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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

John Stuart Mill


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🦋 Painterly

The opening pages of Absalom, Absalom! are great pages. I was trying today to figure out what I could compare them to: they are sort of like a really long shot in film of a scene with very little action or dialogue, with the camera panning and tracking its subjects, taking in every detail of an elaborate set. But what this scenario really brings to mind is the reaction I am always hoping to have (and only rarely actually experiencing) to seeing a great painting. Faulkner is narrating the experience of looking hard, for minutes on end, at a painting of the scene he is describing.

(Also: my memory of this book doesn't have much to say about Quentin Compson; but rereading these opening pages, I am thinking he's a really important element to understanding what's being told. I wonder if after the beginning of the book, Faulkner moves more completely into the world of Miss Coldfield's story. Or alternately if I just missed out on the point of the story, when I read it last.)

posted evening of December 19th, 2007: Respond
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