1jhowell
I have just started reading Faulkner (embarrassingly enough I have Oprah's 'summer of Faulkner' collection)
I enjoyed As I lay Dying. But I am struggling through The Sound and the Fury. I have found the first two sections bordering on incomprehenible. I have had to look at online 'Spark notes' to figure out what is going on. I hate that. I am having to guess at WTF is going on most of the time. Any advice or encouragement out there?
I enjoyed As I lay Dying. But I am struggling through The Sound and the Fury. I have found the first two sections bordering on incomprehenible. I have had to look at online 'Spark notes' to figure out what is going on. I hate that. I am having to guess at WTF is going on most of the time. Any advice or encouragement out there?
3GeorgiaDawn
jhowell - Welcome to Faulkner. :)
I enjoyed As I Lay Dying and The Unvanquished very much. If you haven't read much Faulkner, you might want to try another of his works and come back to The Sound and the Fury. I'm no expert, but I'm passing on advice my son received from a literature teacher. I'm sure there are others out there who can be of more help.
I enjoyed As I Lay Dying and The Unvanquished very much. If you haven't read much Faulkner, you might want to try another of his works and come back to The Sound and the Fury. I'm no expert, but I'm passing on advice my son received from a literature teacher. I'm sure there are others out there who can be of more help.
4gautherbelle
the first part of the Sound and Fury is written from the point of view of the Benjy Compson who is retarded. After you get past that it should get better and easier to understand. Having said that I am not a Faulkner fan.
5myshelves
I'm not a fan, but one of his short stories, "Turn-about," set in France during WWI, is one of my all-time favorite stories.
7jhowell
thanks everyone -- strangely enough I think I know what you are saying #6 DromJohn and I have been doing just that. I actually get Benji's part after reading most of it a time or two. It is Quentin's I've struggled with. I cannot decide if he and Caddie actually have had some sort of incestous encounter or not?
Anyway, things are getting better -- I am not entirely convinced I like this 'modernist' genre. I felt this way about Ulysses too. What is the allure in making your writing SO opaque? It frustrates me.
Anyway, things are getting better -- I am not entirely convinced I like this 'modernist' genre. I felt this way about Ulysses too. What is the allure in making your writing SO opaque? It frustrates me.
8TheresaWilliams
It's been a long time since your original post and you may have finished S&F by now. The first time I read it, I just plowed ahead and hoped things would begin to connect. And eventually they did.
It's okay for things to be incomprehensible; that is part of the experience of reading something like S&F. I know it is comforting to have smooth and logical prose, but the point of reading S&F is not to be comfortable. Faulker is trying to show us a new way to experience prose, to take us into the human mind in a way that hadn't been tried before the modernists tried. They didn't care that their writing was hard to understand; they wanted to experiment and bring forth a new aspect of life.
if you keep going with it, and especially if you read it more than once, you may come away from the book with the same reverence I did. Relax. You are not inferior or dumb. (smile) It's a tough go, and it's supposed to be.
It's okay for things to be incomprehensible; that is part of the experience of reading something like S&F. I know it is comforting to have smooth and logical prose, but the point of reading S&F is not to be comfortable. Faulker is trying to show us a new way to experience prose, to take us into the human mind in a way that hadn't been tried before the modernists tried. They didn't care that their writing was hard to understand; they wanted to experiment and bring forth a new aspect of life.
if you keep going with it, and especially if you read it more than once, you may come away from the book with the same reverence I did. Relax. You are not inferior or dumb. (smile) It's a tough go, and it's supposed to be.
9jhowell
Thank you for your reply, theresa (#8) -- I am finished and I do agree with you. At first I thought I disliked the book -- but I have found the imagery and some of the repetitive sentences rather haunting me --"Caddy smells like trees" in particular. I re-read most of the first two sections again and appreciated them more. I just need to learn patience, and persistence. :)
I am about to start Light in August.
I am about to start Light in August.
10TheresaWilliams
Oh, wonderful! I'm so glad. Thanks for writing back, because I kept wondering if you ever finished it.
11thf4
Faulkner read the book aloud to his friend and literary mentor Phil Stone, who, after some initial resistance, said "it opened up like a flower."
It does.
I know you're done, but the trick is to read it line by line, more like poetry than fiction, take in as much as you can, and trust Faulkner a lot, more than you would other writers. It pays off.
It does.
I know you're done, but the trick is to read it line by line, more like poetry than fiction, take in as much as you can, and trust Faulkner a lot, more than you would other writers. It pays off.
14Judith205
Shreve is an outsider, a Canadian. Faulkner, as you probably know, wanted to participate in WWI (as did Hemingway) and went to Canada while
still in his teens to see what he could do about an air fighter career there. He concocted some very ingenious whoppers about how "well" he had succeeded. Although he put together a nifty uniform to photograph himself in for the folks back home, he never got to fly a warplane.
A Canadian-created Shreve -- were there a Canadian Faulkner -- would be intimately involved with his own nation's failures and successes, of which there are plenty. Faulkner's Shreve may well have been modeled on some of the first non-USonians ( US citizen) that Faulkner ever spoke with. (We northern USonians don't count because we share the southern heritage, triumphs, and failures.)
Shreve affects a detached "tough guy" attitude toward Quentin's narrative in Absalom. He refers to "Old Aunt Rosa" repeatedly even though Quentin keeps reminding Shreve that her proper name is "Miss Rosa." Although Quentin doesn't explain further "Old Aunt Rosa" or "Aunt Rosa" is how white people would refer to a black woman in Quentin's world. Shreve gives us a LITTLE distance from Quentin, but it should not be seen as objective or as Faulkner's conclusions about the Old South's fate or moral worth. As Quentin's roommate during their freshman year together Shreve can plainly see that Quentin may be "going off the deep end" as they used to call nervous breakdowns. There were no "student services" back then -- not even at Harvard -- where a troubled student could go and find a mental health counselor who has experience dealing with students' various mental issues. In 1905 Quentin's growing disorientation would have been referred to as "home-sickness" at best. The other boys in Quentin's dorm refer to Shreve as Quentin's "husband," because that kind of caring is permissible only among the married. (Children often ridicule a boy and girl who show any friendship for each other -- "Ha, ha, get a room, you two." This goes on even in our supposedly more enlightened times.
Remember, eugenics was a hot topic when S&F was written. People discussed "breeding out" the mentally challenged quite openly. Now, that topic is banned. The mentally challenged in our communities are more intelligently accommodated than was poor Benjamin. Some of my family work in "group residences" right in their own neighborhoods. The residents are referred to as "individuals" and require varying degrees of supervision. Some go outside by themselves to their bank, post office, grocery store (some even work as baggers at local supermarkets.) Others require round-the-clock supervision because they would otherwise walk right out into traffic and eventually get hit by a car or bicycle. Each individual has his/her own bedroom, and depending upon the generosity of the individual's family good or poor tv/internet access. One guy I knew loved the Turner Classics station, but his brother controlled his monthly disability check and kept most of it for himself -- a modern-day Jason. So no Turner Classics option, which is still far superior to what Benjamin suffered in the state insane asylum. (And the state insane asylum was an improvement over
what came before: incarceration in a cellar, attic, or barn and use in the most brutal domestic house/farm work. Or simply being "turned out" into the woods to die.)
This part of the modern world has benefited from treating the mentally challenged decently. The lucky ones my family have worked with are as much part of society as possible. And their caretakers -- though far from perfect -- are better people too. And as the public gets acquainted with the "individuals," the public also gets better. It's our national tragedy that we have Jason in the White House. Our President Jason likes to ridicule even the highest-functioning disabled people and do goggle-eyed "impersonations" of a White House reporter with a physical disability. That's who's running the show now, everybody, and don't you ever forget it.
still in his teens to see what he could do about an air fighter career there. He concocted some very ingenious whoppers about how "well" he had succeeded. Although he put together a nifty uniform to photograph himself in for the folks back home, he never got to fly a warplane.
A Canadian-created Shreve -- were there a Canadian Faulkner -- would be intimately involved with his own nation's failures and successes, of which there are plenty. Faulkner's Shreve may well have been modeled on some of the first non-USonians ( US citizen) that Faulkner ever spoke with. (We northern USonians don't count because we share the southern heritage, triumphs, and failures.)
Shreve affects a detached "tough guy" attitude toward Quentin's narrative in Absalom. He refers to "Old Aunt Rosa" repeatedly even though Quentin keeps reminding Shreve that her proper name is "Miss Rosa." Although Quentin doesn't explain further "Old Aunt Rosa" or "Aunt Rosa" is how white people would refer to a black woman in Quentin's world. Shreve gives us a LITTLE distance from Quentin, but it should not be seen as objective or as Faulkner's conclusions about the Old South's fate or moral worth. As Quentin's roommate during their freshman year together Shreve can plainly see that Quentin may be "going off the deep end" as they used to call nervous breakdowns. There were no "student services" back then -- not even at Harvard -- where a troubled student could go and find a mental health counselor who has experience dealing with students' various mental issues. In 1905 Quentin's growing disorientation would have been referred to as "home-sickness" at best. The other boys in Quentin's dorm refer to Shreve as Quentin's "husband," because that kind of caring is permissible only among the married. (Children often ridicule a boy and girl who show any friendship for each other -- "Ha, ha, get a room, you two." This goes on even in our supposedly more enlightened times.
Remember, eugenics was a hot topic when S&F was written. People discussed "breeding out" the mentally challenged quite openly. Now, that topic is banned. The mentally challenged in our communities are more intelligently accommodated than was poor Benjamin. Some of my family work in "group residences" right in their own neighborhoods. The residents are referred to as "individuals" and require varying degrees of supervision. Some go outside by themselves to their bank, post office, grocery store (some even work as baggers at local supermarkets.) Others require round-the-clock supervision because they would otherwise walk right out into traffic and eventually get hit by a car or bicycle. Each individual has his/her own bedroom, and depending upon the generosity of the individual's family good or poor tv/internet access. One guy I knew loved the Turner Classics station, but his brother controlled his monthly disability check and kept most of it for himself -- a modern-day Jason. So no Turner Classics option, which is still far superior to what Benjamin suffered in the state insane asylum. (And the state insane asylum was an improvement over
what came before: incarceration in a cellar, attic, or barn and use in the most brutal domestic house/farm work. Or simply being "turned out" into the woods to die.)
This part of the modern world has benefited from treating the mentally challenged decently. The lucky ones my family have worked with are as much part of society as possible. And their caretakers -- though far from perfect -- are better people too. And as the public gets acquainted with the "individuals," the public also gets better. It's our national tragedy that we have Jason in the White House. Our President Jason likes to ridicule even the highest-functioning disabled people and do goggle-eyed "impersonations" of a White House reporter with a physical disability. That's who's running the show now, everybody, and don't you ever forget it.
15elenchus
>14 Judith205: And as the public gets acquainted with the "individuals," the public also gets better.
That's the nub of it, for me. Applies to a great many situations, not just the one you discuss here, and applies regardless of what people think of the person in the Oval Office, or any other position of power.
That's the nub of it, for me. Applies to a great many situations, not just the one you discuss here, and applies regardless of what people think of the person in the Oval Office, or any other position of power.
18bookslaura
>1 jhowell: I’m listening to The Sound and the Fury on Libby, free from my public library. It’s hard to grasp lots of Faulkner’s works if one is not an old southerner. The beginning of the book is some children talking…Just keep reading.
