<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/29/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Carrol Cox</b> <<a href="mailto:cbcox@ilstu.edu">cbcox@ilstu.edu</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><br>I mean in a good way. Every word is right -- every sentence rhythm. It<br>is achingly beautiful.<br><br>Carrol<br><br></blockquote></div>I think that "Absalom, Absalom" is one of the 5 greatest novels ever written -- ( "Anna Karenina", "Lolita", "Pride and Prejudice", "Absalom, Absalom", "Bleak House" and my inner argument about Ulysses / Berlin, Alexanderplatz / Swan's Way / Madame Bovary / Pale Fire / and Wuthering Heights in sixth place place....) The only other novel I have read more often if "Anna K."
<br><br>But if you'll notice I respect Nabokov greatly ... having included him twice on this list.... So I have tried to comprehend his hatred of Faulkner and Dostoevsky.... <br><br>And in truth Faulkner can be inelegant at times. He does feel drunk on his own words and unable to make distinctions.
<br><br>This is only to say that in trying hard to understand Nabokov's haughty dismissal of Faulkner I have again come to the conclusion that there is no way we can argue over art -- we can explicate, praise, react, hope to reveal, and help to experience but rarely if ever convince someone out of their own confirmed taste.
<br><br>Jerry<br><br><br>