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 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 ( )

tentei ler em 2023 - muito chato ( )

Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs ... Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pal rubber flabbily filled getting the odor of honeysuckle all mixed up

Quentin's chapter is beautiful a stunning tumult of ideas and images and memories and feelings that hits you even when you don't understand what's going on and takes hold of your head. The book is often confusing but things become clearer as you read on and there are so many bits of incredible prose like that and yeah I liked it a lot. I'm bad at analysing ( )

I read a few Faulkner books, but could not follow their plots or their allusions. ( )

There were some great pieces here, from some legendary writers not necessarily best known as music journalists, i.e. Will Self and Nick Hornby. I especially enjoyed the on-the-ground reporting from Monterey Pop and Altamont - in comparison you could look at the late '60s festival scene as either a utopia or hellscape. My least favorite essay was the one on Joni Mitchell - I love her songs but the interview confirms her tendency towards navel-gazing pretension. ( )