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Oct 05, 2011

Stephen rated it:

A review paying homage to BENJY COMPSON'S uniquely disorienting narration:

BENJY...narrator... lacks sense of time...merger of past and present merge...all the same...disorientation...1928...Easter... Mississippi...Compsons...aristocrat family...hard times... Benjy... mentally handicapped...33rd birthday...Luster...guardian... quarter lost... minstrel show...golf course... golf balls... memory cues... flashbacks... clothes... nail... sister... Caddy... CAAAAAADDDYY!.. 19 More...

30 comments like (72 people liked it)

Apr 18, 2011

Bird Brian rated it:

How is this not one of the most reviewed, most discussed, most beloved books in all of GoodReads? It’s got a list of killer ingredients, that should make it a slam-dunk GR darling:

<spoiler>BROTHER/SISTER INCEST? (did they or didn‘t they?) !!!!
BROTHER/SISTER LOVERS’ SUICIDE PACT!!! (kind of)
THE OTHER BROTHER IS A SOCIOPATH!!!
…and THE THIRD BROTHER GETS CASTRATED!?!!1!?!</spoiler>

throw in a cynical alcoholic father, a self-absorbed hypochon More...

29 comments like (45 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2010

Bram rated it:

Whew. This is a devastating book. Probably one of the most depressing stories I've read. Incest, castration, suicide, racism, misogyny—this one has it all. Even at the beginning, when it is possible to make out only pieces of the events, a nauseating sense of dread permeates Benji’s narrative per Faulkner’s pungent writing style. And this feeling never really dissipates.

Jumping into The Sound and the Fury with no prior introduction is like driving through an impenetrable fog More...

17 comments like (48 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2011

Paul rated it:

Somehow I earned a degree in English Lit w/o ever reading Faulkner. This was the first book I’ve read of his and I can’t say enough about it. This book haunts you. Here’s the thing. You know that feeling you get when you hear a song or see a face that sparks some vague memory? The memory may have been a dream, or may have been something you saw in a movie. It might well have been something that never actually happened to you, but was some fantasy you had years ago. Maybe there’s even a physical More...

7 comments like (25 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2008

Ryan rated it:

The first thing that comes to mind in regard to ¨The Sound and the Fury¨ is Eliot´s ¨a heap of broken images.¨ Deciphering TSTF is like reassembling a shattered mirror; difficult, and likely to end in pain.

On the other hand, it´s hard to deny that it´s a great book, if only from the standpoint of workmanship. The skill it took to create this piece, composed of so many seperate perspectives, confined to such a narrow and specific moments of time, makes me think of interlocking puzzles More...

2 comments like (44 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2011

Bird Brian added it

CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH REVIEW*
(* entertainment purposes only)

For my real review if The Sound and the Fury: (click here)

The Grapes of Wrath v. The Sound and the Fury

Setting -a long and desolate highway in the California desert.

The Joad family is milling about next to their very old and very worn-out truck, which is loaded with their belongings. Tom Joad and Connie have the hood up, and are examining the engine, as steam is pours from the radiat More...

10 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jeffrey rated it:

While everyone salivates (rightfully so) over The Great Gatsby , William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury languishes as the stepchild of United States literature-it is there, but it is not heard. Faulkner's odd story of The Compson Family, an detailed, troubling, and honest allegorical representation of the American South, is a stew of styles and tones that change as rapidly at the South. The story, told from four distinct points of view, remains not only the most deftly written piece of More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

May 07, 2011

K.D. rated it:

Jefferson, Mississippi 1910-1928. This is a story of an American family's economic and social status' decline and fall. The Compson family used to be rich right after the Civil War but due to alcoholism (Mr. Compson), hypochondria (Mrs. Caroline Compson), suicide (the eldest son Quentin), promiscuity (the only daughter Candance or Caddy), greed (the second son Jason) and idiocy (the youngest son Maury, Benjamin, Benjy), the family got disbanded by death and separation.

This is the har More...

9 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Okay, here I go with another one of my dissenting viewpoints. This was my first attempt at reading Faulkner, and I assure you it will be my last.

I don't know how this pile of crap ever got published, let alone became a classic! It's absolutely unreadable! Pure upchuck in print. (As always, just my opinion, so don't be offended if you like the book.)

33 comments like (11 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2012

Brad rated it:

This review was written in the late nineties (for my eyes only), and it was buried in amongst my things until recently when I uncovered the journal in which it was written. I have transcribed it verbatim from all those years ago (although square brackets may indicate some additional information for the sake of readability or some sort of commentary from now). This is one of my lost reviews.

This is a mesmerizing display of authorship. Every one of the four parts is powerful in its own r More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jul 05, 2008

Judy rated it:

"A house divided...."
self-absorption, alcoholism, hypochondria, unwed-motherhood, sarcasm, cruelty, suicide....a perfectly average family! You might recognize some behaviors! ....oh and did I mention castration?

Faulkner used the Compson family tragedies to illustrate what happened to wealthy, notable southern families following the Civil War. there is lengthy discourse and focus on racism. Also, misogyny.

I purchased this book used from Housing Works book s More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2007

Ben rated it:

The breaking of many conventions of writing can quickly become passé and merely distracting. Others cause the uninitiated reader a healthy dose of frustration. When you have to read a work like The Sound & the Fury for a class, the frustration may not easily be overcome: Faulkner narrates the story of a family in turn-of-the-century northern Mississippi (or "Missippi," as many, including the state's current governor, call it) through the eyes of its sons and its female house servant More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2011

Bettie marked it as to-read

Review for Celebrity Death Match only

I have a helluva headache, you carry on.

Win for The Sound and the Fury

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally. Sorry -- because of Goodreads' word-count limitations, the last paragraph today got cut off!)

The CCLaP 100: In which I read for the first time a hundred so-called "classics," then write reports on whether or not they deserve the label

Book #22: The Sound and the Fury, More...

5 comments like (15 people liked it)

Jun 18, 2008

Kristopher rated it:

by William Faulkner

So let me begin with a note here - I'm currently on a two-week vacation in the Florida Keys, on a chartered catamaran, doing some snorkeling and writing and research for another book. But there's an awful lot of down-time, so I've been doing an awful lot of reading, and so I'm hoping that in the next few days I can make up for the brief lull in posts on this site over the past month.

So let's begin with the book I read on the flight down - a little ligh More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 02, 2011

Jack rated it:

Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” infuriated me. In my youth, I tried his “Light in August” and gave up after about fifty pages – just too difficult. “The Sound” makes “Light” seem like a first grade reader. Some maturity in hand, I took the Faulkner challenge once more.

In what many consider a classic and a masterpiece, Faulkner blazes away with, not just stream of consciousness, but with multiple first-person narrations by multiple characters, all with some serious pr More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2011

Lou rated it:

Faulkner's writing i found very disorientating and hard to follow it started promising but shifted into dullness for me. I really wanted it to work but i think one main reason is i am not from u.s.a shores and the southern dialect used added to the hardness for the story to flow easily for me. Some revewers have mentioned that cliff notes are needed to hand and maybe that would have helped. I am going to try with one of his other works

as that looks promising and may flow better for me. More...

4 comments like (8 people liked it)

May 17, 2011

Chris rated it:

I don't remember much, other than that the writing itself was like a crushing hangover after a fireside encounter between head and table brought about by an excessive consumption of Singapore Slings. Benjy cried, an awful fucking lot, and didn't make a lick of sense when he wasn't bawling. Written from the perspective of the retarded, which isn't actually a skip through the park. There was a ditzy, cuddling, consoling bit o' crumpet who kept flashing knickers long overdue for a date with some so More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2011

Angus rated it:

Disclaimer: This is not a review. This may have spoilers. Read at your own risk. Visit original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Intro

I got acquainted with Faulkner when I borrowed this anthology of short stories in our college library. A Rose for Emily, yes, that’s it. It’s quite long for the average short story, but I like it so much that I made a mental note to buy a Faulkner novel.

So this is my first Faulkner novel. And this is an altogether different More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2011

Julia rated it:

Uma das minhas frases preferidas é a citação de Macbeth da qual foi retirado o nome desse livro. Faulkner tem um modo de escrever que alucina. Ao contrário da maioria das pessoas, que começa a leitura odiando esse livro, eu achei o início fascinante.
“Era o relógio de meu avô e quando o ganhei de meu pai ele disse Estou lhe dando o mausoléu de toda esperança e todo desejo; é extremamente provável que você o use para o reducto absurdum de toda experiência humana, que será tão pouco adaptado à More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2008

Nate rated it:

I was a bit intimidated when I started this novel, but it really does become more accessible as it progresses and is absolutely worth the effort required. The characters, at times extremely frustrating, are wrought with depth and tragic humanity like no other novel's. Faulkner's combined use of stream of consciousness and frequent perspective shifts allows the reader to form a unique, intense relationship with most of the main characters in a way not possible through typical first person or th More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2008

Tom rated it:

“And so as soon as I knew I couldn’t see it, I began to wonder what time it was.”
Quentin Compson, The Sound and the Fury

Having read one Faulkner book already—Light in August— I thought I knew what I was in for. About twenty pages into this one though, I was completely lost, and knew I would be in for a challenging read. It took me a while, but I realized that I just needed to allow the words to do their work. Perhaps it was a leap of faith in Faulkner’s artistry.

More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 21, 2008

Pa rated it:

I can see why this novel is considered Faulkner's masterpiece and one of the greatest English novels of the 20th century. Faulkner's the Sound and the Fury painted such a dark picture of the dissolute South in the late 1920s. The novel is narrated by 3 Compson brothers -- Benjy, the retarded man-child who has passion for golf and fire and is the cause of all the misery and shame and petty bickering in the Compson household; Quentin, the haunted, self-tortured, and obssessive Harvard student wh More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 30, 2008

Chad rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 21, 2007

Paula rated it:

Sensory overload...ah, what I remember: living on Esplanade in New Orleans with a flea-bitten dog and piles of salty crawdad refuse which smelled of muddy embankments and salty brew. I was feeling somewhat queasy when I lay down to begin this book-- like Faulkner's greatest works, its not so much like reading as story as it is like entering a dream. It blasted open new windows of extra-sensory perception-- I could hear the ghosts upstairs, I could distinguish about 26 different smells in the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2008

Samantha rated it:

faulkner had me as a seventeen year old in junior english when we read intruder in the dust. i love this man for two very important reasons: 1) he is from the south, writes about the south, loves the south, yet is the sharpest critic of its most obvious downfalls and 2) whenever i read this guy, i can't stop writing myself. his stream of consciousness tales get in my head, and i can do nothing but dribble out my thoughts in much the same fashion he does. i fell in love with his style with intrud More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 07, 2011

Stephen M rated it:

Review for CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH

Dilsey wanders into the Inferno.

“Ah, shoo. This place is cold in compare to tha south. Whereis this satan fella’. Imma give him a piece a my mind.”

Satan never shows up.

Win goes to the Sound and the Fury because of forfeiture.

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2008

Yulia added it

I've read so many times how brilliant this is, and it very well may be, but each time I try to read it and really hope I can, I 'm never able to get past the first page. Perhaps my subconscious knows I'd be irreparably traumatized by something on the second page (or have I already been traumatized by the first?), I'm not sure. But this is certainly one of those books I'll try again and again till I either make more progress, can be more articulate about why I refuse to finish it, or have the c More...

10 comments like (6 people liked it)

May 23, 2008

Charity rated it:

this is my favorite book. i've read it at different points in my life and it amazes me that i notice something different each time i read it. it contains the best description of passionate love that i've ever read - (put your hand on my heart - say his name) - ah so wonderful. i also so love the images and smells (the ever present honeysuckle). it is so intensely evocative. sadly, i think in real life i have only met around 5 people who've read this book! it just doesn't seem to make most peopl More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 15, 2011

Liam rated it:

It's a popular novel in america, but I don't hear much about it in England. Its style is very difficult and stream-of-consciousness, but unlike Ulysses it doesn't throw you off with very specialized subjects of thought. It's told in four long narratives, each told from the point of view of a single member of the Mississippian Compson household; each on a single day. The timeline of the plot spans two generations of a once-wealthy white family, fallen on hard times, and their black servants. It's More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)