The Faulkner Finale

Big Cuter wondered what I learned in class this morning.  I had to tell him that class ended last week, with a whimper, not a bang.  I read two of the three books, and enjoyed them as literature even thought figuring out the story was less important than going with the flow.

Then again, to quote Alan Arkin, What flow?  There is no flow.

I need flow.  I'm uncomfortable without it.  I don't like fighting my way through to what's going on.  I require some basics, or at least a codex.  When I was able to spend an hour or two with the text, letting it wash over me, I could imagine the stream of Faulkner's consciousness.  But it was hard to get to a place of comfort before boredom set in.

The words were elegant.  The story was incomprehensible.  I couldn't keep the characters straight.

And yet I persisted.  I read nothing else for six weeks.  I knew that if I turned to something more accessible I'd never have the strength to return to those texts.  I read a few chapters of Absalom, Absalom, our final book, and I enjoyed the lecture. 

That was Monday.  I carried the text around all week.  It was in my bag at the TFOB.  But there were so many wonderful books at the Festival, and I was so tired of arguing with what I was reading, that I bought Craig Unger's House of Trump House of Putin  and I'm more than half way through it as I type these words.

I feel free.  I look forward to picking up the book.  I'm sharing factoids with TBG on a regular basis. 

But they are just words, sharing facts.  They are what they are, doing what Unger wants them to do - telling us what happened  He doesn't let the prose get in the way of the information he's sharing.

I kind of miss that annoying prose.