Set This House on Fire

Much like Sophie's Choice, this novel will no doubt haunt the reader for years to come. Styron has an uncanny ability to render unlikeable characters in a human way that makes one nearly sympathize with them. I take issue with the reviewers who criticize the digressions and flashbacks that buttress the story. The two critical characters of Cass Kinsolving and Mason Flagg are fleshed-out by virtue of the digressions, making their extraordinary actions understandable and realistic. The characters ultimately behave as they should, but not in an entirely predicatable fashion either. What I appreciate about this novel is the way Styron intertwines the root mystery with a novel of ideas. He meditates quite gracefully on suffering, evil, art, and existence without overwhelming the reader. It's a page-turner, gorgeously written, yet demanding. Highly recommended to those who enjoy the southern noir of Flannery O'Conner or the late-fifties malaise of Richard Yates.

This book, Styron's finest, is about redemption. Heralded by the epigraph from John Donne, the intricately structured tale with its Marlowian manipulations of narrative points of view soon becomes so enthralling that it's impossible to put down. But it's also to Styron's great credit that the novel's theme, redemption through confrontation with death and violence, is reflected through its feverish style. There are not many books in the postwar era, and none in the United States, that have such a non-moralistic but intensely moral character and impact. Echoes of the Greek tragedians (several times evoked in the text) and of Dostoyevski abound. Finally, the crucial role by the most-fleshed out non-expatriate character, a philosophical Italian small-town cop named Luigi, elevates the moral drama to a metaphysical dimension that most contemporary writers don't even seem to understand, let alone approach. It's a shame that Styron has not received the Nobel Prize yet.

Styron somehow manages to find a glimmer of hope amid the the swirl of self-destructiveness which envelops the two leading protagonists, Cass Kinsolving, an inebriate unaccomplished painter from modest North Carolina roots, and Mason Flagg, a demonically charming neer do well who has settled in an idyllic Italian coastal town along with a Hollywood cast filming a B movie. The third protagonist, the narrator, first meets Mason at a Newport News prep school and is cast under the spell of Mason's luxurious home on the river entranced by his beautiful and sensous mother. Styron magically explores the self-destructive impulse with humor, empathy, and ultimately, redemptive hope. This is one of the finest novels in the canon of modern American literature.

Extraordinary in its truest sense. Possibly not for Everyman (though I detest such elitism as much as the next guy), this epic paints in strokes broad and fine the tale of three Americans unwittingly ensnared in the Tragic Muse's web in the post-war, bucolic setting of a hillside village in Italy. Whether or not an insatiable reader of William Syron's work, you might agree that this one stands alone. Though it may seem emulating of the writings of preceding expatirates (the likes of Hemingway or Fitzgerlad, say), Styron's story telling has unfailingly transcended any standards set by the maverick American literatti. His love of the classics (particularly the Greeks) shines through brilliantly here. The themes of the story are wrought out of vast sensuality, a fierce and aggressive intellectualism, and a persistent dramatic satire of the dichotomy of materialism and metaphysical angst. Styron is one of the greatest prose stylists in the English language -- but better than that, he has an enquiring and theatrical perception of modern man. This novel is as much travelogue of the soul as it is of Italy. Sophocles would be proud. (Read it and see what the heck I mean by that!)

I read this book seven years ago, maybe eight years ago. I still remember its impact. It's the fascinating story of Americans in Italy, most drunk and/or debauched. There is a beautiful, kind and frightened Italian peasant girl who is a helpless party to the action. The characters are emotive, world weary. The absurd sadness of one's life on this earth is brought into wrenching focus by William Styron. "A tour de force." (I was a naive twenty-four-year-old living in Marseille, France when I read this book- perhaps its melodrama is more attractive to a young person experiencing the melodrama of living abroad in an excitng port city than to the average working American adult, but I remember it being an excellent read, and it has been for me the type of book that lingers in one's thoughts for years.)