The Sound and the Fury

Written by William Faulkner

Narrated by Deaver Brown

A deep American South novel about a black & white intertwined in a relationship living in one house with various goings ons Southern style. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simply Magazine Inc.
• Release date: Jan 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9781614969297

William Faulkner

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all American novelists and short-story writers.  His other works include the novels The Sound and the Fury, The Reivers, and Sanctuary.  He twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and in 1949 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews for The Sound and the Fury

[jonbrammer-788089 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[gifford_macshane · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a tract on experimental writing, this novel shines. I found the plot was somewhat overtaken by the prose, and there were sections I had to re-read to gain any knowledge of the story. I'd recommend this book to modern writers who are interested in unique and very well-developed characters.

[ghost_boy-691444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

William Faulkner is an author people love or hate. This is my first time reading him, but I really like his work. Take the writing style of Jame Joyce's Ulysses, mix in the dialogue of Mark Twain, and add a dash of Virginia Woolf: and that is the best way I can explain this book in a sentence. Yes, this book is confusing and the plot jumps around, but I really loved this book. Not only is this book perfect for me to dissect into various sections, this book oddly helps me understand my writing better. I apologize but this review might be all over the place, but read the book and you understand.

TITLE: First off I never got the title of this book until yesterday when I decided to read the full quote form Macbeth to which Faulkner took the title. Unlike me, I'd suggest looking up the quote before you read the book. Part of the quote says "Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury" and to me that really fits with the book itself. I refuse to call these character idiots, but you don't feel conformable with the characters if you had to spend a week with them. They do some bad things. Also, one of the character, Benjy, is mentally disabled and I'll bring that back up shortly.

STYLE: The books style is the main reason I wanted to read this book. Most of it is told in the stream-of-consciousness. This style was made famous with Joyce and Woolf. I give props to Faulkner for bring that style form Europe and using it with a Southern twist. Like Joyce's Ulysses and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Faulkner's Sound and the Fury is told differently from most books. There are four different narrator's in this novel all telling a similar story in different ways. Well the first three parts are first person and the last part is third person. It sounds confusing, but once I was halfway in the second part I got use to the narration.

GOTHIC: I also wanted to read this book because I'm a fan of the Southern Gothic style. I love Carson McCullers, but after reading this book I still like her, but not her style as much anymore. I think Faulkner outranks McCullers for my tastes. This book is very Southern Gothic though. Takes place in Mississippi, expect with one part at Harvard. Not only does it deal with location, but fits the mold with the loneliness and the creepiness that makes me love Southern Gothic. Yes I did have fun reading the dialogue too, even though some of it I didn't quite get since I'm from the North.

TOPICS: I can see why Faulkner won a Nobel Prize of fiction after reading this book too. Like McCullers he too is not afraid to talk about the black culture in the South. I noticed though he doesn't make it clear who is what race at first though, only by derogatory slang the narrators use. I'm not sure exactly why he writes his book like this, but it works if you ask me. It shows that the authors can separate his characters from himself. Like any good author, this book shows he treat these characters as fiction, but he gives them life as if they could be real. He also talks about a handful of other uncomfortable topics, but the race one stood out to me maybe with what is going n now in America or maybe it the anti-labelist in me too.

WRITING: I already talked about the style with this book, but forgot about the writing besides the dialogue. First off for all you people who look for spelling/grammar errors on Facebook and the rest of interment or what not, I'd avoid this book. Welcome to a world where an author spells "dont" instead of "don't". This is a world where periods and punctuation don't exist sometimes and other time they will show up. This book has spelling errors too purposely for dialogue. This doesn't mean Faulkner is stupid or can't write, just means his is experimental with his writing, so it's all on purpose. I know I have a hard time with spelling and grammar too, so maybe Faulkner has taught me a new way of writing I can try at some point.

FAULKNER: I think Faulkner has moved into my all time favorite author list. Yes I have a list like that that exist. I know I've only read one book buy him, but sometime I can tell when I really like an author after looking up various things about them. I loved Ulysses, but I think this was better most because for me it was easier to read and shorter. I'm not sure this is my favorite book of all time because Mrs. Dalloway still tops that, but this book sure as hell left an impression on me. I will admit I wasn't sure what to think of him or this book because after finishing Kerouac's On The Road and hating that book, it left me nervous. The difference was that book was recommended to me and this book I found completely on my own. That book also had no sign of life and this book was full of life. Never read Faulkner in college either and found this just looking up various things I previously liked, so maybe for me that was a good thing.

This is the type of book I wouldn't recommend though. Unless you know about the stream-of-consciousness and don't mind reading a book that you have to work at to put together. Too many books these days hand you everything were all that's left is a plot that could be a movie. This book has a small plot, but you have to solve it by finishing the whole thing. This book is also great if you wish to get instead a character's head and play with their thoughts.

Not sure how to end this review and I might be missing some things, but THIS DAMN BOOK!

[burrowk-446725 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When I first started reading this book I had no idea what was going on. It was frustrating and kind of dizzying, but I'm really glad that I continued to read it. After I finally figured out what was going on I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt a kind of satisfaction at figuring out what was going on. I truly loved reading this book and realised why it is considered a classic. I know this isn't so much of a telling review, but this is really my strongest impression, and I do not a plot summary of any kind will do this justice as the storytelling and prose really made this novel a fascinating read for me. The prose and the storytelling were extraordinary and unlike anything I had read before. The story was very compelling and heartbreaking and the storytelling in the first part of the book allowed you to really understand one of the main characters, Benjy. I strongly recommend reading this book and look forward to reading other works by Faulkner.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wish I could say I adored The Sound and the Fury. I feel like I have an obligation to at least like Faulkner's writing style because it is so close to another author I actually love, James Joyce. Faulkner appears to be heavily influences by the Irish author. Even though Sound got easier and easier to read as I went along, I couldn't like the characters. Getting into the minds of the three Compson brothers didn't help. Benjamin, Quentin, and Jason's narratives all blur together and become one complicated and tangled stream of conscious. I learned early on that the trick to Faulkner is to remember chronology is of little importance, the duplicity of names can be confusing, and for The Sound and the Fury, you must be comfortable with themes of mental illness, incest, and suicide. Virginity is a commodity in southern fiction. The moral of the story is every tree has a few secret nuts.

[electrascaife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[terriks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It took a lot longer to slog through this than I expected. When I realize I'm three weeks into a book, and am picking it up only when there is literally nothing else to do, like cleaning the bathroom, I know I'm not liking it. While I can appreciate, objectively, why the novel interested people when it first was published - the unique stream-of-consciousness style, the Southern Gothic angle, for starters - I still struggle with the story itself and its (to me) detestable characters. The main family, the Compsons, and their casual racist treatment of their closest servant, Dilsey, and her family members, are hard to ignore. Faulkner himself cautioned publicly against desegregation as something that could upend the Southern way of life. The Compsons aren't written in a sympathetic way, of course, and I understand the time period this novel came out, for context.Still, not a fan of this effort from this writer. My copy is an old paperback that also includes the novella As I Lay Dying, which I will also read to give Faulkner another try. He is lauded as an important writer of the American South, and this is my first venture. As the title itself is pulled from Shakespeare's Macbeth, I can't help thinking of another Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing, minus any comic relief.

[kittycunningh-815148 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Yuck.

I don't know that I would have liked this better if I had read it to myself instead of listening to it, but I'm not likely to find out.

Multiple time lines hopping back and forth between tediums is just not how I want to spend my time.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy reading Faulkner though it isn't easy. This Southern gothic tells the story of the Compton family over 30 years. It is a picture of fallen aristocracy. The characters are flawed. Mrs Compton is too "sick" to care for her children so the childcare falls to the black servant Dilsey. Faulkner tells his story through 4 narratives and use of stream of consciousness. The first chapter is by the intellectually handicapped Benji and it is very disjointed but the reader does adjust to it. I found it helpful to read a bit about the book so that it was easier to catch on. There are major chronological leaps back and forth. The second is told by Quentin with mostly stream of conscious. He is the smartest most promising Compton and goes to Harvard to attend school. The third section is told by sarcastic Jason who is most ambitious and self-interested of the children. The final chapter is told by third person, omniscient POV and centers on Dilsey. Much of the thoughts of the 3 brothers are centered on their sister Caddy. The description of the Compton family members; Mr. Compson is an alcoholic. Mrs. Compson is a self-absorbed hypochondriac who depends almost entirely upon Dilsey to raise her four children. Quentin, the oldest child, is a sensitive bundle of neuroses. Caddy is stubborn, but loving and compassionate. Jason has been difficult and mean-spirited since birth and is largely spurned by the other children. Benjy is severely mentally disabled, an “idiot” with no understanding of the concepts of time or morality. In the absence of the self-absorbed Mrs. Compson, Caddy serves as a mother figure and symbol of affection for Benjy and Quentin.The title of The Sound and the Fury refers to a line from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth, a Scottish general and nobleman, learns of his wife’s suicide and feels that his life is crumbling into chaos. In addition to Faulkner’s title, we can find several of the novel’s important motifs in Macbeth’s short soliloquy in Act V, scene v:Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrowCreeps in this petty pace from day to dayTo the last syllable of recorded time,And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.The cover of the first edition, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner by William Faulkner portrays a man in torment as if wrestling in darkness, maybe depression.

[ken5me5old5mate · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner I gave up half way through.

I converted this book from MOBI to EPUB to read it on my Kobo and thought it had got mangled in the process, but I opened the MOBI version and it really was the way it was.

It took me a while to work out that we were jumping backwards and forwards in both time and characters. I found it jarring as no reference points seemed to appear anywhere, it was like being on a calliope with your eyes shut.

I have read both Finnegans Wake and Ulysses without too much trouble but I found this completely impenetrable. Maybe it's because I am not American and I missed some reference in the dialect that would have given me a place to stand.

As it was I got lost, confused and ultimately bored in what seemed a pointlessly convoluted story. I can place this with On The Road and Catcher In The Rye and Bleak House all of which are somehow rated as some of the greatest literary works of all time, just not this time however.

[pivic-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For me, this was a hard read. A stream-of-consciousness book which was harder than Rimbaud and William S. Burroughs at the same time, once "cracked", gave a lot.

It's the insight into 1920s America, of children and adults and the lives and differences between the idiot and the people who are not idiots.

Still, I wouldn't be able to say I've understood this book. I think I'll have to re-read it a couple of times to fully get into it. Maybe it just wasn't my time.

On the other hand, it was my time; just like eavesdropping on a conversation that you start listening in on mid-conversation, or if the people speaking don't make much sense, it leaves you with what you pick up from it.

As Faulkner himself said of the character Benjy:

“To that idiot, time was not a continuation, it was an instant, there was no yesterday and no tomorrow, it all is this moment, it all is [now] to him. He cannot distinguish between what was last year and what will be tomorrow, he doesn’t know whether he dreamed it, or saw it.”

Despite the static discussions found in the text, the book is very rewarding, if you can get past the language barrier; Faulkner has written dialogue much in the same way as José Saramago wrote "Blindness", and that Irvine Welsh wrote "Trainspotting": it's quasi-phonetic and at times lacking exclamation marks and question marks.

And to finish, I quote Shakespeare's "Macbeth":

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,/ To the last syllable of recorded time/ And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/ The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!/ Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the stage/ And then is heard no more. It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing.”

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although I can now proudly say that I have read William Faulkner, I don’t believe that I can quite brag that I totally comprehended him. I actually had to look up a character list of The Sound and The Fury to understand that the Queenie, who was tossing her head in chapter one was a horse, while Luster and Versh are human characters. What I gathered from my reading of this book is that all three brothers of the Compson family were obsessed by their sister, Caddy.The first three chapters are narrated by the Compson brothers on three different days in the years 1910 and 1928. The brothers are, Benjy, a severely retarded thirty-three year old man whose narration consists mostly of sensations and random thoughts. The other two brothers are the suicidal Quentin and the horrible Jason but it wasn’t until the final chapter which focuses on Dilsey, the Compson’s pious and strong-willed black housekeeper that the story started to meld together for me. This novel describes the decline and deterioration of this once-prominent Southern family of Jefferson, Mississippi as their wealth, land and status slowly give way.I read that one shouldn’t jump into this book with no prior knowledge of it and I heartily agree with this statement. I actually went back and re-read Benjy’s first chapter and I certainly understood a lot more of it and, indeed, appreciated Faulkner’s ability to deliver these fragmented snippets that in actuality do move the story forward. The Sound and Fury is a book that highlights stream-of-consciousness and non-linear story-telling and is quite an accomplishment. Personally, I still don’t like this book but I can now understand why Faulkner is so revered.

[drardavis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You already know, as did I, that this is an American classic. If it weren’t, I would have given up after the first ten pages. I’m glad that I didn’t. We are so used to stories being told in traditional ways, that when we come across something different we are likely to be scared off. The book leaves an impression, a deep impression, of Faulkner’s south that seeps into your bones. By the ending you will probably figure out the story, but it is the images that count. The smell of honeysuckle, grandfather’s broken watch, Dilsey in the cabin door in the rain, Luster repairing the broken narcissus, are just a few I remember. After I finished, I read my wife’s college notes and discovered the fantastic construction and symbolism Faulkner used to create this masterpiece. That deepened my appreciation of the work, but I think it is best explored on your own first. Then let someone else tell you what it meant.

[mattries37315 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

One of the greatest novels of the 20th-century follows the disintegration of former Southern aristocrats looked at in four different ways. The Sound and the Fury is considered William Faulkner’s greatest novel, following members of the Compson family over roughly 30 years in which the once great aristocratic Southern family breaks down from within and influence socially.The book begins with man-child Benjamin “Benjy” Compson remembering various incidents over the previous 30 years from his first memory of his sister Caddy climbing a tree, his name being changed after his family learned he was mentally handicapped, the marriage and divorce of Caddy, and his castration all while going around his family’s property in April 1928. The second section was of Quentin Compson, skipping classes during a day of his freshman year at Harvard in 1910 and wandering Cambridge, Massachusetts thinking about death and his family’s estrangement from his sister Caddy before committing suicide. The third section followed a day in the life of Jason Compson who must take care of his hypochondriac mother and Benjy along with his niece, Caddy’s daughter Quentin. Working at a hardware store to make ends meet while stealing the money his sister sends to Quentin, Jason has to deal with people who used to lookup to his family and with black people who irritate the very racist head of the Compson family. The four section follows several people on Easter Sunday 1928 as the black servants take care of Benjy and gets for the Compsons while Jason finds out that Quentin as runaway with all the money in the house, which includes the money he stole from her and his life savings. After failing to find Quentin, Jason returns to town to calm down Benjy who is having a fit due to his routine being changed.In constructing this book, Faulkner employed four different narrative styles for each section. Benjy’s section was highly disjointed narrative with numerous time leaps as he goes about his day. Quentin’s section was of an unreliable stream of consciousness narrator with a deteriorating state of mind, which after Benjy’s section makes the reader want to give up the book. Jason’s section is a straightforward first-person narrative style with the fourth and final section being a third person omniscient point-of-view. While one appreciates Faulkner’s amazing work in producing this novel, the first two sections are so all over the place that one wonders why this book was even written and only during the last two sections do readers understand about how the Compson family’s fortunes have fallen collectively and individually.The Sound and the Fury is overall a nice novel, however the first two sections of William Faulkner’s great literally derails interest and only those that stick with the book learn in the later half what is going on with any clarity. I would suggest reading another Faulkner work before this if you are a first-time reader of his work like I was because unless you’re dedicated you might just quit.

[akblanchard_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Now that I've read The Sound and The Fury, it beckons me to read it again, to pick up on all the details I missed. I probably won't be doing that any time soon, however. Faulkner's tale of a decaying family of former plantation dwellers is written in three different, but all difficult, styles (the fourth and final section is relatively straightforward). The first part, narratated by Benjy, the mentally disabled son, isn't that hard once you get used to it. It the second and third parts, narrated by clinically-depressed Harvard student Quentin and crass store clerk Jason that really are challenging. There is much here to discuss. A difficult but rewarding read.

[jimrgill · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Modern Library ranks it as the 6th best novel ever written. Faulkner won the Nobel Prize. What more is there to say?

[jonfaith · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It was January in North London. During the three days I crept through this marvelous novel the rain only paused for a combination of brilliant sun and arctic winds. Most of the conversations around me were in Srpski and somehow Faulkner's viaduct pointed to familiarity: you see avarice, disability and failure are rather common in Indiana.

[daniel5estes · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I attempted Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury once before, and again just recently before deciding to call it quits short of finishing. The arguments for this novel and its stream-of-consciousness narrative style, which was relatively new at the time, remind me of how classical music transitioned to the music of the romantic era and eventually to what is known as "20th century music." And here I'm not talking about popular genres like ragtime and jazz and what would eventually become rock n' roll. I"m talking about what classical music evolved into. I had a college professor refer to 20th century music as "intellectual exercises" and I think he was being kind. This is what I think of when I try to read books like The Sound and the Fury -- an attempt to push the boundaries of a genre but then it also becomes inaccessible to many in your audience.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When my father died he left behind a collection of around a hundred Penguin paperbacks from the 1960s and 1970s. Most of them he had ordered directly from the publisher – I found an invoice in one – and included works by DH Lawrence (the writer he admired most), Carson McCullers, JP Donleavy, Ralph Ellison, Malcolm Lowry, Raymond Chandler, Herman Hesse, George Orwell and, among others… William Faulkner. I kept many of the books for myself – and subsequently became a big fan of Lowry’s fiction. (I had already sampled Lawrence’s fiction, and found it excellent, earlier.) There was always the possibility I’d be enormously impressed by another author from his collection, although a read of two of McCullers novels showed it wasn’t going to be her. William Faulkner, on the other hand, what little I knew of him – early twentieth century author, American, wrote mostly about the South, his novels had quite pretentious titles, I couldn’t think of anything by him that been adapted by Hollywood… Well, I’d expected The Sound and the Fury to be a bit of a chore to read, and it was only a complete inability to brain early one weekday morning that resulted in me grabbing it to read next on my commute. So I was very surprised to discover the novel hugely impressive. The casual use of racial epithets – the racism itself, especially in the third section, narrated by Jason Compton, who is racist – is hard to take, although nothing in the prose persuades me that Faulkner held those views, and in fact he develops his black characters as carefully and as well as he develops his white ones. And, of course, this is a book that was written, and set, within living memory (just) of slavery and the American Civil War. US society, especially southern US society, is hugely racist, and if the language in The Sound and the Fury is offensive it is at least a legitimate product of its time. But one of the areas that fascinates me about literature is narrative structure, and there The Sound and the Fury has plenty to recommend it. It is divided into four parts, three dated 1928 and one dated 1910, and each part subsequently sheds more light on the story. The first is told from the point of view of Benjy, who has learning disabilities, and presents his 33 years of life in an achronological almost stream-of-consciousness narrative, with time-jumps signalled by changes from italics and back again, although not with any degree of rigour. The second section is set 18 years earlier and mixes a straightforward narrative with stream of consciousness, and is perhaps the hardest to parse as its narrative is mostly peripheral to the main story. The third section, set in 1928 again, is more straightforward and, as mentioned earlier, is in the POV of the racist brother of the protagonist of the second section. The final section takes place a day later than the third, and is omniscient, but chiefly features the family’s black housekeeper. With each section, the overall story becomes clearer. It is not, it has to be said, the most exciting of stories – Banks followed a similar philosophy with his mainstream novels, albeit without the modernism, but he usually made his central secrets a little too “exciting” and a little too implausible. The Sound and the Fury is pure modernist literature, and the prose is really very very good. Though the milieu doesn’t attract me, the approach to writing strikes me as every bit as interesting as that of Lowry. Albeit in a different way. A third of the way into The Sound and the Fury I decided I needed to read more, if not all, of Faulkner’s fiction. So I’ve ordered another of his novels. From eBay. Because, of course, I want editions that match the ones I have – ie, mid-sixties Penguin paperbacks. Sigh. But Faulkner: excellent. Possibly even a new favourite writer.

[margaretfield · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

might be my favorite book of all time

[abycats_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Finally completed my first Faulkner novel having somehow avoided him during school years. The author's appendix is infinitely helpful but the stream of consciousness style is still difficult. This will be worth more than one reread. Also gave me a chance to try another book club which turned out to be excellent.

[terris-7 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Thank goodness that's over!! I'm sorry, I'm just not a William Faulkner fan. His style of writing just grates against me. I'm not saying I won't read anything else by him, but it's going to be a long time before I try to tackle him again. I read "As I Lay Dying" in 2002, so maybe I'll wait 15 more years before I read another one of his ;)

[datrappert · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Faulkner's classic story of the dysfunctional Compson family is notoriously difficult to read, but that is a bit exaggerated. The opening section, narrated by the idiot brother Benji Compson (thus, "a tale told by an idiot") won't make much sense unless you understand he's talking about watching people playing golf at the beginning. It helped that I first read this in a college class with a Faulkner-obsessed professor who was excellent. In contrast, the Quentin Compson section of the book is the most compelling, readable thing I have ever read by Faulkner. Of course, to understand any of the complex family relationships, and the backwards and forwards in time of the book, it helps to have some sort of guide. It is also a good idea to read Absalom, Absalom! after this one. Bear with it. It is worth the trouble.

[benuathanasia · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Fuck this book. Fuck it right in the ear. It dragged, was completely uninteresting, had no intriguing characters...I just can't fathom how anyone can get any joy (or knowledge) out of this book. And the writing lacked any semblance of art. "short, simplistic sentence." Blah said. "Short simple reply" Blah said. "A decent length sentence, but without any words that would increase brain capacity" Blah said. -Moderately lengthed observation or description that fails to invoke the reader to think-^This is the entire damn book.

[japaul22 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 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!

[heathrel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What is so wonderful about Faulkner is his ability to get inside the minds of his characters and really make us feel their world and their experiences. It isn't pretty in there: we have four different characters here, and from the white family we have an overt racist and misogynist; a sensitive character overcome by depression; and a developmentally delayed third son. The daughter's voice is only heard through their memories and that of the fourth character: the black servant who tends to be ignored, but who hears and sees a great deal. Faulkner is one of our first great writers to tell us about race and gender relations in the United States, and for that, he may be hard to read.

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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 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.

[simthewriter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Sound and the Fury is a spectacular piece of literature. The writing style, described as "stream of consciousness" is riveting. I found myself reading it section by section, because it is easy to lose yourself in the constant flow of words. Each character, presented from different viewpoints, exist in a three-dimensional space that is rare in some literature these days. Faulkner allows them to flourish and develop themselves. It provides an honest, unflinching look into their lives, the love, the slow implosion and the resilience. You need patience to read this book, but in my opinion, it's worth it!

[baswood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was chosen for our latest bookclub read and I can see it putting a large nail in the coffin of the club. We have a system of members taking turns in choosing the books to read next and I thought something might be up when the member said he would email us with his selection. Difficult books can put people off, but I was fortunate in having read The Sound and the Fury previously and had been so fascinated by the style that I had re-read sections and had done a little research on it’s themes and ideas. My advice would be; don’t read this book without help. You will need a safety net to get through the first part and will be in danger of becoming entangled in that net during the second part. It is only when you get to part three that the narrative begins to make any sense, but for many people this will be far too late. The final part which eschews the stream of consciousness technique completely and is told in a more understandable authorial omniscience may be the one that a reader new to the book may wish to read first.So why does this novel seem tantalisingly beyond comprehension on a first reading? It is not the vocabulary that is the problem, the reader understands the words well enough, (although they are more difficult for readers not familiar with language used in the Southern States of America). One feels that the way they are used within the sentences is obscuring the meaning, sometimes the reader feels he is on the verge of getting a grip on events, but like much of real life it just seems to slip through ones fingers. This is most evident in the the first section which takes the point of view of a 33 year old member of the Compson family, however Benji is mentally sub normal to the extent that he has not been able to learn to talk and has to be constantly supervised. He feels, sees, senses and for the most part hears things but they are scrambled in his mind, he has no sense of time and so his narrative is disjointed. Faulkner flits between a first person narrative as though Benji could reiterate his thoughts and accurate recordings of other characters speech and actions. Having no narrative to hold on to, the reader is left scratching for clues as to what is happening. It is a tour de force of of the stream of consciousness method, but can only be really appreciated when the narrative begins to make sense. The second part is told in the first person by Quentin: one of Benjamin’s brothers, and while he is intelligent, (a student at university) he is going through his own personal crisis on a day that will end in his suicide. His thoughts are sometimes irrational, often jumbled and hopelessly obsessive.While there are narrative events in this section of the book for example Quentins meeting with the young boys fishing from the bridge and his sojourn with the little girl who refuses to speak, his obsessive behaviour and his social ineptness in dealing with adult people make his section of the book almost as difficult as the first part. Faulkner adds to the confusion by writing some of this section without any punctuation. There are more clues in Quentin’s section and there are bits that are recognisably a narrative, but the reader is periodically thrown off the scent of the real story and is left once again with a visceral effect of being inside the head of a man suffering from an obsessive disorder.The third part of the book is told from the perspective of the third brother Jason and he is totally self obsessed. He sees the dissolution of the once great Compson family firsthand and feels cheated by their failings; his inheritance is to work in a store (land was sold to fund Quentin’s education, but there is none left for Jason). He is mean spirited and unforgiving and resorts to cheating his niece out of her inheritance with no sense of shame or guilt. Parts of the story now come together, but there is much that is unexplained and while the narrative drive of this section can be followed easily enough, it only sheds a partial light on what has gone before.The final section describes a day in the life of the family when Jason’s story reaches its conclusion and features the negro servant Dilsey who is the only recognisable “good” person in the novel. She works hard at keeping the family together despite suffering the racial abuse that is a matter of course for people in her position. There is no light-bulb moment at the conclusion to the novel, but there is enough to make this reader want to read parts of it again. Many readers will feel that they have missed much and the only way to piece it together is to backtrack; it becomes easier the second time around. What stood out for me this time around was the obsessive nature of so many of the characters. Benjy is obsessive in a way simulate to people suffering from an extreme compulsive obsessive disorder. Two of the female characters are obsessed by sex and promiscuity and Quentin’s and Jason’s obsessions have already been noted. It is though Faulkner is using the family to point out the dangers of a closed society and the inbreeding that can be the result; The Confederate South of America maybe? I would have thought that many American readers would have studied The Sound and the Fury at school or college and so would have formed their opinions of it’s readability and been familiar with it’s themes. For new readers, take it from me, you need spoilers, as many spoilers as you can find.I enjoyed my re-read of this classic five star novel, but I am wondering how many of my fellow book club members got through the first section.

[lauraclm · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have tried over and over on this one. I can't get there. Neither sound nor fury for me.