Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
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Absalom, Absalom!

Author: William Faulkner

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Unabridged: 12 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/08/2008


Synopsis

Family drama and the legacy of slavery haunt this epic tale of an enigmatic stranger in Jefferson, Mississippi—from one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century.

First published in 1936, Absalom, Absalom! is William Faulkner’s ninth novel and one of his most admired. It tells the story of Thomas Sutpen and his ruthless, single-minded attempt to forge a dynasty in Jefferson, Mississippi, in 1830. Although his grand design is ultimately destroyed by his own sons, a century later the figure of Sutpen continues to haunt young Quentin Compson, who is obsessed with his family legacy and that of the Old South.

“Faulkner’s novels have the quality of being lived, absorbed, remembered rather than merely observed,” noted Malcolm Cowley. “Absalom, Absalom! is structurally the soundest of all the novels in the Yoknapatawpha series—and it gains power in retrospect.”

About The Author

William Faulkner, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. He published his first book, The Marble Faun, in 1924, but it is as a literary chronicler of life in the Deep South—particularly in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the setting for several of his novels—that he is most highly regarded. In such novels as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! he explored the full range of post–Civil War Southern life, focusing both on the personal histories of his characters and on the moral uncertainties of an increasingly dissolute society. In combining the use of symbolism with a stream-of-consciousness technique, he created a new approach to fiction writing. In 1949 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. William Faulkner died in Byhalia, Mississippi, on July 6, 1962.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Vit on June 19, 2024

Absalom, Absalom! is a full of dark secrets and murky mysteries ghost story – the ghosts of the past rise and follow everyone everywhere. All the human vices rotate around the procreative instinct... And the male instinct of procreation rotates around woman... ...the other sex is separated into three s......more

Goodreads review by Tom on November 23, 2019

Apologies for previously having some snobbery in this review that I wrote 10 years ago which I have now edited. In the interim 10 years I have had children and now have to read books about cat mermaids so karma has bit my ass aggressively. Let’s just enjoy this: “. . . and opposite Quentin, Miss Col......more

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on September 24, 2015

The picture above was used on the first edition dust jacket published in 1936 by Random House. It is the image I had in my mind of Sutpen's Hundred the plantation built by Thomas Sutpen. The hundred stands for a 100 square miles, the geographic size of the plantation. 100 square miles of land is......more

Goodreads review by Henry on March 27, 2024

A great writer William Faulkner was, winner of the Nobel Prize yet not an easy read....This novel the name comes from the Bible could be his best, shows this. Seemingly just another southern Gothic book with erratic flashback after flashback revealing the truth ...layer by layer maybe, set both befo......more

Goodreads review by Lawyer on October 18, 2015

Absalom, Absalom!--William Faulkner's Novel of the Death of the Old South Considered by many Faulkner scholars to be his masterpiece, Absalom, Absalom! was read by goodreads group "On the Southern Literary Trail" in April, 2012. And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the ga......more


Quotes

“For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner’s works] are without equal in our time and country.” —Robert Penn Warren

“He is the greatest artist the South has produced.... Indeed, through his many novels and short stories, Faulkner fights out the moral problem which was repressed after the nineteenth century [yet] for all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for greatness of our classics.” —Ralph Ellison