Absalom, Absalom! The Corrected Text
by WILLIAM FAULKNER | Literature & Fiction | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0679732187 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 0679732187 Global Overview for this book
3 journalers for this copy...
Told five times between 1835 and 1910 (while Sutpen rests from hunting his absconded French architect with a pack of slaves), this is the peasant to planter story of Thomas Sutpen, his plantation (called “the Hundred”), and of Bon, his possible son who may be black and who, if black and acknowledged, will bring the house down.
The gaps and contradictions exposed by multiple narration raise epistemological questions concerning how we know what we know of historical matters. But given that, in Absalom, Absalom!, the questions arise from a regionally specific labor problem – that of the denied black body within the white, whose coerced work gives substance to the face, skin, sex, and land of the white owning class — those questions are recast. “Who knows what and how do they know it?” reforms as, “How, knowing that their face, skin, sex, and land are made by African-American labor (the good inside their goods), can they go on denying what they know?” Faulkner’s answer would seem to be that to acknowledge their knowledge (or for Sutpen to face Bon as his son), would be to cease to be themselves. That William Faulkner should begin to think such unthinkable thoughts about his own ancestors in Absalom, Absalom!, even as his region continued to depend for its substance on bound black workers (bound by debt peonage rather than chattel slavery), may explain the structure of this, one of the greatest of modernist novels. — Richard Godden in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
The gaps and contradictions exposed by multiple narration raise epistemological questions concerning how we know what we know of historical matters. But given that, in Absalom, Absalom!, the questions arise from a regionally specific labor problem – that of the denied black body within the white, whose coerced work gives substance to the face, skin, sex, and land of the white owning class — those questions are recast. “Who knows what and how do they know it?” reforms as, “How, knowing that their face, skin, sex, and land are made by African-American labor (the good inside their goods), can they go on denying what they know?” Faulkner’s answer would seem to be that to acknowledge their knowledge (or for Sutpen to face Bon as his son), would be to cease to be themselves. That William Faulkner should begin to think such unthinkable thoughts about his own ancestors in Absalom, Absalom!, even as his region continued to depend for its substance on bound black workers (bound by debt peonage rather than chattel slavery), may explain the structure of this, one of the greatest of modernist novels. — Richard Godden in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Thanks so much for your donation Vasha!
This book is now part of the 1001-library. If you want to take this book from the library but don't know how to proceed, please refer to the 1001-library bookshelf.
This book is now part of the 1001-library. If you want to take this book from the library but don't know how to proceed, please refer to the 1001-library bookshelf.
In transit.
Thanks Vasha. Sorry for the delay I've just been on holiday.
I actually read another copy of this, check out my entry for it at:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/11455416
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/11455416
This book is now back on the 1001 library bookshelf and can be borrowed by PMing stubee:)
If you want to take this book from the library but don't know how to proceed, please refer to the library bookshelf.
If you want to take this book from the library but don't know how to proceed, please refer to the library bookshelf.