Last year I enjoyed Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury even though it was a pretty difficult book to get through. That should have prepared me for Absalom, Absalom! but it didn't. I think this one is actually a bit tougher to really understand. The story is mostly about Thomas Sutpen and how he built a plantation in the South (of course with slave labor) during the 1800's and how it all eventually fell apart. Since Sutpen is such an unlikeable character I never felt bad for him, but the story of his children is pretty tragic. The story is told through narrations from multiple characters, some of whom are just speculating on what happened to the Sutpen family... so it is debatable on what "actually" happens to the characters.
The story was interesting and the writing in some parts is beautiful, but overall Faulkner's style got to be a bit much for me and kept distracting me from what was going on. I had to refer to the outline of events at the back of the book several times to make total sense of the story. I'll be giving Absalom, Absalom! a B.
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