ABSTRACT
It is a chaotic narrative, and the chaos is deepened by what seems to be a degree of mystification in the telling even more deliberate than that exhibited in earlier books by this author. His copiousness of language is as remarkable as ever, but here it takes on the character of mere intoxication; the spinning and winding sentences are yards long, crammed with trivial detail or flamboyant imagery, and not once in a hundred times does a clear picture emerge from them. The timesequence seems, as usual, fantastically erratic, and is made more bewildering by long-winded anecdotal digressions. And, on the dismally characteristic subject of Eula Varner and her aura of sexual energy, fecund nature and the rest, Mr. Faulkner's gush ofwords, ifone may say so, is rather silly. He has, it is plain, unusual aspirations and commanding gifts of a secondary importance in the writing offiction, but there seems little sense in the use he makes of them here.
