The Mansion by William Faulkner

Faulkner concludes his story of the rise and fall of Flem Snopes with this third installment of the Snopes Trilogy, published 19 years after the first installment, The Hamlet. This can be enjoyably read as a stand-alone novel; for those reading it as the culmination of one long story, it can even be a bit repetitious, as large sections retell incidents already reported in the two earlier books, albeit often with additional or slightly different information.

The two central characters are those who bring about Flem's death: Mink Snopes, the convicted murderer first introduced in The Hamlet, who leaves prison after 39 years still intent on revenge against his cousin Flem for abandoning him during his trial; and Linda Snopes Kohl, the supposed daughter of Flem, who arranges for Mink's release for reasons of her own.

Faulkner's continued use of multiple narrators is particularly effective in this novel, allowing the reader to understand and empathize with both the simple minded Mink and the lawyer Gavin Stevens, the high-minded "knight" whose obsession is to "save" both Linda and, previously, Eula Verner Snopes, her mother. Interestingly, the reader is never allowed to see into the minds of Flem and Linda, so that their thoughts and motivations are always subject to the interpretations of other narrators.

The Mansion, both as a single novel and as the third of a trilogy, excels and enthralls as to plot and the grandeur of the language, but the story also has added significance and symbolism that can be thought about long afterward. I'm still thinking about it.