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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
In the fall of 1996 I won first place in the Academic Decathlon Interview category at the Maine State Competition held that year at Scarborough High School, after somehow successfully bullshitting my way through the question “What is your favorite book and why?” The words “The Sound and the Fury” came tumbling out of my mouth even though *I had never read it*and had no idea why I said it. One of the interviewers gushed “ME TOO” and I nearly died but somehow got through it and still WON?!?
Needless to say you’d think that sometime between 1996 and 2021 I would have bothered to pick it up but nope, I went blithely on for another TWENTY FIVE years never having read it.
Jason’s chapter is especially difficult to read in “this day and age” but damn, yeah, it is a masterpiece of craft, I’ll say that much. No further questions, please.
*edit I think I’m fuzzy on dates. Was it Spring 1996? Spring 1997? Fall 1995? I dunno but it was a long time ago.
Needless to say you’d think that sometime between 1996 and 2021 I would have bothered to pick it up but nope, I went blithely on for another TWENTY FIVE years never having read it.
Jason’s chapter is especially difficult to read in “this day and age” but damn, yeah, it is a masterpiece of craft, I’ll say that much. No further questions, please.
*edit I think I’m fuzzy on dates. Was it Spring 1996? Spring 1997? Fall 1995? I dunno but it was a long time ago.
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3 stars first reading; 2.5 stars second reading. This Faulkner experimental masterpiece probably played a key role in securing his reputation as one of the biggest figures in Modernism. It contains four parts of almost identical length, a different narrator for each part; and a single story about the declining southern Compson family. There's not much to say about the literal events so much as the characters and their histories. There are four siblings: Benjy, the idiot (the title is a reference to a Shakespeare quote about an idiot 'full of sound and fury', and Benjy is an 'idiot' in the old sense of the word, a man of very, very low intelligence); Quentin, the doomed, depressive genius, who the family sells a pasture to pay for his Harvard education (also the partial namesake of the famous filmmaker Q. Tarantino); Caddie, beautiful and beloved; and Jason, who is slighted from the family fortune in favor of his siblings.
The first half of the book (Benjy and Quentin) is the more difficult, featuring frequent skips in time. I was so far from understanding when they were taking place that I didn't even consider re-reading challenging sections. The language is stunning, the scenes sometimes so real it feels more real than actual experiences I've had.
The second half is dominated by Jason Compson and his sexism and racism. The time structure is simpler, but there's still a remarkable amount of internality to the character.
As a whole, I can understand why the book is regarded as a masterpiece, but I can't recommend it. It's both real and horrifying. This is a book that stuck with me more than almost any other. Stars don't adequately explain the book, and I'm sure I don't either, but this book was an experience in the way that very, very few others are.
The first half of the book (Benjy and Quentin) is the more difficult, featuring frequent skips in time. I was so far from understanding when they were taking place that I didn't even consider re-reading challenging sections. The language is stunning, the scenes sometimes so real it feels more real than actual experiences I've had.
The second half is dominated by Jason Compson and his sexism and racism. The time structure is simpler, but there's still a remarkable amount of internality to the character.
As a whole, I can understand why the book is regarded as a masterpiece, but I can't recommend it. It's both real and horrifying. This is a book that stuck with me more than almost any other. Stars don't adequately explain the book, and I'm sure I don't either, but this book was an experience in the way that very, very few others are.
Just finished this book for the second time...my did I get much more out of it this time than when I was 17 years old!
Still continually amazed at the level to which Faulkner can immerse himself into a literary character. I made the comment in a book club that his treatment of Benjy, Quentin (son), and Jason was like an actor preparing for a movie role. There was very little, if any, stylistic carry-over from one section to the next, which made the reader feel like he/she was in the head of the individual narrating that particular section.
This time, I picked up more on the racial themes as well as the struggles states like Mississippi had in the generation following the Civil War. I especially liked how the part of the Compson family that tended to side with Jason (father) - i.e. Quentin (son), Caddy, and Quentin (C's daughter) - were ultimately set free from the deteriorating family through death or relocation. Jason (son) and Caroline (i.e. the Bascomb side) were left to continue deteriorating into obscurity. Benjy was simply caught in the middle with no choice but to watch it happen.
Again, great book. I would not change the five-star rating. My only qualm with it was the jarring transition to third person narration in the Dilsey section. I wish it would have stayed in first person...I just grew too attached to the first person upon this reading. Still, though, an excellent read and re-read.
Still continually amazed at the level to which Faulkner can immerse himself into a literary character. I made the comment in a book club that his treatment of Benjy, Quentin (son), and Jason was like an actor preparing for a movie role. There was very little, if any, stylistic carry-over from one section to the next, which made the reader feel like he/she was in the head of the individual narrating that particular section.
This time, I picked up more on the racial themes as well as the struggles states like Mississippi had in the generation following the Civil War. I especially liked how the part of the Compson family that tended to side with Jason (father) - i.e. Quentin (son), Caddy, and Quentin (C's daughter) - were ultimately set free from the deteriorating family through death or relocation. Jason (son) and Caroline (i.e. the Bascomb side) were left to continue deteriorating into obscurity. Benjy was simply caught in the middle with no choice but to watch it happen.
Again, great book. I would not change the five-star rating. My only qualm with it was the jarring transition to third person narration in the Dilsey section. I wish it would have stayed in first person...I just grew too attached to the first person upon this reading. Still, though, an excellent read and re-read.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
slow-paced
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
5 stars. One of my new goals is to read the entire Faulkner canon! I absolutely loved this book. My favorite character is Quentin (not Miss Quentin!) because he’s so philosophical and interesting in the way he thinks and his use of biblical allusions and pretty much everything. I loved how Faulkner created an entire psychology of every character and manipulated the literal visual of the text to create unique perspectives and in-depth people. Maybe I can explain this better with an example: Benjy Compson, Proper noun. But in his own thought process, he ends up being just a noun. Since Benjy has some kind of mental disability, Faulkner mixes up the sentence structure as he writes from Benjy’s perspective, using him as a noun (ex.” The ground came up to me.” instead of “I fell.”)
Now that I’ve read this book, it makes me realize what some of my other favorite authors got their inspiration from. If you enjoyed this book, you might like Winter Girls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Even though it is about a completely different subject in a completely different genre, Anderson messes with sentence structure and text in a similar way to Faulkner.
review cross-posted on my blog Spectacle Aglow
Now that I’ve read this book, it makes me realize what some of my other favorite authors got their inspiration from. If you enjoyed this book, you might like Winter Girls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Even though it is about a completely different subject in a completely different genre, Anderson messes with sentence structure and text in a similar way to Faulkner.
review cross-posted on my blog Spectacle Aglow
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ok, hear me out. This book is NOT for the faint of heart for two major reasons. 1) It's soooo confusing at the start and/or without context. 2)There are some real dated values in it.
But the writing, the narrative, the metaphors, and the symbolism: just wow. I'm so impressed. Faulkner may or may not have been a bad person, but his writing talent was immense.
I really didn't understand this book when I started it. So I checked out the sparknotes from my library. I'm not ashamed. It made it readable and allowed me to really enjoy what Faulkner was doing in trying to tell the story.
If you want to give it a try, I recommend using an assisting tool, at least for the first chapter where the story jumps around all over time with no indication or context. It gets slightly easier with chapter 2 and even more so after that.
Please also brace yourself for racial slurs AND it helped me a lot to keep in mind that none of these characters are nessecarily meant to be likeable except for possibly Dilsey (the Black cook). I couldn't figure out if Faulkner was OK with all the racism here (by implying that's just the natueal.order of things) or if he was trying to call out the absurdity of it (by implying that the black characters seems to be doing just fine and are quite reasonable while the racist white characters are creating their own demise).
Similarly, the second character, Quentin, is sort of obessed with the idea that his family should be "upstanding" and laments his sister's loss of virginity, but his obsession and devastation over things not being that way are the source of all his problems. So is Faulkner saying, that's all nonsense and trying to stick to "societal standards" will just cause you grief? Or is he saying that flauting societal standards has bad effects like this, therefore you shouldn't do it.?
Clearly, I missed the takeaway I was supposed to get at the end. Or perhaps I'm forgetting that it's art and whatever takeaway you want to have is fine.
But overall, once I had a method of understanding this book, I liked so much of what it had to offer.
But the writing, the narrative, the metaphors, and the symbolism: just wow. I'm so impressed. Faulkner may or may not have been a bad person, but his writing talent was immense.
I really didn't understand this book when I started it. So I checked out the sparknotes from my library. I'm not ashamed. It made it readable and allowed me to really enjoy what Faulkner was doing in trying to tell the story.
If you want to give it a try, I recommend using an assisting tool, at least for the first chapter where the story jumps around all over time with no indication or context. It gets slightly easier with chapter 2 and even more so after that.
Please also brace yourself for racial slurs AND it helped me a lot to keep in mind that none of these characters are nessecarily meant to be likeable except for possibly Dilsey (the Black cook). I couldn't figure out if Faulkner was OK with all the racism here (by implying that's just the natueal.order of things) or if he was trying to call out the absurdity of it (by implying that the black characters seems to be doing just fine and are quite reasonable while the racist white characters are creating their own demise).
Similarly, the second character, Quentin, is sort of obessed with the idea that his family should be "upstanding" and laments his sister's loss of virginity, but his obsession and devastation over things not being that way are the source of all his problems. So is Faulkner saying, that's all nonsense and trying to stick to "societal standards" will just cause you grief? Or is he saying that flauting societal standards has bad effects like this, therefore you shouldn't do it.?
Clearly, I missed the takeaway I was supposed to get at the end. Or perhaps I'm forgetting that it's art and whatever takeaway you want to have is fine.
But overall, once I had a method of understanding this book, I liked so much of what it had to offer.