BOOK 214: THE SOUND AND THE FURY: WILLIAM FAULKNER

The tragedy of the Compson family features some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

(From Goodreads)

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Sound and the Fury sixth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

The novel has achieved great critical success and a prominent place among the greatest of American novels. It played a role in William Faulkner's receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.

MY VERDICT: I’m in two minds about this book. It is confusing, the first two sections especially, but once I got into the rhythm of the first section for me it was the easiest to read; easy to read in the fact that I sped though it in one sitting and let the prose wash over me, skipping from one time to another effortlessly. The key for me in the first section (which was infuriating my boyfriend who was reading the book at the same time as me – at his insistence not mine) was to not try to make sense of it – take in what information you could and just follow Benjy along for the story. And things do become clearer through the other sections as the narrative style gets easier to follow. Overall for me the story was depressing and hard to get through, there’s not a lot hope to latch on to and I didn’t think the story being told was interesting enough to warrant the unconventional flourishes and the showing off of the narrative styles and jumps in time and lack of capital letters from the second section. I finished the book today and I’m still not sure about whether some of the things I thought might have happened actually happened. It’s a book that requires a little research after you’re finished but not for any fun reasons.