The Sound and the Fury

25. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
OPD: 1929
format: 348 pages within an ebook anthology: William Faulkner: Novels 1926-1929: Soldiers' Pay / Mosquitoes / Flags in the Dust / The Sound and the Fury
acquired: January 1 read: Apr 20-29 time reading: 12:22, 2.1 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: Classic stream of consciousness novel theme: Faulkner
locations: Mississippi 1928 and near Harvard in Cambridge, MA, 1910
about the author: 1897-1962. American Noble Laureate who was born in New Albany, MS, and lived most of his life in Oxford, MS.
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I really just want to talk about the opening Benjy section.

I'll hold off a moment for context. This is the story of Caddie Compson, but typically for Faulkner so far, she doesn't get any say. We get the show more story first through each of her three brothers, in three sections, all stream of conscious, then from a 3rd-person narrator in the last section. Caddie is always off screen, her childhood, pregnancy, divorce, and separation from her daughter. The rest of family, and its five or six black servants, collapse in on themselves and their sense of pride and privilege. It's also a story of a family's dissolution.

That opening section, from Benjy. He's mute and mentally compromised and can only moan. When the book opens, it's his 33rd birthday and he's cared for by a charmingly inept young black servant, Luster, who must constantly manage him, and who feeds him. But Benjy observes everything. He watches and feels and can't interact or even express his feelings. He's like a reader.

Benjy also mixes timelines. When you open this book, you can vaguely sift out golf in the distance, but suddenly Luster is gone and there are other people around and Benjy seems different. It's confusing and can be frustrating. Timelines are changing, but how? What is what? When is when? Confused and intrigued I looked up some guidance online and got this very simple set of guidelines

1. Pay attention to Benjy's caretaker. When Versh is taking care of Benjy, he is around 3 to 5 years old. When it's T.P., Benjy is a teenager. When it's Luster, Benjy is 33
2. There are two Quentins - Benjy's suicidal brother and his promiscuous niece.
3. Bengy is named Maury at birth, after his uncle, but his mother insists that they change it after discovering his mental disability.

So I had read 30 pages, amused and confused. After this, I went back to the beginning, and what I got was magical. Some of the best reading I've ever had. Benjy floats through time, weaving the present and various times in the past in meaningful ways. He catches everything essential, and much that is beautiful and he senses all this. He becomes somehow a warm beautiful character, even though we can't really know his character. But we know his condition.

The rest of this book is fine. Quentin, the boy, wanders around Harvard tortured. Jason is a monster. Dilsey, the main black house servant, is a hero of the book. For all the racism in Faulkner's other books, you can't help but adore all his black characters here. But Dilsey has a resolution and accidental warmth that stands out, notably in contradiction to the overly-proud dissolving family she serves.

This was a nice step into Faulkner's best stuff. I loved the book, and was enraptured by the Benji section.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/360386#8525171 show less

The Sound and the Fury, which describes the bitter, incestuous dealings of a Mississippi family fallen on hard times, is one of William Faulkner's best novels. It is also one of his more difficult to read, at least I found it took several readings over many years to finally follow the different narrative voices. However, though it is a stylistic tour de force, it was a profoundly rewarding read. The book, essentially the story of Caddy Compson, unfolds in four sections, centered in turn on each of the three Compson brothers — Benjy, a mentally disabled man; Quentin, a depressed, neurotic Harvard student; and Jason, an avaricious jerk — as well as on a black servant named Dilsey. All the brothers are obsessed with the dishonored show more Caddy, the slutty Compson sister, and with the family honor. The latter is a theme that recurs in Faulkner's work and seems part of the world that he created and placed in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Using a "stream-of-consciousness" style the story flows from these characters.
The scope of the book is so broad that, like a Shakespearean play, it can sustain any number of specialized interpretations. One may consider the idea of time:
“Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.”(The Sound and the Fury)
While I like the idea expressed by Sartre that it is a metaphysical novel concerned with time, there is a lot more to it than just that. Most interpretations touch upon the notion that the novel dramatizes a deterioration from the past to the present. The impact of the past on the present is another theme that is recurrent in the novels of Faulkner. The complexity and multiplicity of themes and potential interpretations is part of what made this one of the novels I have read and reread over the years. It is a powerful and amazing novel--one that I will never forget. show less

it's pretty amazing how this kind of narrative structure was thought up a hundred years ago; that the english language and the concept of time and memory could be warped such as they are here to mimic and do faith to such concepts as the trauma of failing to meet impossible expectations, being condemned as a nymphomaniac, bearing the brunt of responsibility for one's family, being and caring for someone with intellectual disabilities, and similar trials—all of which relate to playing a role within a family. as perspectives shift and different yet related characters go on with their lives at different points in their collective histories, the unifying thread in their individual outlooks is the constant throbbing of memories in the back show more of their mind, which plague them as they try to achieve their own ends. this is where the novel really shines, as it's through these interweaved narratives that themselves are split into back-and-forth/memory vs. present that the larger picture slowly fills in; side note, the fact that there are really multiple jasons and quentins was such a headache to understand at first! and of course, the appendix clears this up with no more room for ambiguity, but i don't mind this, as it's through the intricate and deliberate framing of every person's story that each key detail is revealed by the end, anyway. as such, the appendix is really only a (somewhat contradictory) refresher. i can appreciate the care that faulkner puts into and has for his characters; for instance, jason is completely irredeemable, which is fascinating given how much his mother had initially (and continued to) adore him and praise his (nonexistent) virtues. of course, his life is one defined by its relativity to that of his siblings, who receive either affection and care (benjy) or more importantly [to him, certainly], money (quentin and caddy). one can appreciate (in the old-school definition of the term) the burden he endures, as well as his bitter relationship with his neurotic, hand-wringing mother (whose constant lamenting about her inevitable passing no doubt resonates with readers who have similar relationships with similar mothers), while looking at his behavior as a whole and having nothing but contempt for this disrespectful, ungrateful, and downright evil motherfucker. on the other hand, readers are acquainted with benjy, for whom they have nothing but sympathy (if not pity) for; a perpetual child completely at the mercy of the most dysfunctional family ever, which isn't without its merits—namely their servant, Dilsey. in his appendix, faulkner makes a note of how the black servants are separate from the compson family, which does point to a particular reverence for black people in america and their struggles; in their distinct steadfastness for all their alienation and related trials, they prove their virtue. dilsey in particular is extremely fond of benjamin and expresses the most concern for his wellbeing of any other servant or family member (her adolescent grandson, luster, is less understanding of his needs). i think faulkner really wanted to make a point about how despite how fucked up and exploitative the white compsons are, dilsey's complete acceptance of benjamin for who he is (her defense of him before easter service is a very clear instance) proves that black people are simply better humans, regardless of whatever they are subjected to (or is it in spite of? or even because of? i don't know if i'd lean as far as "because of" but the material circumstances may point to that interpretation). the scene where readers first get a real glimpse of what dilsey has to put up with every day with her preparation of breakfast on easter while being berated by caroline compson elicits endless sympathy. overall, i can really appreciate faulkner's humanizing exploration of under-represented perspectives from that time by white authors (people with intellectual disabilities and black people, specifically), making us bear witness to glimmers of innocence and empathy amidst a world hurtling towards inevitable cruelty. show less

I'm...not a fan. Feels like some unholy mashup of Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, but make it southern gothic.* And also? Stream of consciousness writing is exhausting and frankly not worth it for me here. Yes, sure, he may have a talent for mimicking thoughts and how they bounce around while still in the brain and he may have been a breakthrough artist in that area, but "just because you can doesn't mean you should" has never felt more applicable. I slogged through it because I was curious about how the various sections played out, but yeah, I think it's safe to say that Faulkner is not my jam. (I did like As I Lay Dying (or maybe "like" isn't the right word choice here - transfixed by morbid curiosity? I think that's closer to show more accurate) when I read it in college, but it's been a downhill slide for my relationship with William's work since then.)

*Yep, I know the timing doesn't quite work out there, but I'm not talking actual writer influences here. I'm talking about my own reception of the thing. show less

This is probably the fourth time I've read [The Sound and the Fury]. I read it the first time the summer before starting junior year of high school - I must have been 16? I already considered myself a "reader" but this was the first book that completely dumbfounded me. I vividly remember being on a family vacation and trying to read it by the pool - not even being able to figure out a basic plot timeline or why in the world Quentin seemed to be both male and female!! It ended up being the book I was assigned to read and do a week of presentations to our honors English class with a group. We spent the whole year on it and I developed a deep love for the book and for the process of decoding a complicated book.

I periodically like to show more reread it and this time it was a beautiful edition that Folio Society recently printed that has the color coded type for the first section. The first section is Benjy's version of events. He is a 33 year old man with a mental disability who can't talk. His section moves frequently back and forth in time and this book uses 14 different colored inks to delineate the 14 different memories/time periods he comes in and out of. The colored ink is effective (and beautiful), but I'd definitely recommend reading in natural, bright light or some are hard to differentiate.

Every time I read this, I read it a little differently. This time I was particularly struck by the way Faulkner silences Caddy and her daughter Quentin, giving the male brothers their say and not giving her a chance to tell her side of the story. This is effective because it reflects her life, but it still makes me mad. I also noticed, probably because of the colored ink, that though all three brothers spend a lot of time mentally in the past, Benjy can completely immerse himself in each incident. Quentin, on the other hand, mingles past and present and various past events simultaneously, creating an even harder reading experience than Benjy's chapter. And Jason . . . oh Jason. Such a jerk, but actually a little funny too, in a brutal sort of way. "Once a bitch, always a bitch, I say".

In addition to the colored ink, this book has excellent end notes that help describe the plot and themes. Highly recommended! show less

I've got this theory: The Sound and the Fury is easier to get through for people who regularly read science fiction. I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out!

1. Non-linear time—Time travel is a common subject for science fiction novels, so readers learn how to keep track of multiple timelines.The Sound and the Fury famously begins with a section told from the POV of a character who does not differentiate between past, present, and future, so readers must pay careful attention to identify the multiple timelines.

2. Alien intelligences—Intelligent non-human beings feature regularly in science fiction, with characters of different species having to try to understand minds alien to their own. The Sound and the Fury's first three show more sections are first person POV stream of consciousness narratives by a severely mentally disabled man, a suicidal man, and a man whose mind is completely warped by hatred; their thought processes are alien to the average reader.

See what I mean?

Okay, maybe I'm off my rocker with the science fiction thing, but I do think this is a grand book and well worth the effort it takes to read.

Received via NetGalley. show less

Only read this novel when you'll have the patience and fortitude to get through its challenging opening chapter. The second chapter is somewhat easier, the 3rd easier than the 2nd, and the fourth most like any other novel you might read. This gradual easing rewards patience, and will tease you into reading the novel again once you've grasped the whole. There is plenty of help to be had: it has been studied to death, which is little wonder since it so clearly invites study by presenting itself as an unravelling puzzle. The technique is intriguing, but I was preparing to dismiss it as a gimmick if I wasn't convinced there's a good story at the heart of it. Having finished it, I think that may be the wrong way to measure it.

The Compson's show more predicament comes slowly into focus, conveying emotions more clearly than the facts. We get three successive narrators who can't clearly perceive or deal with the reality of their lives, all wearing blinders of different fashions. Only in the last chapter do we finally get a more objective image of what all this looks like from the outside. Turning the story inside out demonstrates there's nothing shallow about the inner workings of these characters that we'd otherwise be too quick to judge and summarize in flatter terms - not even poor Benjy, who would scarcely have seemed to warrant attention at all. William Faulkner writes like a James Joyce who is willing to explain himself, and he's worth listening to. show less