I'm happy to report this is #16 on the 30 For 30 List...
I did it. I took me years and a great deal of patience, but kids, I finally conquered a book by Faulkner. I haven't read enough of Faulkner to know for sure where exactly The Sound and The Fury ranks in the patheon of his works. As with most of his stuff, it's set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County in Mississippi and centers around the downfall of a once proud Southern Family, the Compsons.
It's divided into four sections. The first (and the most maddening) is told from the point of view of Ben, the youngest boy in the family, who has autism. The second is told from the point of view of Quentin, the tortured middle brother. The third from the point of view of Jason, the cynical older brother and the final section is a third person omniscient point of view focusing on Dilsey, the family's longtime African-American servant.
I would say that if you can get past the first section, you're probably safe. The character of Ben has autism so the narration is disjointed and fragmented and there is no chronology whatsoever to it. Faulkner jumps from point to point and back again and it's only through some very close reading that you'll pick up on the following: Ben used to be called Maury after his Uncle Maury, but his name was changed (out of shame) when the family realized the extent of his disability. At a certain point, he gets castrated after attacking a girl when the front gate was left open. He loves his sister Caddy more than anything else- and develops a love for running up and down the fence in the family's yard along the golf course so he can here golfers call for, of course, their caddies.
The second section is equally as maddening, but slightly easier to follow. Told from the point of view of Quentin and the events leading up to his suicide, there's a lot in this section that is only hinted at and never actually explicitly stated- Caddy, the sister gets married and subsequently divorced after it's revealed that the child she was carrying was not, in fact, her husband's. It's strongly hinted at that it is in fact Quentin's. (Though reading wikipedia, it seems that I'm wrong about that. It's someone's baby and quite a scandal, anyway.) He has the pressure of being 'the smart one' to live up too and finds it almost impossible- his parents sold a pasture to give him the money to go to Harvard and he resents them for it.
The third section was probably my favorite. Jason, the eldest brother and the 'responsible one' is a complete bastard, in many ways, but he's also utterly committed to making money and makes no apologies for it. He is harsh and blunt with members of his own family, cruel to his sister's daughter (Caddy is not allowed to see her daughter, Miss Quentin and sends money to support her, which Jason eventually ends up stealing for herself.) He works hard but selfishly- something that comes back to haunt him at the end of the book.
If the third section was my favorite, the fourth section was a breeze. And if you like, that's really how this book works. It starts out being a pain in the behind to read, but gradually gets easier and clearer as you go along. By the end, you have a grasp of just how far these people have fallen and how far away redemption may truly be for the Compson family.
Overall ** out of ****: I'm sorry, but Faulkner just isn't my thing. I'm not saying I don't appreciate the man's writing, because it's awesome, but people like Steinbeck can blow your shoes clean off and MAKE YOU want to read them over and over again. Faulkner didn't pull that off. I'm willing to try more of his books though- he might change my mind.
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