What Faulkner works have you read? What was your favorite? Least favorite?

[DemoTex]

My Faulkner favorites are Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Fury. My least favorite was the cryptic WW-1 story, A Fable.

Here is a partial list of the Faulkner works I have read:

Absalom, Absalom!
As I Lay Dying
The Collected Stories
A Fable
Go Down, Moses
The Hamlet
Intruder in the Dust
Light in August
The Mansion
The Reivers
Sanctuary
The Sound and the Fury
Spotted Horses
Old Man
The Bear
The Town
The Unvanquished

[hypocrisyandlies]

1. I've only read two...

As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury. The Sound and the Fury is one of my favorite books of all time. As I Lay Dying was good, but it isn't a favorite.

[DemoTex]

2. "As I Lay Dying" was much better on my second read at age 60 (or so).

And it brings to mind a newer novel, written by the niece of a DUer (IIRC): Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (4.5 stars at Amazon .. I give it 5).

BTW: Another Faulkner character with the name "Vardaman" (as in "My Mother Is A Fish" Vardaman Bundren) shows up in Faulkner's murder mystery, Intruder in the Dust. Of course Vardaman is an old Mississippi name, with a town in Calhoun County named Vardaman, and a white-supremest governor during the WW-1 era named Vardaman.

[midnight]

3. Slaughterhouse-five a long time ago. I just received Welcome to the Monkey House,

but have not started it....

[Jim__]

4. Those are by Kurt Vonnegut, no? - n/t

[DemoTex]

5. Yes .. Vonnegut

[Frances]

6. It's been years since I read Absalom! Absalom!

But the theme of that book has stayed with me. Like me, Faulkner grew up in the Bible Belt and must have known the story of the Biblical Absalom well. David loved Absalom best of his sons, but Absalom led a rebellion against David. Although David's armies defeated Absalom's army, David grieved greatly when Absalom died as he fled the scene (his hair was caught in a tree and his horse kept galloping while Absalom swung from the tree (I hope I remembered this right.)

In Faulkner's novel, as I remember it, a white plantation owner fathered a son with a black woman, and then refuses to recognize his son as his son.

In the Bible, David was guilty of causing the death of Absalom's mother's first husband's death. David saw Bathsheba, Absalom's mother, as she bathed. David sent Bathsheba's husband into the most dangerous part of a battle that was taking place, hoping that the husband would be killed. After the husband's death, David took Bathsheba as one of his wives and sired Absalom.

Both David and the father in Absalom! Absalom! are guilty in my opinion.

I cannot forgive the white men who fathered children with black women (often by rape) and then sold those children as slaves to other plantation owners. That's about as low as you can get in my book. I also cannot forgive white men who took advantage of the poverty of black women and did nothing for the children born of their union.

[BlueIris]

7. That's one I haven't read. Thanks for the rec. nt

[The Northerner]

8. I haven't read any but I'm considering reading The Sound and the Fury

or As I Lay Dying.