Okay! Back after the couple of weeks it took to read some of the other writers recommended on this thread. I read Sartoris, and Lamb's She's Come Undone. Thanks for introducing me to these authors.
Lamb is brilliant in his dialogue, his charming and telling details and his characterization. He reminded me of John Irving, where small things take on a big symbolic significance that almost borders on magical realism at times. However, I had trouble identifying with the main character, a catholic school girl. So the main character and the plot, while brilliant, were as much to my taste as the storylines of McCarthy and Faulkner.
Sartois had similar angst to NCFOM and other novels by Cormac McCarthy. Sartoris was a more muscular, less introspective book than She's come undone. I liked it, and its more expansive cast of characters better than Lamb's smaller drama, but Faulkner was not easy for me to read. Perhaps this is my failing, but I expect to be entertained and Sartoris made me work too hard for the entertainment it provided.
So, sorry to sound like a fanboy, but I like both the manly characters of and the life or death stakes of Faulker and McCarthy better than the more intimate drama in She's Come Undone, and I liked the writing of McCarthy better than the writing of Faulkner because it is more accessible.
If Faulkner were alive, and all three of these authors came out with a new book, I would probably read McCarthy first, Lamb second, and Faulkner only if I felt like a challenge.
Prawn
Dearie me.....
