cognized as more ambitious than Faulkner's previous work. However, many thought his ambition had led him astray, that it was a wild experiment gone awry' and offered no code ready to be cracked' (Parker 13). In Absalom, Absalom!, there are four main areas of controversy. The first area is about whether the novel centers on the Compsons or the Sutpens. Parker feels that the novel is about both the Compsons and the Sutpens, and that it serves as no useful purpose to try and keep score or rank one family over the other (14). The second area of controversy is whether the novel should be considered all by itself or in combination with The Sound and the Fury. Critics insisting that the novel centers on the Compsons usually insist that it must be read with The Sound and the Fury because the Compsons appear in both novels, while the Sutpens do not. But to insist on one side or the other, is to construct a false dichotomy, as if the two novels must be merged or isolated (Parker 14). The third area of controversy, whether Sutpen represents the old plantation South or only wishes he could, depends on how much the critic likes or dislikes Sutpen and/or the old South. Faulkner seems to have encompassed a full range of allegiances without retreating from the contradictions produced, leaving both sides with plenty of material to offer as evidence. Finally, the fourth area is over whether or not things get explained at the end of the novel and, if so, how. Some critics believe Faulkner reveled in deliberate mystification, that the problems of the novel are insoluble because he meant for them to be. As Mr. Compson states:It's just incredible. It just does not explain or perhaps that's it:they don't explain and we are not supposed to know.... -Yes, Judith, Bon, Henry, Sutpen: all of them. They are here, yet something is missing; they are like a chemical formula exhumed.... almost indecipherable, yet meaningful, familiar in shape and sense, t...
