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/lit/ - Literature

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2823992 No.2823992 [Reply] [Original]

I just read The sound and the Fury, opinion on the book? it was pretty hard to understand.

>> No.2823996

I loved it, it's one of my favorite books by him, second only to Absalom, Absalom!

>> No.2824000

I liked it a lot, maybe you should reread the first or the second chapter, OP, that should clear up things in your head. I made sense of it pretty well the first time I read it and that pretty much made it such a good read for me.

>> No.2824043

favorite thing to come out of the 20th century.
a few things that might help you clarify:
Benjy used to be named Maury before they realized he was retarded
Quentin is the name of both the oldest child who committed suicide and Caddy's daughter.
Dilsey is the only narrative perspective in the book who isn't chronologically broken.

Personally I enjoy the book because understanding it is all about figuring out the rhythm and nuances of each character's thoughts.

>> No.2824083

It's amazing. Did you ever have a sister. Did you ever have a sister.

>> No.2824088

>>2824043
Also Quentin didn't actually commit incest with Caddy. It took me a re-read to realise this.

>> No.2824112

>>2823996
Absalom, Absalom! is incredibly enlightening re:Quentin's part in the novel.

>> No.2824123

http://es.scribd.com/doc/6578618/Sartre-Jean-Paul-Time-in-Faulkner-The-Sound-and-the-Fury

>> No.2824133

>>2824088
same here. when i read the sparksnotes on it, i was thoroughly shocked. also, i didn't get benjy's castration until the second time through.

it took me a long time to get through more than the first chapter. i just kept making the excuse that it was too confusing. then, i just said fuck it, and read it for the emotional response instead of a linear storyline. i was then able to reread it for the storyline understanding that it did exist, it was just buried.

>> No.2824180

>>2824133

I'm with you on Benjy's castration. Right up until Jason's narrative I just assumed that his full retard mode had made him asexual / emotionally stunted him, whatever. Then right at the end of his chapter Jason calls him the "Great American gelding".

The best part of this book is Quentin going after the guy who took Caddy's virginity (?) and her fiance. "Did you ever have a sister?". It's amazing how distinctive Faulkner makes the male Compson voice in Quentin and his father. The father especially. I don't know what it is but a sentence into Quentin's father's bits in the novel it was recognizably and unmistakably Compson in a way I've never encountered in a novel. He does it again in Absalom, Absalom! and with General Compson (Quentin's grandfather) in 'The Bear'.

Faulkner is astonishing. Fitzgerald and Hemingway are good, but Faulkner was in a whole other league.

>> No.2824188

Also Caddy is such a beautiful name.

>> No.2824189

>>2824180
>yfw jason was a bro

i made some people really uncomfortable at the bookstore at which i worked because i mentioned this fact.

>> No.2824192
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2824192

>>2824189

I re-read this for the fourth time recently and imagined Benjy as a massive fucking penguin the whole way through.

>> No.2824198

>>2824180
i completely agree with your last statement. i wish he was discussed more often
people look over him in favor of fitzgerald and hemingway too often

>> No.2824199
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2824199

Caddy. Caddy. Caddy

>> No.2824203

>>2824189

you are talking about father compson, yes?

>>2824083

did you ever have a sister?!

>>2824088

i don't see how people don't pick up on that. half of father compson's dialogue is "lol you're too much of a faggot to incest" over and over again.

also, not sure how i feel about this book. the quentin part is great; everything else was fairly meh

>> No.2824200
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2824200

We got tuh find dat quateh for tha show tonight so stop your bawlin

>> No.2824220
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2824220

>reads The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner
>expects something like As I Lay Dying
>only good characters die and/or exiled
>finishes The Sound and the Fury
>hates all characters

>> No.2824229

>>2824220

>implying great literature is about likable characters

shit i can't think of any characters in my favorite books that are actually likable

>> No.2824234

>>2824229
all the pretty horses' john grady cole

>> No.2824240

>>2824229
I don't know, I find the most unlikable bastards to be pretty likeable. Since that's humanity.

I liked Quentin and Caddy.

I just kind of wanted Jason to die.

>> No.2824248

>>2824240
i don't understand the hatred of jason by people; it even felt like faulkner wanted you to dislike him, but i couldn't. to me he seemed the most human, i really liked him coming out of the novel.

>> No.2824257

>>2824248

fucking kidding me dude? that ticket scene with the nigger was like the most dickish thing i've read in a while

>> No.2824262

>>2824248

Yeah. I get that. The black violence of the Compson blood had been left unanswered too long and it chose him to atone for the lapse generations. He was fated to the engine room of the Compson magniloquence and everything was so bare and rusted that he had to do the work that father Compson and Quentin thought words did but actually did not.

>> No.2824269

>>2824248
Yeah, for some reason Jason was the only character I enjoyed.

But I also hate this book with all my passion, so whatever.

>> No.2824308

Every male in this book is beta as fuck

Caddy would have been an easy lay, Quentin should have made a move. Such a bitch.

straight out of /r9k/

>> No.2824329

>>2824199
Jesus, perhaps when I reread the book I will do just that. It was like reading a book narrated by a giant child who could only describe things in colors and shapes. I was glad when the point of view shifted; I hate Benjy.

>> No.2824342

June 2, 1910 is one of the best chapters in any book ever.

>> No.2824347

>>2824342

>tfw you will never be friends with Shreve

>> No.2824523

>>2824329
I also hate Benjy. I hated the descriptions of him in the last two parts. Constantly bellowing and whimpering, it's hard to feel bad for him when he's so annoying.

>> No.2824548
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2824548

>mfw Quentin hearing that Henry Sutpen could protect his sister's "honour" and kill Bon in Absalom, Absalom! was probably the final humiliation that forced him to suicide

Seriously, the entirety of Absalom, Absalom! could be another chapter of The Sound of the Fury, so much that it tells us about the Compsons in their recounting of the Sutpens.