Innocence and History

Abstract

Absalom, Absalom! (1936), like The Sound and the Fury, moves in an analogical, allusive manner, circling and expanding on its material as it proceeds. There are many reasons why this should be, but none more cogent than that it was written in the grip of a barely mastered complex of feeling. The book is shot through with a most passionate sense of foreboding, and if any commentary is to give an adequate account of it, it will need to remain faithful to its most characteristic qualities, which do not include among them the finality of deeply pondered conclusions (even conclusions about the impossibility of reaching conclusions) or, indeed, of things seen clearly, steadily and whole.