Matt B. (BuffaloSavage) reviewed on + 53 more book reviews
On the web it seems that As I Lay Dying is the novel Faulkner veterans advise nervous newbies to read as an intro to Faulkner, because of its unintimidating length and straightforward structure of a quest. But I'd argue its kaleidoscopic points of view are likely to disgruntle and dismay the uninitiated so better to start with this one. The reasons are that it follows a conventional chronological order and has psychological and symbolic depth comparable with the later novels that sealed Faulkner's place in the first-rank of American authors TS&TF, As I Lay Dying, and Light in August. Faulkner does use modernist techniques in Sartoris but they're not relentlessly experimental: different characters with the same name, the nod to tropes of tragedy, spectral presences, setting a fictitious region based on real-life Northern Mississippi, extensive dialogue full of flashbacks and stories, different points of view, and cheeky hints at major events like marriages and deaths. Nothing here like that mind-bending first part, of Benjy's stream of consciousness, in TS&TF.
