The greatest MFA writer's thesis of all time? : Tinkers

Another "ancestor" of Paul Harding's "Tinkers" is obviously Faulkner, and not just because of the trope of a man recollecting the details of his life through interior monologue while in the throes of dying and not just because of the braided plot, such as it is, alternating between the dying man's recollections and an account of the life of his (grand?)father - but the style and tone, rich with specific details, bursting with love of the language and expert command of the language, almost gorgeous, sportive joy in the English vocabulary, and the occasional launching into an odd philosophical observation or, more often, declaration about the state of the world - all this does seem Faulknerian. However: Tinkers doesn't have the scope of even the lesser Faulkner novels (maybe it doesn't need to or Harding didn't intend it to) but you don't have the sense of the life of a full community, a whole civilization living within what Faulkner famously called his little postage stamp of native soil. The characters are very isolate and solitary, so the overall effect is not always that of Harding's creation of a world but, more often, of Harding's showing off his facility with language - which is considerable. As noted in earlier post, this is a novel to me more of great promise than great accomplishment - I look forward to seeing what he can do with these obvious skills but don't really feel that this is a great novel by any stretch - more like the greatest mfa writer's thesis of all time.