Even if European, any remotely decent reader
has got to read some Faulkner. That’s the only thing that pushed me to finish
this book (well, that and the fact that I was bored out of my mind invigilating
end-of-year exams).
Yes, I did struggle through the first part,
narrated by the problematic Benji – but at least I found its unique style to be
interesting (although it would take me a good 10 minutes to read a page and
make some sense of it). I was surprised when I realized that the part was the
most enjoyable one. After that, pain, sadness, desolation, and decadence –
true, always described from different viewpoints, but not a single glimmer of
hope, or a trace of humour, or irony, or anything that might prevent you from
self-harm. Great literature is not necessarily meant to be enjoyable, but, I
believe, neither should it be a hopeless and fruitless struggle.
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