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The Sound and the Fury

by William Faulkner

3.82 · rating details · 39,898 ratings · 2,319 reviews

One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in American literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant.

This edition follows the text of The Sound a...more

Paperback, 326 pages

Published May 18th 2011 by Vintage (first published January 1st 336)

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Oct 05, 2011

Stephen rated it

Shelves: audiobook, classics-americas, literature, easton-press, gothic, 1900-1929

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

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Mar 07, 2011

Bird Brian rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literature-20th-century

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:

(view spoiler)

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

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Apr 09, 2009

Bram rated it

Shelves: 2009, favorites

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 ...moreWhew. 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 or into a blinding glare—you can't quite tell who is who; male or female; black or white; first, second, or third generation; relative or friend or stranger. But gradually, before frustration has a chance to set in, the fog begins to burn off and the glare becomes less direct. By the time the omniscient narrator closes things out in part four, the scales have been fully removed and you are left with a crystal limpidness in which you can smell the sweet southern honeysuckle and feel the rotting wood of the old barn.

It’s interesting to confront another modernist’s take on the human experience of time while concurrently reading In Search of Lost Time. While Proust gently but thoroughly leads us through the inner-workings of our past, present, and future, Faulkner attempts to capture the continual and forceful vying of these elements within the mind—at the intentional cost of a coherent linear narrative. The results are disorienting, yet powerfully emotive. Adding subtly to this effect, Faulkner often relays visual experience egocentrically, particularly in the case of Benji, for whom objects and views vanish before his eyes when he has simply shifted or been turned by Luster or Caddy.

Because the first section takes place on the day between the third and fourth sections, I skimmed through some of it again before reading the final part. I was surprised by what I could glean from snippets that had initially seemed inscrutable and incomplete. This is a book made for rereading; an American masterpiece, undoubtedly.

(less)

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Mar 03, 2008

Paul rated it

Shelves: 20th-century-american-literature, favorites

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 ...moreSomehow 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 reaction? There is a connection, but damn it if you can put your finger on it. Still, it occupies your mind for an afternoon and inspires a train of thought you might not have had otherwise. That’s good right? Of course. That’s what you get with this book. you're trying to find that connection. Another reviewer said reading the Sound and the Fury was like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with 50% of the pieces missing. I understand the point, but I don’t know if that’s exactly right. I don’t think there are any missing pieces. you just have to alter your expectation of what the completed puzzle will look like.

I've come to understand what people mean when they say "Faulkner is not just chronicling the fall of the south.” I think the more important themes here have less to do with the post-reconstruction era/turn of the century south, and more to do with a broader examination of time and history as it relates to the human/family experience. This is a book that unfolds like nothing I’ve ever read. You're sort of lost for the first 70-100 pages. Our understanding of time as a linear process will confound your experience with the first section of the book. Benjy’s narrative is difficult to be sure, but when the book is said and done, his is the most memorable and maybe the most important. In all, the book is divided into four sections with four different viewpoints. We see through Benjy the past, present, and future existing on a plane rather than a line; Quinton's inability to accept time’s passing at all and his longing for the past (a past he was not necessarily a part of); Jason living only in the present and obsessing over an up to the minute existence; and finally Dilsey who seems the only member of the household with the ability to absorb the past as a part of the here and now, and lives without fear the future. This theme is explored through style. The book is filled with sentences that have no beginning or end, some tete-a-tete with no indication given as to who’s speaking, and all throughout the punctuation isn't exactly wrong, but it certainly isn't correct. Lots of flashbacks, shifts in perspective, and often pages and pages with few if any paragraph breaks. Each character’s perception of time is understood through Faulkner’s experiment with language. It’s like reading a dream. The idea is to pull together all these moments, images, and broken bits of dialogue in order to get to the heart of that feeling I was talking about earlier. “where did this come from? why am I thinking about this? When will I be able to pull it together and figure it out?” you might not get there but it’s heartening to try.

5 stars, A+, thumbs up... all that shit. read this book.
(less)

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Jan 06, 2008

Ryan rated it

Recommends it for: The autisic and those who want to prove their literary chops.

Recommended to Ryan by: Random House Top 100 Novels list

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...moreThe 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 carved from a single piece of wood or stone. Whether you like it or not, you have to admire the workmanship.

That being said, I believe that this book is so highly regarded for exactly the qualities that make it inaccessible to the majority of readers. If you have the patience to finish it, and the tools to decipher it, you become one of the select few, the literati elite. It´s regarded because it excludes. Unfortunately, many lovers of literature want writing to need decoding; they want layers of meaning inaccessible to the uninitiated. I am not one of those readers.

After all, once you do decode the book, once you´ve assembled the shattered mirror, is the image you see there really that unique or fascinating? I admit that I do have a certain sympathy for the characters in TSTF; I believe them. They feel real for me. However, it´s hard not to care about the characters after you´ve worked so hard to understand exactly what the hell is going on with them. You´ve already invested so much time with them that they´re practically family. It vaguely smacks of manipulation for an author to use such a device to get his readers invested with his characters.

Finally, I guess that my issue is not with Faulkner, a master of his craft who managed what is nearly impossible, to do some thing new in the field of writing. My issue is with the literature community, who chose to so highly esteem such a difficult nut to crack.

The Sound and the Fury; a masterpiece of form, and one of the most inaccessible books I´ve ever picked up. Again, it´s hard to argue with the quality of the book; I would recommend the book to very few readers, but I´ve still been moved to write a couple of hundred words about it.(less)

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Sep 23, 2011

Bird Brian marked it as celebrity-deathmatch

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

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Mar 31, 2007

Jeffrey rated it

Recommends it for: Those Interested in the American Experience

Shelves: favorites

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

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Aug 16, 2010

K.D. rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: No one (none of my friends would appreciate this I guess)

Recommended to K.D. by: 500 Must Read Books; Oprah Books List; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006)

Shelves: 1001-core

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

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Dec 27, 2008

Jeanette rated it

Shelves: started-it-hated-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.)

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Jan 10, 2012

Brad rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: faves, classic, lost-reviews

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

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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"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 store in NYC which benefits homeless men with Aides. I'm glad I got it used because whoever owned it previously wrote very helpful notes in the margins.

Some sections are extremely opaque. With some research and patience I realized what was going on, it is something of a puzzle to interpret. This novel was radical when it came out, with its switching narrations and time changes. It allows the reader to look at a situation from different perspectives, so there are different versions of reality.

This book opens with a confusing narration coming from the mind of the autistic/mentally handicapped manchild Maury/Benjamin. He jumps back and forth through three different time periods. Benjy's moaning, weeping, bellowing comes from a place of instinctual awareness of the cruelties and sadness going on around him. It is his only means of expression and it is deeply existential. He is aware of sensations but not a slave to time. He "smells" death in the house and recognizes sickness ( smell of camphor ) on the wet towel laid on his mother's forehead. He thinks "Caddy smells like trees"

"blue gums": Someone with bluish gums whose bite is supposed to be poisonous, also, African people with very dark skin supposedly have bluish black gums.

The following chapters are written from the perspective of the two other brothers of the southern family which over the years falls into ruin and misfortune, loosing their land to a golf course among other worse tragedies.

there's some comic narration when Jason Jr.'s sarcasm and fatalism get extreme: he gets a pounding headache caused by smelling gasoline, has a flat tire, gets torn by thorns, has the sun shining straight into his eyes and puts his hand on some poison oak.

There is hope in the family caretaker Dilsey who nursed all the children, cooked all the meals, etc and is the only one, along with Benjy, to escape the trap of time with her Christianity, belief in the eternal, and ability to love. Benjy finds peace only during the church service on Easter Sunday, the day following his 33 birthday—which lead some to call him a Christ-figure in the novel. (less)

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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...moreThe 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. Said difficulties surface on the first page, since Faulkner tells the first section of the story with the thoughts (thankfully not the thoughts others hear) of the grown, but mentally retarded Benjy. The first line, "through the curled flower spaces I could see them hitting," provides a foil to American Literature's more famous first line, "call me Ishmael." Moby Dick's first line, if you stop there for a moment, conjures up a lot of description without saying it, in simple language. The childlike Benjy, paradoxically, provides very little in very difficult language.

But it's all for a reason. The more the reader works at slogging through the language until she can "get it," the more rewarding this, as with most of Faulkner's work, becomes. The second section provides a change, though no relief, in language, tone, and themes. While Benjy's section displays displaced innocence, Quentin's displays the innocence of his life that he rejects for the more mature brokenness that comes with experience in knowledge. In either case, both characters prove unable to cope.

Oh, yeah, and the narrative is not temporally linear either.

So why in the world would I love this book like I do? Well, I was born in Missippi and my family hails from there, so Faulkner's imagery of the natural really sticks with me. As stated before, the confusing language actually results in increased clarity as to what's happening the characters' minds. As the text reveals, surprisingly little actually occurs in the book that would sustain most readers' attention. But several events are referenced many times and color the characters'/narrators' view of the world they live in, in a way that lends this events otherwise rendered prosaic in a traditional narrative ("his sister Candace slept with the big university boy she had met. Quentin was so mad" - doesn't quite have the same effect....).

We all blow things out of proportion and perceive events and people as occurring or living in a world that doesn't exist. Here's what you get when an author puts that phenomenon into print.(less)

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Oct 01, 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

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Aug 22, 2008

Jason Pettus 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

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Jun 18, 2008

Kristopher Jansma 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...moreby 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 light airplane reading, probably one of the top three most confusing books I've ever read.

My inclination to try to re-read The Sound and The Fury came while finishing Cloud Atlas. During the "Sloosha's Crossing" episode, I was amazed at how smoothly I was able to read the choppy English of the narrator and it reminded me of Faulkner somehow. I tried to read Sound for the first time in college, during a graduate class with John Irwin (who has an essay in the back of the Norton edition, how cool is that?) and all I remember was showing up on the first day and realizing that we'd been expected to read prior to the class beginning, so I was already behind. Irwin's lecture was mind-bogglingly amazing, as all his lectures for that class were (Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Hemingway) and so when I got home I cracked open the book and immediately began to read. Unfortunately I couldn't understand a word of it, even after he'd thoroughly explained the story and the chronology and the characters in class. Soon I gave up and started reading A Light in August which was due for the following week.

So, The Sound and the Fury round two. After 5 years and another degree, does it make any more sense?

Yes, yes it does! I still had to look in the back at the chronology, and I still had to puzzle through, but I made it through the first two sections in a few hours while waiting for my flight to arrive. Unfortunately I got stalled again after boarding the flight, which will forever after be known as The Flight of Obnoxious Kids and Screaming Babies. I gave up during the third section and flipped ahead to the essays in the back, which were a little easier to digest while distracted.

The Irwin essay was just as good as I remembered, and brought back a lot of things from his lectures that I'd thought I'd forgotten (somewhere I still have my notebook from that class...) But the essay that really caught me this time was by Sartre. As you may remember from earlier posts, I'm not all that impressed by JP's attempts at fiction, but if it's bleak philosophy you want, he's a good man to try. Sartre examines the messy chronology of The Sound and the Fury. He argues that the way to read it is not to try and separate the confusing muddle of perspectives or reorder the jumble of time, but to embrace the disorganized flow and see that Faulkner is trying to show us that reality is not about what's happened in the past but an ever-unfolding series of presents. What happened in the past is relevant as it shapes our every present moment, but no more real in and of itself than the future that hasn't happened yet. Sartre goes on about this at great length, explaining much better than I can here, but concludes by saying that while he admires Faulkner's attempts, he does not agree that all of this temporal shuffling exposes the essential absurdity of human life. Sartre still seems to think life is absurd, just not because of this. Anyway.

The last little tidbit that I got out of the back was something that came up in several of Faulkner's letters and interviews. Apparently he wrote the various sections thinking he could tell this as a short story. First he tried Benjy's point of view, but it didn't get the whole thing somehow. So he tried again from Quentin's and still felt like it was missing. So he tried writing it from his own voice and still felt like it wasn't quite there. In the end it was only the sum-total of all these short stories that finally got around the heart of the matter. I don't know if it quite justifies the difficulty, but it certainly does help me understand why he'd try and write something like this.

Anyway, maybe in five years I'll try a third time, when I'm not on a plane, and manage to get all the way through it.(less)

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Jun 01, 2007

Jack rated it

Recommends it for: masochistic literary nuts, and those who ascribe to become one

Shelves: jackrecommends, reallygoodstuff

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

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Jun 14, 2011

Lou rated it

Shelves: june-read

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.

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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...moreI 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 soap and water, and might have slept with her brother. Nasty business. One of the brothers moped and shuffled about, watching boats floating and gargling rocks and obsessing over a bridge and then snuffing his own candle, if you can believe it. He might have had at his sister, but maybe not. The misty wafts of bourbon angst cleared a bit with another brother who actually had a bit of get-up-and-go, a spring to his step, even if everything he did seemed to be in the service of assholery, southern-style. Called black folks niggers more than seemed decent or necessary, but wound up getting bested by the latter, which couldn't have helped but to piss him off even more. Looked good on him. Seemed to be a dink to his sister, who wasn't very happy. She might have been preggers without a ring on her finger, and, frankly, that just didn't cut the mustard back in the day. Hitched up his pants and drove about somewhat, but grumped and groused and generally brought a pervasive sense of that annoying prick who's always glancing at his watch and kicking at the floor and muttering for fuck's sakes under his breath in the queue for the lone teller wicket open at the bank. I don't think this one ended in any manner that could be described as cheerful, but it made one think. I guess.

I liked Light in August better. Joe Christmas carried the mother-loving tune.

*Hearty apologies to the spirit of the great Mr. Faulkner and those who might be ranked amongst his more sensitive admirers for this particularly crude and lazy attempt at garnering a chuckle and adding to a certain GR member's review count. This tricky puppy was a goodly amount more invigorating and impressive in its consumption than the above gravel-crunching might seem to indicate; indeed, worthy of a full-flush-fiver, if only I could honestly state that I understood the entire thing without cribbing from healthier and more perceptive minds. I did want to throw out a shout for Joe Christmas, though, who really was the biscuit. Thank you.(less)

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Sep 15, 2011

Angus rated it

Shelves: all-time-100-novels, modern-library-100, radcliffes-rival-100, the-novel-100, nobel-laureates, blogged

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

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Jul 09, 2010

Julia Boechat Machado rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, us-literature, constantly-re-reading, tingle-of-the-spine, punch-in-the-stomach, 1920s, favorites

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...moreUma 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 às suas necessidades individuais quanto foi às dele e às do pai dele. Dou-lhe este relógio não para que você se lembre do tempo, mas para que possa esquecê-lo por um momento de vez em quando e não gaste todo o seu fôlego tentando conquistá-lo. Pois jamais se ganha batalha alguma, ele disse. Nenhuma batalha sequer é lutada. O campo revela ao homem apenas sua própria loucura e desespero, e a vitória é uma ilusão de filósofos e néscios.”
“Por um instante Ben permaneceu num total hiato. Então pôs-se a berrar Berrava mais e mais, a voz cada vê mais alta, quase sem pausas para respirar. Havia mais que espanto naquele grito, havia horror, choque; uma agonia sem olhos e sem língua; puro som, e Luster revirou os olhos por um momento branco. (…) A voz de Benjy urrava e urrava. Queenie pôs-se em movimento outra vez, seus cascos recomeçaram o ploque-ploque ritmado de antes, e na mesma hora Ben aquietou-se. Luster olhou para trás de relance, depois seguiu em frente. A flor quebrada estava caída sobre o punho de bem e os olhos dele estavam de novo vazios e azui e serenos, agora que cornija e fachada passavam por ele mais uma vez da esquerda para a direita, poste e árvore, janela e porta e placa, cada um em seu lugar certo.”
“Quentin III. O qual amava não o corpo da irmã, e sim algum conceito de honra dos Compson sustentado de modo precário e (como ele bem sabia) apenas provisório pela membrana mínima e frágil de seu hímen, tal como uma réplica em miniatura do imenso globo terrestre se equilibra no focinho de uma foca treinada. O qual amava não a ideia de incesto que não viria a cometer e sim algum conceito presbiteriano de castigo eterno: ele, e não Deus, desse modo lograva lançar-se a si próprio e a irmã no inferno, onde poderia protegê-la para sempre e mantê-la intacta para todo o sempre em meio ao fogo eterno. O qual, porém, amava a morte mais que tudo, amava só a morte, amava e vivia a antegozar a morte de modo deliberado e pervertido, tal como um apaixonado ama e deliberadamente se abstém do corpo amoroso, ansioso, sequioso e incrível da amada, até não suportar mais a abstenção e sim o impedimento e por isso se lança, mergulha, renuncia, se afoga.”(less)

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Aug 19, 2008

Nate rated it

Shelves: classics, own

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...moreI 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 third person omniscient narratives. Even if we can't relate to their particular situations, we can identify with their feelings of frustration, loss, regret, embarrassment, pride, and shame, because Faulkner has given us such nuanced insight into their subconscious and conscious worlds.

The first section, narrated by Benjy is the most difficult to comprehend for several reasons. We're not yet familiar with any of the characters, the temporal changes are abrupt, perspective shifts without warning, and our primary narrator is mentally deficient. However, I think the main difficulty in coherency is due to our unfamiliarity with the characters and events being described, not solely due to the narrative style. I highly recommend rereading this section after finishing the novel, as it will then be much clearer.

Quentin's narrative section is just as challenging stylistically as Benjy's, if not more anxiety producing due to the obsessiveness and depression conveyed in his stream of consciousness bursts, but narratively the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place with a bit more clarity.

Things get much more lucid once we get to Jason's narrative, but the trade off is dealing with his brutal cynicism without throwing the book across the room. The only way to comprehend his inhumanity is to remind oneself of the cruel, unstable environment in which he was raised.

Finally, the last section of the book abandons first person narrative voice and stream of consciousness for a third person omniscient view mostly centered around Dilsey, who has endured more hardships than any of the Compsons. It is in this section that we see the true strength of her mental and spiritual fortitude, especially awe inspiring when contrasted with the weakness and selfishness of the Compson family.

Through the tragedy of the Compsons, Faulkner illustrates the tragedy of the post Civil War South. Their self-pity, bitter resentment of unavoidable circumstances, abnegation of responsibility and failed self-righteousness creates and fuels their own descent into shame, financial ruin, and death. Ironically, it is the servants, treated like animals by the Compsons, who weather unimaginable hardships with true forbearance and dignity, instead of self destructing with anger or wallowing in self-pity.

My only complaint is that Caddy doesn't have a narrative section like the rest of her siblings, which I must assume is more of a poor structural choice than a gross oversight. I've wracked my brain trying to figure out why Faulkner would make such a choice, and I can't come to any reasonable conclusions. Please let me know if you have a theory.

So, don't be like me and put off reading this book for years out of fear of difficulty. The achingly memorable characters and sheer brilliance of style and narrative structure will make all of the work well worth it.
(less)

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Dec 10, 2008

Tom rated it

Shelves: favorites

“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

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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...moreI 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 who committed suicide because he cannot seem to get over his sister Caddy's loss of virginity; and Jason, the practical, greedy, and heartless brother who is forever bitter and angry and resentful of the burden his ridiculous family thrusts upon him. Their black servant Dilsey is portrayed most sympathetically by Faulkner although she is constantly referred to as the nigger by the Compsons. In fact, a nigger, in the eyes of Benjy, "is not a person so much as a form of behavior; a sort of observe reflection of the white people he lives among." One feels that racism, sexism, and materialism thoroughly and deeply penetrate into this devastatingly backward world. (Thank God--I remind myself-- we live in a century when a black man called Barack Obama can be the President.) It's an emotionally powerful novel, though after finishing the last page of the book, my immediate thought was lets not read any serious book in the next couple of weeks; lets read something light and fun and entertaining like the Kite Runner or the Da Vinci Code even.

Faulkner's prose is so beautiful -- visually pretty, lyrically musical, and emotionally resonant. There are so many gorgeous passages, esp. in Quentin's narrative. The novel is brimmed with beautiful images of hovering butterflies, slanting pencils of sunlight, yellow leaves floating languidly in water, a gull tilting into the wind, a sparrow slanting across the sunlight and the like. lt is so finely written although the stream of conciousness technique makes it almost unreadable. I think this novel requires and rewards at least second reading.(less)

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May 30, 2008

Chad rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. When I began reading The Sound and the Fury I feared that I would hate the entire experience, because the text was written much like the Joyce novel I had eventually given up on a year ago. Indeed, I found the first section of the book to be nearly illegible and thus both tedious and frustrating. There are several reasons for this difficulty.

First, much of the book is written as a stream of consciousness without regard to conventions of grammar or rational thought. Second, there are ...moreWhen I began reading The Sound and the Fury I feared that I would hate the entire experience, because the text was written much like the Joyce novel I had eventually given up on a year ago. Indeed, I found the first section of the book to be nearly illegible and thus both tedious and frustrating. There are several reasons for this difficulty.

First, much of the book is written as a stream of consciousness without regard to conventions of grammar or rational thought. Second, there are significant differences between English as spoken in suburban Pennsylvania circa 2008 and English as spoken in the rural South circa 1928. Third, the text shifts wildly through time and place, often within the same paragraph, as the characters’ memories merge with present experiences. At times these shifts are accompanied by italics, but in most cases they are not. Fourth, there are a multiplicity of characters, none of which are introduced or described, but who simply appear. Within the first few pages the reader has met nearly all of the members of the Compson family (Damuddy, Uncle Maury, (Father) Jason, (Mother) Caroline, Benjamin (also known as Maury), Quentin, Jason, Candace, and Quentin the younger) and their various servants (Dilsey, T.P., Versh, and Luster). Fifth, the careful reader will have noted two Jasons, two Maurys, and two Quentins in the above list. In the case of the Jasons and Maurys this is not a significant problem because the elder Jason is usually called Father and the younger Maury is usually referred to by his new name Benjamin. The Quentins, however, are exceptionally confusing. From the beginning the reader will notice that Quentin is sometimes referred to using a masculine pronoun and other times a feminine one, but the narrative is so fractured that he is likely to explain this as either a typographical error or his own failure to parse the text. It does not become clear until the third section of the book, and is never explicitly stated, that there are two persons named Quentin. This source of misunderstanding is so extreme, and could be rectified so easily, that I must assume it is a deliberate attempt by the author to confuse the reader, presumably to highlight the turmoil in Benjamin’s mind.

Thankfully, the second section is much clearer than the first, and the last two are quite lucid in comparison to either of their predecessors. Based on these sections, I found the novel quite enjoyable. It lacks an over-arching plot, but describes the slow downfall of a once-proud family in a compelling way.

The entirety of the portions of the text that I understood points to a theme of futility – most obviously in Benjamin’s severe mental retardation, but also in the meaningless trysts of Candace and the younger Quentin, the pride and avarice of the younger Jason, the elder Quentin’s struggle to find meaning in his Harvard education, Caroline’s resignation to remain in bed until her ever-expected near death, Dilsey’s devotion to her never-ending tasks, and even Luster’s malice toward Benjamin. I did not recall the title’s prior use in Macbeth until searching for it now, but it seemed to me an echo of Ecclesiastes.

I would like to read the book again with the knowledge I now have, because while I slogged through the most difficult parts, I really understood very little of the first quarter. Perhaps I will do so someday, but for now the task seems too great.(less)

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Aug 21, 2007

Paula rated it

Shelves: fantasticallywierd

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

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Apr 13, 2008

Samantha rated it

· review of another edition

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

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Oct 07, 2011

Stephen M rated it

· review of another edition

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.

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Jun 14, 2008

Yulia added it · review of another edition

Shelves: repelled-by

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

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May 23, 2008

Charity rated it

Shelves: awesomest-books-ever

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

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Apr 09, 2011

Liam rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: stream-of-consciousness, favorites, c20th-prewar, downbeat, heartbreaking

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...moreIt'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 a very bitter and unsettling novel that really works its way under your skin if you allow yourself to embrace the hazy, fractured style of it.

There is no narrator who introduces you to the characters; you're thrown right into the middle of the characters' thoughts, and of course they don't stop to think helpful things like "x is my cousin, y is my mother, y is z years old, y is male" etc. It's a struggle to establish for yourself what these relationships are, and it may sound like difficulty for its own sake, but it honestly is the very thing which makes the novel so engaging. The way you experience the events is always uncomfortably unfamiliar. You feel like an eavesdropper listening to the most personal family disputes. You also have a very personal reading experience as the revelatory moments where things start to connect will differ from reader to reader; something that ties into the themes of miscommunication and secrecy. To make things even harder, TWO characters share names with another member of the novel's cast (this is confusing, but also has emotional resonance so I won't say any more), and the section you first read is told from the point of view of the retarded brother, Benjamin, whose emotionally stunted brain doesn't comprehend the relative significance of the random memories he recalls and reports. Additionally, his narrative is interupted by floods of old memories as moments in the 'present' (very hard to distinguish from the non-present) touch upon symbols from the past 30 years. Symbols such as the mirror, the red tie and the tree are utterly bewildering on first read, but all carefully reveal their significance in the novel's course. His habit of staring through the gate of the neighboring golf course is frequently returned to, but the significance of this act is only revealed (explicitly) at the very end.

The other sections each build upon the picture established, but Faulkner deliberately diminishes the importance of the characters focussed upon on previous chapters. Just when it feels as if one relationship is becoming a bit less murky, you're thrown into the middle of another perspective, which only touches upon old questions in a peripheral, disinterested way. The book teases you in this way, but the concrete history (which is gratefully disclosed in the 'Appendix', by a strange narrative voice that seems like a hybrid of all the characters in one, as well as the style of Faulkner himself and his ridiculously overlong parentheses) is certainly not where the beauty of the book lies. As timelines blur between the stated date (the chapter headings, e.g. "April 6th 1928") and long recollections of past events, the characters often forgot the present for themselves, and you're told by other characters about things that happened in the present simultaneous to the experience of flashback. In the second chapter, narrated by the promising university-attending brother "Quentin", a memory of a violent defense of his sister pushes him to pick a fight with a male-chauvinist acquaintance. It's in this sort of ingenious blending of stories and self-obsessed timelines that the novel depicts personal relationships with such disorientating realism. Like in Catch-22, where the same events are told from many different perspectives, the book is continually tying significant events to what appeared in earlier accounts as only a trivial observation; especially the case in Benjamin's narrative, in which certain items and shapes captivate his attention, completely divorced from their actual place in the 'plot'. The book demands re-reading, at least of the first section.

If you plan on reading it, don't be tempted to look up the plot at any point - trust me, things are revealed, and any sober plot synopsis will just rob you of some very special moments in literature - those bits where the dots start connecting.(less)

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About William Faulkner

William Cuthbert Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. One of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, his reputation is based mostly on his novels, novellas, and short stories. He was also a published poet and an occasional screenwriter.
The majority of his works are based in his native state of Mississippi. Though his work was published a...more

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“...I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire...I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.” — 128 people liked it

“Wonder. Go on and wonder.” — 128 people liked it

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