u/castlefreakfan

I’ve just been reading the Vintage pressings of Faulkner’s work up to this point but due to its infamous difficulty, I thought it might be a good investment to have a bunch of supplementary reading for Absalom, Absalom! especially because reading his work outside of school/class robs me of the experience of discussing it with peers and Faulkner really warrants extracurricular dialogue.

I just ordered the Norton Critical Edition and was wondering how it is. Some reviews on Amazon complain about font size and paper quality so I wanted to hear from y’all. This’ll be my first time ever reading it so I would like to have a good, approachable copy for that context. Are the essays good/helpful for that? Thanks!

I’ve probably spent hundreds of hours listening to the show but it’s mostly been through skipping around
at random. I know there’s a distinction between the Earwolf era and the Headgum era, for instance, but the fans here love to talk about this or that “era of the show”.

I’m curious, how do you distinguish the different styles/phases the podcast has endured? It’s been well over a decade now and it’s evolved in many ways from just being an insider’s guide to kicking butt and dropping names in the red-carpet-lined back hallways of this industry we call showbiz.

What’s your favorite of these? Mine is probably 2015-2018, whichever era those years would fall into. I also love the entirety of Hollywood Masterclass S3 possibly more than any episode of HH.

My planned order is:

As I Lay Dying
Light in August
Go Down Moses
The Hamlet
The Sound and the Fury
Absalom, Absalom!
Sanctuary

I won’t be reading these back to back as I’m only peppering them into a greater reading list, but I wanted to check here (even if there’s a million threads already asking about where to start or what order to follow - I don’t have anyone to talk with about AILD and Faulkner at large) to see how these choices stack up.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still quite a bit intimidated by the “really difficult ones” and I definitely had to use a guide and supplemental reading to fully enjoy AILD, but I also found that it started to click around halfway through the novel and I found myself reading summaries less and less. The first time I picked it up, I couldn’t keep track of all the characters but it was actually so easy to place them all in my mind after a while this go around. In fact, that’s definitely the greatest aspect of the novel in my eyes. I loved how tragic and idiosyncratic each character is, even (and/or especially) if it’s in ways that we’re not truly or easily privy to.

How does the difficulty of this one stack up against others? What are the best resources for tackling his work and the best mindsets to have going into the others, having the experience I did with AILD?

I don’t mean for this to simply just be another “reading order” query post but rather a general advice post for a newly converted fan! If this type of post is repetitive and unwanted, I understand, but I just have so much unspent energy regarding the book and wanted to channel it somewhere. I’m not reading them for class or anything so I’ll be seeking out discussions, podcasts and analysis on my own. Thanks!

Hey everyone! I’m going through a tough time (kind of perpetually) but I’ve also gotten back into a voracious reading habit.

The golden standard for this is Notes From Underground, which just quickly became one of my favorite books. I’m looking for more like it. I do tend to like really disturbing things so the darker the better. Anything transgressive is a plus. Also ideally pre-21st century lit.

Mostly just characters that hate themselves so much that they get in their own way of doing anything.

I picked up No Longer Human and I’m excited to read it, but I’m not particularly looking for books with “incel vibes” as I would slightly prefer to have an easier time connecting with the protagonist. These types of books are fine to recommend and they are definitely interesting to me, but incels are sort of a different beast. It’s honestly a plus if the protagonist does have a sex life but just no sense of connection with anyone.

This might be kinda specific but hopefully there are at least a few more great books out there for this vibe! Even if it just fits one of my descriptors, I’ll check it out. Thanks!

I’d like to start the post by saying please do not comment if your sentiment is simply that these books should be disregarded, burnt, banned or anything of that sort. I’ve heard it all and I do not wish to debate this aspect. It’s okay if you feel that way but I’m 150 pages through Justine and even though I’m not a big fan of the work so far, I am going to complete it and try to engage with it.

I would preferably like to hear from people that give the text some value or importance. Open to hearing from other critics/skeptics/haters but would really love it if the discourse was elevated above “it’s stupid and worthless”.

I am curious about the philosophy, which I kind of find nonsensical and unintentionally solipsistic. Maybe I am wrong about this but de Sade believes that morality gets in the way of enjoying life’s true pleasures, but even in that there is a morality. The idea that the “weak” naturally deserve agency/pleasure less than others *is* a moral judgment, no? I understand that the argument is that nature should decide these things — but wouldn’t a tyrannical government that censors art be completely agreeable with this philosophy since it is also reached by exploitation and overpowering others?

Hopefully someone can help me make some sense of this. I went in expecting a satire but it seems less and less satirical as it goes on. I know leftists such as Georges Bataille reclaimed his work but I honestly can’t find anything remarkably leftist about Justine.

I’m very interested in transgressive literature, abnormal psychology/sexuality and many great writers consider de Sade important, so I want to see what that importance is even if I disagree.