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A daily record of what I'm thinking about what I'm reading

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Sunday, June 10, 2012

Two unreadable novels

I'll be cranky today but please don't misinterpret, I'm not a troglodyte nor do I believe that all novels should be entertaining, uplifting, morally just, and easy to read - however - there are some novels, even great novels, that seem to be among us primarily to be taught, or at least to be studied. Of course there are the massive examples such as Finnegans Wake, a territory into which I doubt anyone dares enter without a Virgil to guide the way. Here are two others, far less daunting, that I've just read and have been reading: First, Nathanael West's "Miss Lonelyhearts," which I posted on yesterday and made plain that I would not recommend that anyone read the book; then, read the Stanley Edgar Hyman intro to my ancient and maligned pb edition, and he has a lot to say about the religious aspects of the novel, about M.L.'s quest for truth, about the contrasts between the pastoral scenes (M.L's retreat to the countryside in Conn. with fiancee Betty) and the urban rot and decay, about the Oedipal themes and the homoerotic themes, and so forth - a very good introduction that makes it evident that there's a lot of material in this short novel, maybe even more than West was aware of, at least consciously, and yet - and yet - the experience of reading Miss Lonelyhearts is so unrelievedly unpleasant - why must anyone be subject to that, voluntarily? A second, William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!," has so many great aspects: occasionally beautiful and always striking language that is recognizably and uniquely Faulkner's and that clearly builds on the foundation he'd laid with earlier works such as Sound/Fury, examination of really important issues including race and class, portrayal of an entire society and a time of great crisis (South during Civil War), human, exciting action (a murder on the eve of a wedding), breadth and scope - shall I go on? So what's the problem? Honestly, does anyone find this novel to be in any way readable? I've been making furious marginal notes in my copy, just so I can keep track of who's speaking - in these 50 page narrations that sound nothing like recognizable human speech in any way - and though a lot happens on the plot level, or at leas a few very dramatic things happen - Faulkner narrates with such excruciating detail with sentences that are acrobatic marvels but are at times, often in fact, impenetrable - you really have to read this novel word by word, and perhaps in the end it's worth while but at this point I am, figuratively, throwing up my hands and saying, yes, it's great, but I'll leave it to others to spend a year or more fuguring out exactly why.

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