These plantations were so large that it required an unbelievable amount of human labor to keep them productive. The gist of all this is that Thomas Sutpen built himself an empire. 100 square miles of land is equivalent to 64,000 acres.

The hundred stands for a 100 square miles, the geographic size of the plantation. It is the image I had in my mind of Sutpen's Hundred the plantation built by Thomas Sutpen. The picture above was used on the first edition dust jacket published in 1936 by Random House. Her voice would not cease, it would just vanish.' and opposite Quentin, Miss Coldfield in the eternal black which she had worn for forty-three years now, whether for sister, father, or nothusband none knew, sitting so bolt upright in the straight hard chair that was so tall for her that her legs hung straight and rigid as if she had iron shinbones and ankles, clear of the floor with that air of impotent and static rage like children's feet, and talking in that grim haggard amazed voice until at last listening would renege and hearing-sense self-confound and the long-dead object of her impotent yet indomitable frustration would appear, as though by outraged recapitulation evoked, quiet inattentive and harmless, out of the biding and dreamy and victorious dust. In the interim 10 years I have had children and now have to read books about cat mermaids so karma has bit my ass aggressively.

Apologies for previously having some snobbery in this review that I wrote 10 years ago which I have now edited.

Absalom absalom by william faulkner