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Reading Bon's Letter and Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

David Krause
David Krause*
Affiliation:
Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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Abstract

The old letter Mr. Compson gives his son Quentin to read in chapter 4 of Absalom, Absalom! cannot be easily interpreted. Faulkner refuses to authorize any assumptions about the origin, destination, or meaning of the letter that might simplify its reading; instead, he entangles its readers, both inside and outside the novel, in a web of competing readings, rereadings, and misreadings. Given the problems of reading, we cannot assume that a text like Absalom discloses the way it imagines its own reading(s) through the scenes of reading it represents. Still, the better we can see how Faulkner imagines various readings of texts within his text—through detailed readings of the readings of Bon's letter—the closer we can come to understanding what Faulkner reveals about the uncertainties and risks of reading, about what is and is not in his book, and about our own uncertainties regarding how we are and are not in the world.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 99 , Issue 2 , March 1984 , pp. 225 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1984

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