Sound and the Fury Book

Whew. This is a devastating book. Probably one of the most depressing stories I've read. Incest, castration, suicide, racism, misogyny'this one has it all. Even at the beginning, when it is possible to make out only pieces of the events, a nauseating sense of dread permeates Benji's narrative per Faulkner's pungent writing style. And this feeling never really dissipates.

Jumping into The Sound and the Fury with no prior introduction is like driving through an impenetrable fog or into a blinding glare'you can't quite tell who is who; male or female; black or white; first, second, or third generation; relative or friend or stranger. But gradually, before frustration has a chance to set in, the fog begins to burn off and the glare becomes less direct. By the time the omniscient narrator closes things out in part four, the scales have been fully removed and you are left with a crystal limpidness in which you can smell the sweet southern honeysuckle and feel the rotting wood of the old barn.

It's interesting to confront another modernist's take on the human experience of time while concurrently reading In Search of Lost Time. While Proust gently but thoroughly leads us through the inner-workings of our past, present, and future, Faulkner attempts to capture the continual and forceful vying of these elements within the mind'at the intentional cost of a coherent linear narrative. The results are disorienting, yet powerfully emotive. Adding subtly to this effect, Faulkner often relays visual experience egocentrically, particularly in the case of Benji, for whom objects and views vanish before his eyes when he has simply shifted or been turned by Luster or Caddy.

Because the first section takes place on the day between the third and fourth sections, I skimmed through some of it again before reading the final part. I was surprised by what I could glean from snippets that had initially seemed inscrutable and incomplete. This is a book made for rereading; an American masterpiece, undoubtedly.