The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Intruder in the Dust

by William Faulkner

Book by Faulkner, William

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature

760 pages, Hardcover

Published March 12, 1988

About the author

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. A Nobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and often is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature.
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.
Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Sound and the Fury. This novel was at best difficult reading. The first part of the book, the tale told by an idiot, was full of sound and fury and signified nothing. The narrator, Benjy is severely mentally impaired and there is no sequential narrative. Many characters are referred to by name, but none are introduced and it is only with great difficulty that any of it becomes clear. A character named Quentin is referred to both as male and female. Episodes are seen, but not clearly and there is evidently much jumping around in time.

The second part of the story is told by Quentin, who is one of the brothers of the idiot, Benjy. Quentin is at Harvard, with the tuition paid for by selling off part of the family property in MS.

The third episode in the book is told by the younger brother, Jason who is now working as a clerk in a store in MS having been, in his mind, cheated of the bank career promised to him by the fiancee of his sister Caddy. Caddy has meanwhile been thrown out by her husband and leaves her daughter, Quentin, to be raised by Jason and their Mother, who is ill through the entire time period of the book.

Faulkner wrote the book in 1929. It is not in the least politically correct. Its depictions of African-Americans is through the eyes of a white Mississippian of the early part of the century. Multiple references to Jews manipulating the markets are present in the 3rd section. There is no indication of Faulkner's own beliefs. On the whole, difficult to read. I will set aside the collection and read another of the 4 novels in a year or so.

[Chas · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say? I can lose myself in Faulkner.