I posted here a couple days ago (which has apparently been removed) about my struggle reading Absalom, Absalom. I put it aside and finished another book, then returned to it. It's still ridiculous that one sentence will take up three-quarters of the page. When I finish said sentences, I have to re-read the beginning to figure out what he's talking about.
But it's growing on me. Some of it is absolutely amazing:
"Because the time now approached…when the destiny of Sutpen's family which for twenty years now had been like a lake welling from quiet springs into a quiet valley and spreading, rising almost imperceptibly and in which the four members of it floated in sunny suspension, felt the first subterranean movement toward the outlet, the gorge which would be the land's catastrophe, too, and the four peaceful swimmers turning suddenly to face one another, not yet with alarm or distrust but just alert, feeling the dark set, none of them yet at that point where man looks about at his companions in disaster and thinks When will I stop trying to save them and save only myself? and not even aware that that point was approaching."
Wow.
I'm thinking that his writing is like molasses. Try to get through it quickly and you'll bog down in a sticky mess. But just let the slow flow of words ooze by, and it gets more readable. Thank you to those of you who sympathized and urged me to keep going.
by saga_of_a_star_world