/lit/ - Literature

>Middle School lit
>Headache

Unless you're ESL, you might be retarded

Ever think it's not supposed to make sense? Maybe there's a reason why it's just a bunch of disjointed shit?

Think about what the title is referring to.

>>12461747
The latter chapters are more coherent, but, yeah, it is supposed to be obscure

>>12461747
i got 35 pages in and had to stop. Maybe a spoiler but apparently it is written from 4 points of view that each makes more sense than the previous. I think the first POV character has brain damage.
I wasn't in the mood for it on that particular train journey but i do intent to return to it,

>>12461747
It's literally one of the GOATs and you need to power through to the later sections, which are easier to read. If literally none of it makes sense to you, though, I would suggest reading slower because IIRC things should be coming together to a degree even at this point.

>>12461888
The sound and fury of raging incels?

>>12461747
you're reading the stream of consciousness of Benjy who is 1. mentally disabled and 2. examining a traumatic event in his life: it's not coherent because his own personal experience is not coherent and trauma is a destabilizing event in an individual's life (try imagining someone narrating their own rape or child abuse, now imagine they are autistic or have Down's, it's very difficult to make linear). it's much like trying to read the chapters of As I Lay Dying involving Vardaman (my mother is a fish) and Darl when he's incarcerated, but it's an entire portion of the novel.

to assist with the following sections, following benjy is a section narrated by Quentin at college. (Quentin is basically the stereotypical /lit/ poster.) You'll find his language to be more coherrent and traditional stream of consciousness but also incredibly latinate and ornate due to his desire to escape from actual coping and postponing his trauma.

Final portions are the third brother and the maids - they're easier to follow so no need to go into detail.

Suggestion for your reading: first just try and make it through the novel one time. Then reread. It's waaay easier to follow on a second go through. To be fair to Faulkner, one can explain this as an example of how an individual's experience and identity cannot be strictly documented as a coherent linear narrative and is instead a jumbled set of events that must be slowly pieced together over multiple 'readings' of a life. one comes to an understanding of the novel's narrative much in the way one comes to an understanding of self through several iterations of understanding, with an ultimate acceptance that some aspects of identity remain outside of logical narrative.

a more cynical approach: this, Mrs. Dalloway, and Ulysses all came out around the same decade and where all pissing contests to show who can use stream of consciousness 'better.' Since Faulkner had a bit of an inferiority complex, he wanted to see if he can one up both Joyce and Woolf by making an even more complicated narrative. "Yeah, well, if you're gonna make stream of consciousness with a Jew, and you with a woman, I"ll make one about a retard!" - Likely Faulkner drunk one night.

If you're still finding it difficult, there is an edition of the novel that uses different coloring for each narrative voice in the novel so you can at least know who is speaking at each time. Worth looking into.

What the trauma is: Their sister had a child out of wedlock and all of the brothers feel as if they violated the Southern code of chivalry by not maintaining her chastity. They also maaay have wanted to fuck her as well.

>>12461753
This is high school/first year college lit. If you read it in Middle School I doubt your teacher was able to give good coverage cause there's no way anyone is enough of a sadist to do stream of consciousness and incestual undertones with a 13 year old.

>>12462173
This guy has explained it pretty well OP

One thing I might suggest is that you pay very close attention to which caretaker Benjy is referring to at any given point in the narration. They’re markers of time, I can’t remember the order in which they work for the Compsons but you can easily look it up. Benjy’s narrative jumps back and forth in time very erratically but he will always mention his caretaker so you can keep the story straight in that way.

It does get much easier once you get through the first section, but I would really try to pick up the main threads of what Benjy is talking about rather than just “powering through” and understanding nothing. His perspective is very important to the narrative.

>>12462173
>>12462214
This is very helpful, thanks guys

I made it through the Benjy section and I think what has really been throwing me off is that the sections are headed with specific dates despite there being this disjointed chronology and narrative style. I feel like that was kind of pointless and confusing but I can already tell that Quentin's part will be more rewarding.

Very challenging book so far but if it ties together as well as As I Lay Dying did I think it will be worth it, I will power on.

I have to say though if this was the first Faulkner I had read I would have said fuck that for a laugh and got rid of it.

>>12462264
Sound was the book that got me interested in reading beyond genre fiction desu.

>>12461942
Woah. Deep insight. Are you perhaps Harold Bloom?

>>12461888
Shakespeare? Care to elaborate?

>>12463268
Look at the full quote.

>>12463424
I know the full quote by heart. Now what? A tale told by an idiot?

Still doesn’t explain why the entire book is hard to understand, considering there are 3 other narrators.

>>12461747
Same thing happened to me. Benjyi gives small hints to big events but it's hard to piece together since it's so disjointed. Interesting book though

>>12463517
the whole point of the book is that we have failed to cope with our inability to understand anything. quentin's cracked watch symbolizes time's failure, for example. (time is a failed cope, basically)

>>12462188

>He went to private school

I liked A Rose for Emily (dude YEETs and fucks a corpse) so I decided I'd read The Unvanquished.

Big mistake. Story of displaced townsfolk during the Civil War from the perspective of a mentally challenged kid. Noped right out of there.

Funny. I just re-read this after many years. Just to see what I thought about it now. I realized I died not give a shit about anyone involved.
The "tricks" they did with points of view and fragmented memories are to hide a poorly conceived book

>>12464835
RIP

give To The Lighthouse a try next op, see if your brain explodes.

Is TSATF really a highschool level book? We didn't cover Faulkner or anything even the slightest, tiniest bit impenetrable in any of my classes. So I'm just curious as to how it was handled in other anon's schools.

>>12462173
>"Yeah, well, if you're gonna make stream of consciousness with a Jew, and you with a woman, I"ll make one about a retard!" - Likely Faulkner drunk one night.