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asurasantosha 's review for:
The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner
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.