Spring approaches softly

As we all know, Utah does not want us planting yet. Soooo might as well read a good book. Thanks to our own Dr. Chris McGill, I have a classic to recommend. Of course, I teach A.P. Literature and this is the time for Sound and the Fury, no, I'm not recommending that one, although really mind blowing, I would like to suggest Absalom, Abaslom! another Faulkner. I don't know how I missed reading this one over the years, as Faulkner is really my favorite writer. I really like getting lost in his writing, I don't worry much about not knowing what's going on. But of course, that's because I've read so many of them multiple times. But then I started Absalom. Thank goodness, Chris is here in the building to discuss it with. I highly suggest having a partner or two when engaging with Faulkner. What was really great for me was to re-experience that disquietude that one feels when starting a Faulkner work. Everything is spinning, like when I have my spring sinus infection. But as always, being patient and being willing to re-read paid off. It is really Quentin(from Sound and Fury) and his friend Shreve telling the outside story. Then it's Miss Rosa Coldfield telling as well. All adding up to a very mysterious story, and giving background to a famous classic Yoknapatawpha county citizen, Thomas Sutpen. Also, even though most stories of his are after the civil war, this one goes back to before and explains a lot of the transformation. "Faulkner fights out the moral problem which was repressed after the nineteenth century(yet) for all his concern with the South, Faulkner as actually seeking out the nature of man."(Ralph Ellison)I don't suggest this one for your first time out with Mr. Faulkner, but boy is it cool and well worth the effort.

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Back to contemporary. Back to easier/faster reading. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. This too is an interesting read and a little disquieting as well. It really is as if you are in her life and she is telling you some, but importantly not all of the secrets. You are left, really, at the end with a mystery. You will read very quickly at the end, trying to get the answers to many questions. But she only tells you what she wants. This style is engaging and we question, why. NY Times Review.