Hard to follow and sort out the characters at first. I particularly like Faulkner's stream of consciousness style. The characters were very colorful. A good change of style and pace for me.

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A good intro to Faulkner's writing. A disturbing, sometimes darkly humorous account of a family's struggle to properly bury thier mother.

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Required reading for me in high school. However, I was shocked that I found the book extremely entertaining and funny. Black humor at its best and wacky but real characters. The stream of consciousness writing style is brilliant, Faulkner, ya know, but difficult to get into. Much like trying to read Shakespeare or listen to opera. Well worth it, if you can do it.

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My first Faulkner read.... it was a great book, but hard to read at first until you get used to his style. In the end, I enjoyed reading the story through each individual's eyes.

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Somewhat interesting, though sometimes the language and writing style was hard to muddle through.

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Superb story teller. Classic Faulkner.

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The conventional wisdom says that this a good introduction to Faulkner's unique style of writing. True, it's short and the black humor gets us readers over white waters in the stream of consciousness. But the multiple points of view may disconcert and disgruntle. And then there're sentences like this: But it's better to build a tight chicken coop than a shoddy court-house, and when they both build shoddy or build well, neither because it's one or tother is going to make a man feel the better nor the worse. Wait, what? There's no getting around that a reader has to read it twice through, once, then again quick. Nothing good comes easy, momma always said. Note: this is not the only masterpiece he wrote in the Thirties.

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There is no way around the fact that Faulkner is hard to read. However, this is one of his more enjoyable books. It is humorous even though the subject matter is so disturbing. Personally, Varderman is the most intriguing character. No one cares enough to explain to him the situation surrounding his mother's death, so while his conclusion that his mother is a fish is disturbing, it still remains humorous.

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This was my first attempt at Faulkner. Somehow I managed to go through my entire undergraduate degree in English without so much as glancing at a Faulkner book. I was neither surprised nor disappointed in this book, it was about what I expected. It takes awhile to get in to the vernacular, but the story is interesting enough to get you through. All-in-all a worthy classic but by no means a "fun" read.

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