The Sound and the Fury

At first, I heeded the Norton editor's counsel to a "new reader" that "the [best] place to begin is with the novel itself." However, after just a few pages, a reader can easily become confounded by the characters who surface, vanish, and resurface through the flashes of memory of the first section's narrator, lacking connections. It is written in a stream-of-consciousness style, documenting the mental processes of Benji, who is intellectually disabled, mute, and for whom the past and present are indistinguishable as his thoughts oscillate between different episodes in the history of his family (as he witnessed them through their dialogues without comprehension) and the present action when he is 33 years old (and in the same mental state as when he was a child). There are no transitions between the episodes; they alternate back and forth seemingly abruptly, and the names of other characters keep emerging without chronological cues or family context.

After a few pages into the novel, I realized that if I were to persevere, I should disregard the editor's advice and first familiarize myself with the family members, just their names and basic identities. For it quickly became evident to me that there is no confusion about Jason, but rather there are two Jasons, two Quentins (one male, the other female), and Queenie is actually a horse, and so on. So, I did look up their basic genealogy chart, and the wondrous tale that Faulkner wove about the decaying Southern family magically opened up and unfolded. It's still a complex work, but solving the puzzle of memories is no longer perplexing and arduous; instead, it becomes an intense and emotionally engaging reconstruction of one family's tragic decline of their own making.

The novel is told first by an "Idiot" as in Macbeth's famous soliloquy that served as the novel's title, and then by his two brothers, also through the stream-of-consciousness narrative reflecting their different personalities and relations to their family's past. One of them is undergoing an existential crisis (and consequently, his thoughts and memories are fragmented through the prism of his mental decline), while the other is a rather plain brute whose memories are easier to follow in the narrative sense but difficult to stomach due to his rage at his present condition, which biases his memories, and even worse, his thoughts are colored by his racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny. The novel concludes with the conventional fourth chapter/section narrated in the third person and mostly centering on Dilsey, the family's devoted black servant over three generations. If a reader is anticipating a climactic resolution - and Faulkner manages to emotionally involve us while following this family's tragic degeneration - the ending might be disappointing. But if a reader returns to Macbeth's soliloquy as Faulkner reshaped it, it is as brilliant as the entire novel.

This is not just a family saga written in several innovative styles. There is the thematic richness to ponder, gradually becoming discernible as is the story of the Compson family. How we relate to the passage of time, memories, social prejudices, our cultural heritage shaping our identity... and on a larger plane, it's about the American South, racism, corruption, greed... I extracted two'messages', I believe subtly interwoven into the novel, that grabbed me the most: that the past can shape our present only if we shield ourselves from changes and lock ourselves from the future, and that the truth is elusive and subjective no matter how much we think we know it. And that these are equally applicable to our personal and collective consciousness.

It’s a Difficult Novel, But Do Not Give Up

It would be a shame to abandon this masterful work despite its many challenges. For anyone approaching this review before reading the novel, I would suggest ignoring all the chronologies, commentaries, and “explanations” (the novel defies a single explanation) that are intended to assist in grappling with Faulkner's challenging style. I read some of the reviews included in this Norton edition but only *after* finishing the novel and would especially highlight the essays by Jean-Paul Sartre (I had to quote him on my reading update) and Olga Vickery. Also, Faulkner's two introductions and brief excerpts from his Paris Review interview, letters, and his recorded interchange with students about The Sound and the Fury.

A couple of suggestions that worked for me and my ever-wonderful reading buddy, Joe.

Characters

I do think that it's beneficial to know in advance two basic genealogies: the Compsons, a Southern white family, and the Gibsons, their black servants. It seems that Faulkner thought the same when he decided to add the Appendix to later editions with the description of each character, also included in the Norton edition. However, it contains many spoilers, and fortunately, I read it after finishing the novel. For a start, I found that only this much would be sufficient to know, as it was for me:

The Compsons:
Jason - father
Caroline - mother
Quentin - their first son, born ca.1890 (his siblings were born successively, about one year apart)
Jason - second son
Caddy (Candace) - their only daughter
Benji (born Maury with his name later changed to Benjamin) - their mentally disabled third son
Quentin - Caddy’s daughter
Maury - children’s uncle, Caroline’s brother

The Gibsons:
Dilsey - mother
Roskus - her husband
their two sons - Versh and T.P.
Luster - their grandson

In one of his sessions with students in 1957, Faulkner answered the question of whether the Compsons are “good people”: I would call them tragic people. The good people, Dilsey, the Negro woman, she was a good human being. That she held that family together for not the hope of reward but just because it was the decent and proper thing to do.

Oh, yes, my favorite character - the wonderful Dilsey! While I was endeared to Caddy and Benji, Dilsey will always stay with me.

Two (spoiler-free) cues to the time shifts in the first section/chapter (Benji)

Another obstacle, which with some initial effort can be overcome, as it turns out, that might cause a reader to give up early on (please don't!) is disorientation in time. Since the novel begins with the chapter written in the most difficult narrative style - the story of the Compsons family is told in an extremely fractured manner in which Benji’s “stream of consciousness” frequently shifts between different episodes in the distant and recent past - it is easy to become disoriented about the basic time frame. There are two helpful cues: first, Faulkner usually switched between italicized and roman/normal letter types whenever the episodes in Benji’s memories and the present time change, but not always. So the second helpful cue is to know that the three Gibsons were his caretakers at different time periods: Versh when Benji was a toddler, T.P. when he was a teenager, and Luster in the present time (1928 when he is 33 years old). Mentioning their names should orient a reader into the approximate time frame when different actions, some of which are tragic including deaths, are taking place.

That’s it for a start! The rest is up to us, the readers, as Faulkner engages us to actively participate more than anyone else I’ve read.

For all its stylistic difficulties, the first (Benji) section was probably my favorite, followed by the second, slightly less demanding but still challenging, (Quentin) section where I was awed by Faulkner's alternate and original stream-of-consciousness techniques. No, it was not his stylistic exhibitionism; it was perfectly appropriate for Quentin's accelerating thoughts into a life-changing decision.

A true modernist masterpiece.

123 years ago, on such a day, one of the best American writers was born.

However, there is a question:

If you have read "Crime and Punishment", please tell me how Raskolnikov attempts suicide in the second chapter?

Don't cheat!

I first read this book in my senior year of high school.

At that time, as a teenaged, naive, and slightly insecure bookworm, I was drawn to the tragic characters. However, I somehow missed the profound misery depicted in this novel set in the Deep South of the 1920s.

The second time I read it, as a middle-aged reader, it truly sunk me low. Quentin and Caddy, with their alternating states of desolation, tragedy, horror, and charm, left a deep impression. Mrs Compson, a Southern gothic horror, shamelessly dwelling on her past glory and martyrdom, was also a memorable character. And Jason, who blew an age-old slight out of proportion into something epic.

Lastly, there were Benji and Dilsey. These two characters, in their own unique ways, were the only decent human beings in that entire novel.

Looking back, I wonder how I could have loved this story as a mere girl. It really is a terrible, beautiful book that reveals the complex and often dark aspects of human nature and the society of that era.

(Reviewed 2/16/18)

Mi piace definire questo romanzo non tanto una lettura, fra le tante, quanto una vera e propria esperienza di lettura.

Il sapore lasciato dall'ultima pagina, quando si giunge al termine, è quello dolce amaro di un arrivederci nel quale si mescolano sentimenti contrastanti che sintetizzano in sé emozioni diverse.

Forte è il segno che esso nel complesso lascia, grande il sollievo per averlo terminato - la lettura è stata, soprattutto nella prima parte davvero ostica.

Amaro infine il ricordo che, della realtà rappresentata, si sedimenterà nel mio universo emotivo di lettrice.

Attraverso scelte ardite: molteplicità di voci narranti, focalizzazioni funambolesche, anacronie impensabili, flussi di coscienza, molteplici discorsi diretti estemporanei, l'autore come un preciso programmatore di disgrazie mette in scena una famiglia in decadenza sotto tutti i punti di vista.

Non basta il tracollo finanziario della fine degli anni '20, non sono sufficienti le disgrazie umane quali un ritardo mentale in famiglia, non bastano neppure le differenze umane che possono rendere difficile la convivenza tra consanguinei, e non sono nemmeno sufficienti i retaggi di un'epoca post-coloniale quando può ancora avere un senso, nel profondo sud americano, marcare le differenze tra bianchi e neri.

Qui c'è di più. C'è l'urlo e c'è il furore, c'è l'impossibilità di essere e c'è la fatalità di non poter essere.

Personaggi meravigliosi, ognuno nella sua specificità: madri, padri, fratelli, sorelle, nonne. Inetti, incapaci, vinti, piegati, disfatti alcuni, riscattati altri.

Forse presente un unico vero e proprio personaggio positivo (non penso alla serva nera), marginale e neanche voce narrante; un piccolo spiraglio di umanità dove tutto pare avere un'atavica forma di rassegnata disperazione.

Immobilità assoluta, annullamento spazio-temporale. Tutto rimane uguale a se stesso; è tempo di rompere gli orologi: rimando alla meravigliosa seconda parte alla quale devo questa immagine e una chiave complessiva di lettura.

The first time I picked up this book, I managed to struggle through only three pages before concluding it would be a waste of time. To this day, it remains the only book that I had the wisdom to set aside for later, as my typical approach is to power through the pages no matter what. Perhaps it was fortuitous that I had just finished slogging through a massive tome that left my brain incapable of confronting the start of Benjy's prose. I don't recall the title of the book that left me in such a state, but I do remember staring at the opening pages of this one, my mind wandering in a state of frozen disbelief at the contorted fragments that were supposed to form a story. So I left it until later, four years later if my memory serves me correctly, and I'm glad I did.

The writing in this book is notoriously challenging. As Shakespeare said in Macbeth, "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." You've heard this before, and I won't waste anyone's time repeating it. However, now that I've finally reached the end, I can't say that I would change any part of it. Had the entire book been written in the style of the last section, largely coherent with rare bursts of descriptive prose and sudden shifts in point of view and timeline, it would not have been nearly as impactful. The story is indeed solid, the story is indeed fury, and you can't convey that without immersing the prose in that cesspool of chaotic madness. If I hadn't fought my way through Benjy, if I hadn't dragged myself inch by inch through Quentin, I wouldn't have understood the horror of Jason, or the final tragedy of the conclusion. To be honest, I wouldn't have cared.

But I did care. I cared because the haphazard mess of the beginning prepared my mind for a reading experience that, rather than demanding a tenacious follower, required a bucket to catch the errant drops. A drop of plot here, a drop of context there, many drops that filled in the blanks of the neurotic frenzy that is the Compson family. Nature versus nurture. Nature planted a single seed of madness in the blood, and nurture drove each member along different paths. You'll be gathering bits and pieces of this tangential story, wondering what it's all for, and then a single phrase will narrow the story to a focal point of singular rage and despair. When that happens, you'll understand what all that seemingly aimless running around was for. All the disconnected hints and teases will culminate in an awful truth, and it's a feeling that no linear timeline can convey.

For, if you read an edition that contains the foreword appendix written by the author, you'll be given that linear timeline right at the beginning. You'll know the hard, cold facts of this family long before the story begins. You'll know their earliest ancestor, and you'll know their ignominious end, and you'll even get the major, significant events in between. You won't care about Benjy's plight, or Quentin's, or Jason's, or the whole family's, this Southern strain of blood that ends in a lost oblivion of death, bitterness, and idiocy. All you'll have is context, that collection of straightforward, no-nonsense tidbits that make perfect sense and ultimately mean nothing. You can't expect them to, long before you have delved into the lives of these characters, the agonizing push and pull each one of them endures in their respective situations. You can't expect them to if you still wish to neatly categorize each character and resolve every loose end in a satisfying conclusion.

This story is about the long, slow death of a lineage, the inexorable tugging and tearing of ideologies and timelines on a group of souls that have been thrown together by a combination of familial blood and social connections. No one escapes the hell on earth that was apportioned to them, embodied in poisonous words that are fueled by a poisonous life conditioned by a poisonous world. Not even the idiot, who doesn't know the context yet feels the agony, much like we the readers feel our way through the chaotic text of this story with an underlying sense of grief and despair, one that cannot be contained in a single quote, paragraph, page, or section. Not until it's much too late, and somewhere along the twisted path we lose our hearts to this tragic mess of a family that we knew was doomed from the start.

Somewhere among the sound and the fury, that pain touched us, and the most we can do is join Benjy in the bellowing in response to that fearful anger. We know it signifies nothing. We know it does, just as anything with a beginning and an end will eventually be lost in the mists of time, and the world will continue to roll on in ignorant bliss of its history. We know that. But it sure as hell doesn't feel that way.

"Violence and Fury" belongs to that type of novels called literary classics. What I heard about it always intrigued me, making me eager to read it and add it to my precious reading list. However, when I opened it and delved into it, I found it to be a large shell, empty inside except for the air of falsehood and pretension.

Since I had read Faulkner before and enjoyed it, I was certain that I would have an experience like no other with his most famous novel, whose content and title are taken from the quotes closest to my heart and my favorite stage.

"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."

But unfortunately, I woke up from the beautiful dream to a less than ordinary work. It did nothing but waste my time and sometimes scatter my thoughts. It brought me only a sense of satisfaction that gradually eroded day by day. The fame and praise for any work that is not a proof of value of any kind.

When the great Shakespeare wrote those immortal lines, he wrote them in a play that would literally shake your being. You would not come out of it except full to the brim. For in it, there is the captivating story, the moving poetry, the brilliant imagination, and the characters with whom you interact in all aspects.

But when Faulkner wanted to use the same lines, he applied them literally and gave us a meaningless story, told by a drunk, full of violence and fury.

Even if it was his intention to make his story meaningless, he should have created a story that sticks, affects you, makes you believe in the value of meaninglessness, as any bad or theatrical writer belonging to the school of the absurd does.

The technique used depends on two aspects related to time. The first is the abandonment of using a unified time, so all the events seem as if they have happened and ended and are waiting for Faulkner to tell about them. At the same time, they seem as if they are happening now in the mouths of the multiple narrators as if they are testing them again when they create them.

The second aspect, which in my opinion brought the undeserved fame to the novel, is the play with the events and the mixing of the times. The heroes appear in childhood, youth, or adulthood without any prior warning, especially in the first novel of Benjy, the child/adolescent/man who suffers from mental retardation.

This temporal intermingling, which I admit is of a high literary form, leaves no room for the reader's enjoyment and does not seem to add much or little to the value of the novel itself.

What I noticed about the novel is that it seems soulless, without emotions, as if the one who wrote it does not care about his heroes or any known or innovative literary value.

It tells a silly and boring story about people I have never empathized with, and in a way that shows blatant caution. True, it belongs to the stream of consciousness that I dislike. True, the technique used in the novel is difficult and requires high literary skill.

But in the end, it remains a technical novel and nothing more.

In fact, the repetition of some expressions, such as the smell of Caddy, which is "the smell of the trees" for Benjy, or the pursuit of Quentin by his shadow and his torture with the ticks of the clock, made me burst out laughing.

In my opinion, it is an attempt to smear literature, an attempt to add some depth to flat characters as if they were drawn on water. It did not add any value to an ordinary American novel. There is nothing in it to amaze, it passes you by without a memorable effect.

It is a novel of style, nothing more, and I would not recommend it to anyone.

As vezes, penso que talvez a vida que me resta não seja suficiente para ler todos os livros que tenho, e terei ainda, por aqui. E fico triste.

Hoje, não me importo. Depois de O Som e a Fúria não creio que haja algum outro livro que me dê pena deixar por ler.

Nas primeiras páginas, senti-me como se estivesse perante um cavalo soberbo e indomável. Ele me atirava ao solo sempre que o tentava montar. Mas ele ficava lá, olhando-me, prendendo-me como num feitiço. E tentei de novo e de novo e de novo até que ele me aceitou e me levou, como se fossemos um só, para um mundo de trevas e dor. Um mundo onde não há amor, não há esperança, só injustiça, medo, desespero.

Para o mundo de Benjy. O Louco. Não fala; os únicos sons que emite são os do medo: gritos gritos gritos... Gosta do fogo que é como o cabelo de Caddy. Gosta de observar os jogadores de golfe, porque lhe parece que dizem o nome da única pessoa que ele ama, da única que o ama: caddie... Caddy. \"Ela cheirava como as árvores.\" Pobre Benjy!

Para o mundo de Quentin. O Inteligente. Atormentado por um amor incestuoso por Caddy. As sombras. O Tempo; temporário. O cheiro da água; o doce aroma das madressilvas \"O odor da madressilva era o mais triste de todos\". Pobre Quentin!

Para o mundo de Jason. O Cruel. Egoísta, incapaz de amar algo além do dinheiro \"Quem nasce puta morre puta\". Pobre Jason!

E de Jason. O Pai. Alcoólico. Tenta manter a união da família. Tenta?

E de Caroline. A Mãe. Egocêntrica e hipocondríaca. Apenas ama o filho Jason. Ama?

E de Caddy. A Filha. A Irmã. A Mãe. A Amante. A Amada. A Odiada. A Desejada.

E de Quentin. A Menina. Perdida, no seio de uma família perdida.

E de Dilsey. A Criada negra. O último suporte de uma família desmoronada.

Não me recordo de um livro me ter magoado tão profundamente. Durante três dias, vivi e sofri com os Compson. Muitas vezes até ao insuportável. Faulkner fere-nos fundo e não nos dá tréguas.

Só aqueles que gostam de ler podem compreender esta estranha perversidade de aceitar e gostar de sofrer com os tormentos de gente imaginária. (Imaginária?)

Só alguns sabem que a autêntica Beleza dói!

Tenho tanta pena de não conseguir encadear palavras que transmitam com justiça a Grandiosidade desta obra.

DNF

I don't currently possess the patience necessary to give this book the kind of attention it truly demands. The stream of consciousness employed in the initial part of the book presented a significant challenge to navigate through. However, it wasn't completely devoid of enjoyment. I had naively assumed that it would become easier once I had completed that first section. But alas, the writing style of the second part persists in being a formidable challenge. I simply can't cope with it at the moment. I'm currently immersed in graduate school, where I already have more than enough demanding reading materials to contend with, thank you very much. Perhaps one day, when I have more mental bandwidth available, I'll muster the courage to return to this book and give it the proper attention it deserves.