Terrific book. The first Faulkner book I've read. Took me a while for various reasons, including the writing style, but it was very enjoyable and worth it.

Chapter 6 is magic (I think so, anyways), and can stand on its own if I remember right. Here's a paragraph from it:
Joe Christmas is stuck behind a curtain:
"He squatted among the soft womansmelling garments and the shoes. He saw by feel alone now the ruined, once cylindrical tube. By taste and not seeing he contemplated the coo... (show more)

Terrific book. The first Faulkner book I've read. Took me a while for various reasons, including the writing style, but it was very enjoyable and worth it.

Chapter 6 is magic (I think so, anyways), and can stand on its own if I remember right. Here's a paragraph from it:
Joe Christmas is stuck behind a curtain:
"He squatted among the soft womansmelling garments and the shoes. He saw by feel alone now the ruined, once cylindrical tube. By taste and not seeing he contemplated the cool invisible worm as it coiled onto his finger and smeared sharp, automotonlike and sweet, into his mouth. By ordinary he would have taken a single mouthful and then replaced the tube and left the room. Even at five, he knew that he must not take more than that. Perhaps it was the animal warning him that more would make him sick; perhaps the human being warning him that if he took more than that, she would miss it. This was the first time he had taken more. By now, hiding and waiting, he had taken a good deal more. By feel he could see the diminishing tube. He began to sweat. Then he found that he had been sweating for some time, that for some time now he had been doing nothing else but sweating. He was not hearing anything at all now. Very likely he would not have heard a gunshot beyond the curtain. He seemed to be turned in upon himself, watching himself sweating, watching himself smear another worm of paste into his mouth which his stomach did not want. Sure enough, it refused to go down. Motionless now, utterly contemplative, he seemed to stoop above himself like a chemist in his laboratory, waiting. He didn't have to wait long. At once the paste which he had already swallowed lifted inside him, trying to get back out, into the air where it was cool. It was no longer sweet. In the rife, pinkwomansmelling obscurity behind the curtain he squatted, pinkfoamed, listening for what was about to happen to him. Then it happened. He said to himself with complete and passive surrender: 'Well, here I am.'"

I felt it change a little in the last quarter-- goes from Coen Brothers (I'm sure it inspired them) -like to David Lynch-like, then back, then to some other director who I can't remember, and then the final chapter was different again-- That last chapter was really terrific I think, and reminded me of something, but I can't remember what. I guess there's always risk in building it up though, so if you're reading this to decide if you want to read that, maybe don't prepare for anything special.

Every character is outstanding.

It haunts. (show less)