Women's Fiction
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The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text
The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring 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.
"I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. . . . I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools." -from The Sound and the Fury
"I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. . . . I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools." -from The Sound and the Fury
Editorial Reviews
"I am in awe of Faulkner's Benjy, James's Maisie, Flaubert's Emma, Melville's Pip, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-each of us can extend the list. . . . I am interested in what prompts and makes possible this process of entering what one is estranged from." -Toni Morrison
"No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there." -Eudora Welty
"No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there." -Eudora Welty
Readers Top Reviews
BookWormKindle Keit
This is a complex, intellectual sort of novel which is all about style and the way things are said as much as the content of the story. It's the sort of book you sit and study and write essays about, not necessarily one you curl up with to enjoy. The novel is divided into four parts, each with a different narrator, and all concerning the same very unpleasant set of characters - a family in 1920s southern USA. The first two narratives are the most difficult to read - the second in particular - as they employ stream-of-consciousness (a technique I hate) and frequently jump around in time and leave sentences unfinished. Many of the characters' speech is written to reflect their southern American accents which adds another barrier to easy understanding. There is no explanation for who the characters are and whilst I gradually managed to work out a thing or two, I remained puzzled on much and it's hard to enjoy a book when you can't work out what's supposed to be going on. The third narrative is a more straightforwards first person on, and the final section is in the third person and focusses on the family's cook as well as tying up the main 'storylines' such as they are. Whilst these sections are more readable that's only in relative terms to the first sections. The characters are all horrible, apart from the mentally disabled Benjy (the point of view character for the first section) and the much put upon cook Dilsey. I loathed the characters and disliked the way the book was written, and as for plot, there's little of it. I can appreciate the cleverness of the way it's written, but that isn't enough to have made me enjoy it. I want to be entertained when I read, not feel like I'm sitting an English literature exam. It gets two stars for being clever and despite the fact I hate many of the literary techniques in it and the characters, I did manage to keep reading to the end and even have a degree of interest in the outcome. Which must say something for the novel because really on paper it would be the epitome of things I hate in a story. I found the easiest way to read the streams of consciousness - and the whole book really - is to skim it. Your eyes will catch naturally on the names and when something interesting happens. In this way I was able to grasp the story without having to suffer through every word (and I probably understood it better than if I'd tried to read it that way). I know I got all the key points because I read a synopsis afterwards to check. So if you want or are obliged to read this story, I would suggest that as technique for getting through it.
james gault
We all know the great names of early twentieth century American Literature : Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway. But William Faulkner doesn’t spring to mind so readily. Having just read ‘The Sound and The Fury’, I think I know why. His writing is virtually incomprehensible. Reading this novel, I felt stupid and angry at the same time. I imagined Faulkner sitting there, all those years ago, thinking with awesome prescience that in ninety years’ time some poor Scottish guy would be sitting there trying to take sense of his scribblings. I pictured his thoughts: ‘How can I make this as unintelligible as possible for the poor fellow? I know, I’ll write most of it in the obscure and impenetrable dialect of the Deep Southern United States.’ Then, realising that Hollywood might make this patois too accessible in the future, he decided to also employ the ‘stream of consciousness’ method of narration: random thoughts thrown on to the paper in any order. But, thinking perhaps back to Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ and forward to Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’, he decided even this wasn’t enough to ensure the obscurity of his meaning. So he added the ‘coup de grace’, the frequent and unannounced movements in time, often in the middle of sentences. Job Done! Try and make sense of that, old boy! I couldn’t. As much as I could tell, it’s a sad story of a family on whom fortune has decided to frown. A hypochondriac mother; an alcoholic father, a severely mentally retarded son; another son for whom the family jewels were sold to pay for a Harvard education, for which he thanked his parents by committing suicide before even finishing college; a promiscuous daughter, rejected by her husband for bearing a child by another man; the resulting granddaughter following in the footsteps of her mother; another son, Jason, a habitual and resentful loser being taken to the cleaners by stockbrokers and his niece. Three generations in dire need of some ‘lucky white heather’, as we say in Scotland. It’s not as if Faulkner is an untalented writer. His depiction of the Southern USA speech patterns is masterly. His ability to create characters using only what they say is outstanding. The mother’s moral blackmail with her repeated insistence that she wouldn’t be a trouble to them for much longer; Mrs Bland, the doting mother of a spoilt college brat; the son Jason’s hatred for the sister and niece who robbed him of his ‘chance’: all brilliant portrayals. And when he abandons pretentious literary tricks towards the end of the book, it all comes together really nicely into something quite engrossing and readable. But too late, too late! So there it is. Great literature it must be (Faulkner won every major literary prize). But readers, be warned, it’s a challenge. This is a book to be read for academic enlightenment rather than instant gratification Rev...
DBRob
I have read the written version of this novel numerous times beginning when I was in high school. As others have said it is extremely difficult to read yet that is one of the reasons why I love the novel. It takes concentration and paying attention to the story from various character's perspectives through sometimes disjointed timelines and events. Yes it does use racist language so if you cannot deal with that then don't get it. Still, underneath all is an incredible, sad and moving story that is unveiled little by little. As I said I've read it numerous times and each time I learn something new. I decided to try the Audible version to gain yet another perspective on this complex novel. Having listened to many recorded books I have to say The Sound and the Fury read by Grover Gardner is a masterpiece in its own right. Gardner is incredible. His mastery of numerous accents and dialects as well as his ability to capture the tone of each character's thoughts is unbelievable. This is the best recorded book performance I have listened to. If you've never read the novel it will be very difficult to listen to the recorded version. However, if you like me have read The Sound and the Fury carefully enough to grasp the fundamental story then the Audible version is not to be missed.
W Perry Hall
If you were raised in the South, you may get chills reveling in Faulkner's evocative words "the twilight-colored smell of honeysuckle." You know exactly what this means, how wonderful it is to the senses and the almost-haunting, hazy memories it stirs in you of people long in your past or passed on. This novel was the most difficult I've read, but the most rewarding once I did the work required to know how to read it, and understood its structure and meanings. I never thought I could read it; I tried 30 years ago, 19 years ago, 10 years after that, before I finally finished it a couple of years ago. When I picked it up, I concluded quickly that Faulkner must be a sadist to write anything like the first 10 pages. I read it twice and I was no better off the second time as I was the first go-round. I had absolutely no clue what the heck was going on, the sentences were disjunctive, the thoughts scrambled, the characters were dropping in then disappearing, it seemed to change time frames without any recognizable order so I had no sense of time and, ultimately, I had forgotten why it was, exactly, that I had bought the damned thing in the first place! Oh yeah, I told myself. You want to read Mr. Mint Juleps from that Rowan Oak plantation home up in Oxford. You believe that by doing that you are proving maybe once and for all time that you too can escape the past of this State in which you were raised and of these ghosts that you find despicable, this hate you had no part of, these white sheets, fulgent from the flames above them but burned by the evil beneath, these ignorant men who were passed down hatred as heirlooms to hand down to their sons and their daughters. You think if you can make it through this man's novels it will show that you are more intelligent than what people from afar believe you to be, that you are not like the rednecks you see every day but burst from within to bound over, that you are not like your mother's father who you worshiped, a business man and deacon in the town's largest Southern Baptist church, who you remember using the N word once as you sat beside him at 7 as he was driving from downtown Natchez (the home of my forefathers), a town on the mighty Mississippi River filled with beautiful antebellum plantation homes and scattered with remnants of slavery and a segregated past before you were born, the town in which your mother is now buried 10 feet from her father. And your mother, God bless her, along with your father, raised you not to hate, nor to judge, and for that you believe you have been blessed. After she was buried, you finally got the gumption to make it all the way through this knotty novel by that iconic author from the northern corner of your home state of Mississippi. It took a paperback, an electronic companion guide and an audible version to make it through and understand that you...
Mihal Ceittin
No doubt this is a difficult book but it has a great payoff. What Faulkner is doing here is giving voices to the American soul. You will find yourself in one of the many voices that make up this symphony and you may not like it because Faulkner is not about making anyone feel good about themselves. I used to think that Hemingway was the quintessential American novelist but then I realized that Hemingway wrote very little about his country of birth. Faulkner buries the reader in the blood soil of America and very few make it out alive. Strap on and take his ride. You won't regret it.
Short Excerpt Teaser
April Seventh, 1928.
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass.
"Here, caddie." He hit. They went away across the pasture. I held to the fence and watched them going away.
"Listen at you, now." Luster said. "Aint you something, thirty three years old, going on that way. After I done went all the way to town to buy you that cake. Hush up that moaning. Aint you going to help me find that quarter so I can go to the show tonight."
They were hitting little, across the pasture. I went back along the fence to where the flag was. It flapped on the bright grass and the trees.
"Come on." Luster said. "We done looked there. They aint no more coming right now. Les go down to the branch and find that quarter before them niggers finds it."
It was red, flapping on the pasture. Then there was a bird slanting and tilting on it. Luster threw. The flag flapped on the bright grass and the trees. I held to the fence.
"Shut up that moaning." Luster said. "I cant make them come if they aint coming, can I. If you dont hush up, mammy aint going to have no birthday for you. If you dont hush, you know what I going to do. I going to eat that cake all up. Eat them candles, too. Eat all them thirty three candles. Come on, les go down to the branch. I got to find my quarter. Maybe we can find one of they balls. Here. Here they is. Way over yonder. See." He came to the fence and pointed his arm. "See them. They aint coming back here no more. Come on."
We went along the fence and came to the garden fence, where our shadows were. My shadow was higher than Luster's on the fence. We came to the broken place and went through it.
"Wait a minute." Luster said. "You snagged on that nail again. Cant you never crawl through here without snagging on that nail."
Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through. Uncle Maury said to not let anybody see us, so we better stoop over, Caddy said. Stoop over, Benjy. Like this, see. We stooped over and crossed the garden, where the flowers rasped and rattled against us. The ground was hard. We climbed the fence, where the pigs were grunting and snuffing. I expect they're sorry because one of them got killed today, Caddy said. The ground was hard, churned and knotted.
Keep your hands in your pockets, Caddy said. Or they'll get froze. You dont want your hands froze on Christmas, do you.
"It's too cold out there." Versh said. "You dont want to go out doors."
"What is it now." Mother said.
"He want to go out doors." Versh said.
"Let him go." Uncle Maury said.
"It's too cold." Mother said. "He'd better stay in. Benjamin. Stop that, now."
"It wont hurt him." Uncle Maury said.
"You, Benjamin." Mother said. "If you dont be good, you'll have to go to the kitchen."
"Mammy say keep him out the kitchen today." Versh said. "She say she got all that cooking to get done."
"Let him go, Caroline." Uncle Maury said. "You'll worry yourself sick over him."
"I know it." Mother said. "It's a judgment on me. I sometimes wonder."
"I know, I know." Uncle Maury said. "You must keep your strength up. I'll make you a toddy."
"It just upsets me that much more." Mother said. "Dont you know it does."
"You'll feel better." Uncle Maury said. "Wrap him up good, boy, and take him out for a while."
Uncle Maury went away. Versh went away.
"Please hush." Mother said. "We're trying to get you out as fast as we can. I dont want you to get sick."
Versh put my overshoes and overcoat on and we took my cap and went out. Uncle Maury was putting the bottle away in the sideboard in the diningroom.
"Keep him out about half an hour, boy." Uncle Maury said. "Keep him in the yard, now."
"Yes, sir." Versh said. "We dont never let him get off the place."
We went out doors. The sun was cold and bright.
"Where you heading for." Versh said. "You dont think you going to town, does you." We went through the rattling leaves. The gate was cold. "You better keep them hands in your pockets." Versh said. "You get them froze onto that gate, then what you do. Whyn't you wait for them in the house." He put my hands into my pockets. I could hear him rattling in the leaves. I could ...
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass.
"Here, caddie." He hit. They went away across the pasture. I held to the fence and watched them going away.
"Listen at you, now." Luster said. "Aint you something, thirty three years old, going on that way. After I done went all the way to town to buy you that cake. Hush up that moaning. Aint you going to help me find that quarter so I can go to the show tonight."
They were hitting little, across the pasture. I went back along the fence to where the flag was. It flapped on the bright grass and the trees.
"Come on." Luster said. "We done looked there. They aint no more coming right now. Les go down to the branch and find that quarter before them niggers finds it."
It was red, flapping on the pasture. Then there was a bird slanting and tilting on it. Luster threw. The flag flapped on the bright grass and the trees. I held to the fence.
"Shut up that moaning." Luster said. "I cant make them come if they aint coming, can I. If you dont hush up, mammy aint going to have no birthday for you. If you dont hush, you know what I going to do. I going to eat that cake all up. Eat them candles, too. Eat all them thirty three candles. Come on, les go down to the branch. I got to find my quarter. Maybe we can find one of they balls. Here. Here they is. Way over yonder. See." He came to the fence and pointed his arm. "See them. They aint coming back here no more. Come on."
We went along the fence and came to the garden fence, where our shadows were. My shadow was higher than Luster's on the fence. We came to the broken place and went through it.
"Wait a minute." Luster said. "You snagged on that nail again. Cant you never crawl through here without snagging on that nail."
Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through. Uncle Maury said to not let anybody see us, so we better stoop over, Caddy said. Stoop over, Benjy. Like this, see. We stooped over and crossed the garden, where the flowers rasped and rattled against us. The ground was hard. We climbed the fence, where the pigs were grunting and snuffing. I expect they're sorry because one of them got killed today, Caddy said. The ground was hard, churned and knotted.
Keep your hands in your pockets, Caddy said. Or they'll get froze. You dont want your hands froze on Christmas, do you.
"It's too cold out there." Versh said. "You dont want to go out doors."
"What is it now." Mother said.
"He want to go out doors." Versh said.
"Let him go." Uncle Maury said.
"It's too cold." Mother said. "He'd better stay in. Benjamin. Stop that, now."
"It wont hurt him." Uncle Maury said.
"You, Benjamin." Mother said. "If you dont be good, you'll have to go to the kitchen."
"Mammy say keep him out the kitchen today." Versh said. "She say she got all that cooking to get done."
"Let him go, Caroline." Uncle Maury said. "You'll worry yourself sick over him."
"I know it." Mother said. "It's a judgment on me. I sometimes wonder."
"I know, I know." Uncle Maury said. "You must keep your strength up. I'll make you a toddy."
"It just upsets me that much more." Mother said. "Dont you know it does."
"You'll feel better." Uncle Maury said. "Wrap him up good, boy, and take him out for a while."
Uncle Maury went away. Versh went away.
"Please hush." Mother said. "We're trying to get you out as fast as we can. I dont want you to get sick."
Versh put my overshoes and overcoat on and we took my cap and went out. Uncle Maury was putting the bottle away in the sideboard in the diningroom.
"Keep him out about half an hour, boy." Uncle Maury said. "Keep him in the yard, now."
"Yes, sir." Versh said. "We dont never let him get off the place."
We went out doors. The sun was cold and bright.
"Where you heading for." Versh said. "You dont think you going to town, does you." We went through the rattling leaves. The gate was cold. "You better keep them hands in your pockets." Versh said. "You get them froze onto that gate, then what you do. Whyn't you wait for them in the house." He put my hands into my pockets. I could hear him rattling in the leaves. I could ...
