The Sound and the Fury

[Anonymous No.20771998]

>muh Sasprilluh Benjy
What the fuck was Jason's problem? I understand that he's sort of left holding the bag, but why's he such a prick?

This has to be one the greatest novels the 20th century. It's becoming more and more appropriate every day in spite of the retarded analyses that you get on it from academia (see: the Yale Youtube lectures on the book). What is it about the human experience of profound tragedy that translates so well into literature?

[Anonymouṡ No.20772045]

>>20771998
>why's he such a prick
Because some people are. He was like that from childhood. He inherited all the worst qualities from both parents (his mother particularly), just as Caddy inherited all their best qualities, and Quentin a mixture.

[Anonymous No.20772054]

>>20771998
What exactly is the tragedy? Haven't read the book.

[Anonymous No.20772060]

>>20772045
Being a whore doesn't seem like a great quality.

[Anonymous No.20772074]

>>20772054
>rich family
>one son is retarded
>one daughter is a slut
>one son commits suicide
>one son is jackass but still a hardworker, but he has his life savings stolen by the daughter of the slut
It's more of a domestic tragedy à la Ibsen than the majestic tragedy of Shakespeare.

[Anonymous No.20772251]

>>20771998
Holy fuck, I forgot that I read this book.
It was about the time of your digits, OP.
Man, how time flies...

[Anonymous No.20772259]

He was raped by his sister, Caddy.

[Anonymous No.20772275]

>>20772054
The tragedy is nuanced, and the anon above me gets it wrong. The book is about the Compsons, a Southern family falling apart in desolate Mississippi in the generations after the Civil War. The crushing defeat of the Confederacy had enormous material, spiritual, and cultural implications for Southerners after the war, and the novel lays bare the despair and suffering that results from coming to terms with those implications. The father is a fatalistic alcoholic that preaches something between existentialism and nihilism to his son while he drinks himself to death. The daughter Caddy grows up to be a whore that sleeps around and gets pregnant prior to marriage, necessitating her attempted marriage to a Northern carpetbagger banker. Jason is a greedy resentful prick that's left with the sorry remains of his family's holdings as well as a retarded brother, whore niece, and hypochondriac depressing mother to take care of. Quentin is the most disturbed by all this, having been raised on the doomed values of his father, his family, and his community, and while he goes great lengths to at last realize the contingency of his values (the idea being to his father that he can use the fact of that contingency in order to abandon his values and save himself from the profound despair that they are putting him through), he is ultimately unable to reject his attachment to those values and kills himself.

The work is basically a novelization of Shakespeare's tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow soliloquy, and man's reaction to its implications. It is one of the most beautiful novels of the English language in my estimation. There's a passage in a work of Herman Hesse's (I think it's Steppenwolf) where he writes about how life becomes true suffering and complete hell when two eras overlap, and The Sound and the Fury is about that.

[Anonymous No.20772480]

>>20772259
I wouldn't be so mad about that
>>20772251
yeah its a bummer huh

[Anonymous No.20772533]

>>20772275
>The crushing defeat of the Confederacy had enormous material, spiritual, and cultural implications for Southerners after the war, an
Why though, just mostly because muh slaves? For fucks sake. Nice post though I enjoyed reading it.

[Anonymous No.20772616]

>>20772275
That tragic aspect is what makes it interesting to me. It's something that seems to be rare in modern literature, a tragedy in the more ancient sense of the word, when historical circumstances conspire to create a seemingly inevitable outcome as the individuals involved don't have much of a choice and get crushed by changes of "magnitude" (history). I never read Faulkner, but this definitely makes me want to give the novel a try.

[Anonymous No.20772689]

>>20772275
>the contingency of his values (the idea being to his father that he can use the fact of that contingency in order to abandon his values and save himself from the profound despair that they are putting him through
can you elaborate on this a bit? excellent post by the way

[Anonymous No.20772829]

>>20772533
This is getting a little deeper into the weeds and may come off as offensive but the Civil War was really about far more than just slavery to Southerners. Southerners, like Faulkner (and Quentin), were really raised on Southern values and the good times of the Old South (imagined or not). Faulkner like Quentin was raised on the exploits of his grandfather who served in the war. The war devastated the South materially (e.g. Sherman's march to the sea, anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000+ dead and wounded, complete destruction of the South's already sparse industrial infrastructure), Reconstruction was an unmitigated failure, and Southerners truly did have their own distinct subculture. That subculture didn't die with the end of the war (even if its material and legal basis did), and it suffered the further spiritual decimation that comes with humiliating defeat; its slow and agonizing death in the wasteland that is the post-Civil War South is the subject of The Sound and the Fury.

On top of that, the "cotton kingdom" that was enabled by slavery and flourished in the 1840s to 1860s propelled the South to a magnitude of wealth that was hitherto unimaginable. The South was in the right place at the right time; cotton became one of the most in-demand goods on the world market at the same time that the South became by far the world's largest exporter. This was no small factor in the ascendancy of the United States on the world stage even in spite of the war, but more importantly for Southerners it represented opportunity in what had been until then a backwater characterized by the sharecropping/small farm poor on one hand and the old-money tobacco and sugar plantation aristocrats on the other.

[Anonymous No.20772947]

>>20771998
>What the fuck was Jason's problem? I understand that he's sort of left holding the bag, but why's he such a prick?
Read the short story "the Evening Sun" that includes a story with Quentin, Caddy and Jason before Benjy was born. Jason is a little asshole even then.
>>20772533
It mentions the family history in the back of the book, and that will give context about the angst within the family about all the lost glory. The short story "My Grandmother Millard" set at the end of the Civil War actually mentions the Compsons. People were hiding their silver and the North looted practically everyone. Also it's not as much about slavery but it is changing relationship between blacks and whites during Reconstruction where these people grow up with this really clear boundary of self-worth, dependence and responsibility. Honestly I fail to understand a lot of it because I didn't really grow up in that world where people lived together that way and I never really asked my great grandparents or my oldest grandmother, because they were so poor they did their own work but they definitely had a way of treating other people's servants.
I will say concerning the story Quentin is an example of someone whose Fury is sad despair because of guilt, but Jason's Fury is angry despair because he's not guilty and he wants recompense that no one will ever repay him for. There is still this tinge of despair in Southern writing in the 20th century regarding modernity, and even in the 21st century there are still societies honoring the Old South. Personally I tried to have some confederate statues remain some places but they were removed but I guess if people want to forget that 50% of the enrolled students died during the war then they might as well rename the school William T. Sherman University.

[Anonymous No.20772962]

>>20771998
>It's becoming more and more appropriate every day in spite of the retarded analyses that you get on it from academia (see: the Yale Youtube lectures on the book)
rofl what

[Anonymous No.20772999]

Caddy smelled of dick.
She smelled like dick.

[Anonymous No.20773019]

>that bit where Caddy tells Quentin to put his hand around her neck and say the name of the guy she just fucked so he could feel how aroused she got

[Anonymous No.20773133]

>>20772616
Yeah, and it's fitting that the other examples of this type of thing in modern literature are from others who wrote in the midst of the destruction of their cultures by war or conquest: Osamu Dazai in The Setting Sun or Achebe in Things Fall Apart come to mind.

>>20772689
This is gonna be a very unsatisfactory summation of one of the most dense and important parts of the book but it something like this:
Quentin's father sees Quentin's lamentations and tells him he will get over what happened to his sister in time. Time has a way of dissolving even the most ardently-held values and concerns that might right now seem so strong and final that you can't imagine life without them. His love and concern over his sister will just be one more bond purchased without design that matured and was recalled to be replaced by whatever other issue the gods happened to be floating at the time (to quote). Quentin denies this, and what he struggles with is the fact that one day it will no longer hurt him like it does now, because that means he will have let his sister go. He can't stand that his feelings regarding her are temporary. His father shoos him away to Harvard, his expectation being that time will run its course and Quentin will come to terms with things. His suicide, more than conducted under the first fury of despair or remorse or bereavement, only comes when he realizes the truth in his fathers words and that not even his despair or remorse or bereavement is especially noteworthy past him (signifying nothing). Unable to handle this, he commits suicide, which isn't a way to escape how he feels (as that's what time would do) as much as it's a way to perpetuate it forever.
>and that's it if people could only change one another forever that way merge like a flame swirling up for an instant then blown cleanly out along the cool eternal dark

But it's dense and unfolds along pretty much the entire section; I did an awful job explaining it.

[Anonymous No.20773226]

>>20773133
>and that's it.
I love when Faulkner writes that.
>and that was all.

[Anonymous No.20773452]

>>20773226
His way of achieving cadence with phrases like that in lieu of punctuation is insane

[Anonymous No.20773471]

>>20772947
Whats your opinion on the appendix section? Do you think it's canon? Great posts btw, I just finished this book and it really got under my skin. Love reading your take on it

[Anonymous No.20773493]

>>20771998
This book is not that great, the style and inventiveness is for sure, but at the end I really still did not give a fuck about this family, I came away thinking...who cares? 7/10 book, great stylist.

[Anonymous No.20773505]

>>20772275
>Herman Hesse's

Awful writer

[Anonymous No.20773522]

CADDY SMELLS LIKE TREES

[Anonymous No.20773552]

>>20773471
It's definitely canon. The issue is some editions have it in the front but it's better in the back because reading the beginning without actually understanding what is going on is definitely the point, even though Faulkner suggested putting it in the front when it was added to a Random House 1946 edition.
When I first read Benjy's section I had my own simple way of seeing it but once the perspective seemed to jerk back and forth I had the growing sense of dread that I don't think I had ever experienced reading before. It was terrifying because I was looking at Benjy and the kids not sure if they were kids at all. That is the Sound, meaning incomprehension. Faulkner revisits this idea of "the sound" being associated with crying—an abstraction of crying because we can't even comprehend our own despair—in his short stories and it is this idea the life is just too tragic to really appreciate.

[Anonymous No.20773595]

>>20772533
watch birth of a nation

[Anonymous No.20773673]

>>20773471
There's two anons discussing the novel at length. I'm not a fan of the appendix. The only thing it does substantively is clarify what happened or drive home points that were already made (Jason, Caddy). It approaches the novel's themes in a way so different as to be jarring when read together, is also a major departure in terms of tone and voice ("They endured"? Come on), and was written at least sixteen years after the rest of the text. I love Faulkner but in my view he had his swings and misses and the appendix is one of those. I never read it when I re-read the novel.

[Anonymous No.20773701]

>>20773493
Have you read Absalom, Absalom? It might help you care more about Quentin and his situation

[Anonymous No.20773748]

>>20773505
not as good as Faulkner that's for sure

[Anonymous No.20773760]

>>20773701
NTA but I'm reading Absalom! in January. I have a big list of novels I'm working through right now. So far I've only read Faulkner's Collected short stories, the Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying.

[Anonymous No.20773817]

>>20773505
>didn’t read the glass bead game

[Anonymous No.20774607]

>>20772045
fpbp

[Anonymous No.20774632]

>>20771998
>What the fuck was Jason's problem?
suffers from inconsistently interesting writing.
>What is it about the human experience of profound tragedy that translates so well into literature?
there is very little translation necessary. as paperbacks to wanton boys are we to the gods. they dog-ear us for sport.
>>20773493
you dont need to be emotionally invested in the characters for a work to resonate with you. i think the style is partly at fault. its all subtly in your face in the first three sections but its shameless in the last one. you can almost see through the book into the profound literary achievement faulkner wants it to be.

[Anonymous No.20774639]

>>20771998
he's a trump supporter. I don't think I've ever read a better rendition of that mind set

[Anonymous No.20775160]

>>20772074
>The life savings that him stoled from said daughter.

[Anonymous No.20775378]

>>20773701
No I haven’t, I will though.

[Anonymous No.20775382]

>>20774632
> you dont need to be emotionally invested in the characters for a work to resonate with you. i think the style is partly at fault. its all subtly in your face in the first three sections but its shameless in the last one. you can almost see through the book into the profound literary achievement faulkner wants it to be.

Yeah you are right

[Anonymous No.20775833]

>>20774632
Yeah Faulkner's writing style at least in his youth is weird. He makes a section like Quentin's or Benjy's come together so well with few problems (but still not without problems) and then you can see him getting a big dick in the last section. It's weird that he was able to write with such force one moment and in the next write stuff that comes off as ridiculous

[Anonymous No.20775985]

>>20773133
holy based, thank you anon
this place needs more quality posters like you
also, how would you rank faulkner's works? those that you've read, of course

[Anonymous No.20775991]

>>20771998
Jason was the only one who was normal

[Anonymous No.20776012]

Benjy - /b/
Quentin - /lit/
Jason - /pol/
Caddy - /soc/

[Anonymous No.20776032]

>>20775991
based sociopath poster

[Anonymous No.20776254]

>>20775991
I've heard that before, and I understand his resentment, but that's the point; he was a piece of shit because of what happened to him. He's the quintessential resentful Southerner.

[Anonymous No.20776503]

>>20776012
more like Quentin - /a/

[Anonymous No.20776982]

>>20775833
If you read more Faulkner you see he is kind of on/off as far as drama. Some of his short stories are very bleak and colloquial like Uncle Willy but some like Ad Astra or Carcassone are frightening in how over-the-top he gets. I thinks its just him having this appreciation for both the mundane and profound and there's a point in life where we cross the line.

[Anonymous No.20777760]

Bump for one of the only threads on this board actually discussing literature

[Anonymous No.20779165]

>>20776982
its really the self serious MELOdrama and not necesserily the over the topness thats the problem for me but im still intrigued by the two you mention.