What We Search For in Fiction

I love this: what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth. -page 3

What If?

I love this book.  It inspires and challenges me.  Really, it just makes me want to try something new.  So I was thinking, maybe sometime, soon hopefully, I'll just take off, go spend a year in Spain, or a few months anyway.  It's something I've always wanted to do, and it'd be a dream to be immersed in Spanish.

Books often have the power to transport us to other places, places we mostly just dream about, and sometimes that satisfying enough.  But this, geez, it's not satisfying in the least, it's really just a tease.  So...

Next Meeting

Because most seem far from finishing the book, we've moved the date.  So here's the updated info:

The Sound and the Fury

Monday, March 15

Vicki's House

Also, please vote for which book you'd like to read next.  

One more thing, if you post something, put your name in the "Labels" box so we know who wrote it.

Happy reading, everyone.

Confusion for Characterization

Maria L. just informed me that Faulkner was known for his characters.  If that be the case I think I might have a theory for why his writing is so hard to follow.  I'm on about page 140 and I still don't really have a clue about what the story is.  I don't really know what's going on.  Despite having no plot to follow, I do kinda have a picture in my head of the characters.

So I was sitting on the toilet thinking (sorry if that's too much information), if characterization is so important in Faulkner's writing, why is it necessary to make the plot so darn confusing?  Then it hit me: when we finish the novel, we won't be thinking about the story, because that wasn't Faulkner's point; in the end, we'll know the characters, and perhaps, that was his goal.

Anyone else have ideas?