I've been grappling with how to approach Absalom, Absalom! for weeks now. It seems every time I look away it's still there, connected to the entirety, somehow escaping the eternal struggle to simultaneously define itself separate from and within the group. Faulkner personified shared emotions into individual beings--ideas into human essence. John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote in the introduction, which is the best one I've ever read (I read it after finishing the novel as I tend to) and a most challenging undertaking to be assigned, that Faulkner aimed "to dramatize historical consciousness itself, not just human lives but the forest of time in which the notion of human life must find its only meaning."
What is so unnerving about the whole thing, for me, is how clearly the way the group and the individual influence each other is shown. People embody the spirit of a larger force, crafting it and carrying it on. We act as we should in the medium of past and future, killing and dying for the responsibilities shouldered. For the way things are done. We find the path that led us here, and we sow the seeds of where the path goes on.
Our intelligence mandates an explanation. Heritage orients existence. I visited the Temple of Dendur on a fall day, its sandstone blocks transported across seas to lie in this cavernous hall. Augustus commissioned it in Upper Egypt over 2,000 years ago in the style of the then-ancient pharaohs. It was an ode to a great lineage, a landmark in time signaling the proper order was in place.
Historical consciousness can hold us hostage to the lofty goals set by our predecessors. As much as this may be reflected in grievances, power grabs, hierarchy, it can also be reflected in peace and gratitude, too. The Samai people of Malaysia carry a nonviolent dogma with them from their distant past. They have an expectation of benevolence and agreeableness, respect and free will. They are likewise oriented by tradition in time. Why theirs developed in this manner, as compared to the imperial ambitions so common in our species, leaves me wondering. Once we define ourselves on the basis of our group, is that who we are forever?
