Absalom, Abaslom! Episode 6—Faulkner’s Tapestry: Sentences, Style, Structure, Syntax

In this sixth episode proper of Summer Reading with the Diehls Season 1, Adam Diehl and his wife Whitney take a break from the content and themes of the novel and discuss the style of William Faulkner’s 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom!. Do the words, sentences, and designs of this novel combine to make realistic, impressionistic, or abstract portraits of the characters? Would this story "hit different" if the prose was more straight-forward and simplified?

 

This episode also considers the importance of short sentences (there aren’t that many of them!) in the book, especially in regard to when the different characters use them.