I believe his best, and the best American novel ever written, is Absalom, Absalom. I haven't read it, and when I tried I had too difficult of a time penetrating Faulkner's writing style, but my one former professor swears by the merits of Absalom. And this guy, he's old and wizened, and knows everything (even if I didn't agree with him about a number of things), so I have little reason to question him.
Absalom, Absalom is maybe the only book I've ever read that was a thoroughly exhausting chore to get through but also had me wanting to reread it again the instant I was done. I really, really liked it, though it's definitely not as accessible as As I Lay Dying and The Sound of the Fury.
pixote
That's what I hear, which is why I really do want to read it/did want to instantly love it before I put it down and never found time to get back. Just had such difficulty penetrating that text, and my general aversion to reading novels in my free time when I could be getting more out of poetry, plays, or even short stories, that I'm not sure when I will get a chance to try reading it again/force myself through it. I think it's still the only Faulkner I've tried to read (I could be wrong about this though, but I don't believe I am). I really should try out
The Sound and
Dying, but the way this guy talked up
Absalom, and the close reading he gave of a passage from the text about three or four years ago, have elevated it so high in my mind that I feel it's something I need to read. Or at least need to find some way I can get through it before moving on to other Faulkner.
Oh god, I tried reading Absalom once. There was a sentence that went on for three pages and I put it down forever.
That sentence thing excites me too, especially since I enjoy the idea of seeing how far and how long I can string out sentences while still remaining coherent and focused, or if not focused at least substantive in what I am writing. That should make me want to read it more, but it just doesn't, which I guess is another reason why I should work on changing my own writing style. If I don't even want to read texts like that, only admire them, then I guess I can't expect other people to want to either.
Or maybe I should just accept that, mostly, novels aren't for me and I'm best keeping them to the side as a rare indulgence.
However, what pix says about
Absalom echoes a lot of what I have heard, and I've had that feeling with every artistic medium I regularly ingest and it's a great feeling.
I should be a better reader.