He is the only author I can re-read. A good companion book to that is by John Kenny Crane, who wrote it for his thesis, or some such thing. Styron's work is so dense and multi-layered, analysis of it is enjoyable too. That someone could find the structural themes and put it all together is fun.
For those of you though, that have a lousy vocabulary like I do, may find it rough going, - Styron has an extensive vocabulary...sometimes I think he uses a thesaurus so he'll appear erudite...(he even is appalled at his own snobbery sometimes).
And it can get a little tedious to be constantly using the dictionary when you just want to read with pleasure. Once, with one novel, I started writing down all the words he used on a legal pad and when one page filled up with several columns of his words, I thought just get the gist and forget it! So I did.
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