading at the end of a long day at school. I also wished that there wasn't so much "telling"; the entire book consisted of conversations that recounted (inconsistently) the history of the Sutpen family. The story unfolds in disjunct narratives rather than in a chronological flow, and practical me got a little impatient at times with that style (and ok, I cheated on the third night and read the timeline summary at the end of the book so I would know what was going on). I get that an important aspect of the story was the perspectives of the different narrators, but sometimes I just wished for a simple, straightforward drama that put us on the scene to "live" the events instead of having someone tell us what happened.

But I also get that Faulkner wasn't just telling a simple sequence of events but instead has presented us with a multi-layered allegory exploring what it means to be a Southerner, with all the baggage that entails. I can't help but compare Henry's attitude in this novel to the attitude of some voters in the Alabama Senate race a couple of months ago - they could stomach supporting a candidate accused of being a pedophile, just as Henry could reconcile himself to letting his sister enter an incestuous relationship. But let that relationship be with someone who was part black, and Henry had to take drastic measures to end it, just as current voters grasped at whatever they could to keep a "libtard" Democrat from being elected. I'm frustrated sometimes with being a Southerner (and I guess I count as one - I'm not from the Deep South, but my state was one that seceded from the union), but like Quentin Compson, I would say, "I don't hate it. I don't hate it."

In my research to prep for this post, I discovered that Absalom, Absalom holds the world record for the "longest sentence in literature," at 1,288 words. Maybe I do deserve that t-shirt.....