The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The ostensible subject of The Sound and the Fury is the dissolution of the Compsons, one of those august old Mississippi families that fell on hard times and wild eccentricity after the Civil War. But in fact what William Faulkner is really after in his legendary novel is the kaleidoscope of consciousness--the overwrought mind caught in the act of thought. His rich, dark, scandal-ridden story of squandered fortune, incest (in thought if not in deed), madness, congenital brain damage, theft, illegitimacy, and stoic endurance is told in the interior voices of three Compson brothers: first Benjy, the "idiot" man-child who blurs together three decades of inchoate sensations as he stalks the fringes of the family's former pasture; next Quentin, torturing himself brilliantly, obsessively over Caddy's lost virginity and his own failure to recover the family's honor as he wanders around the seedy fringes of Boston; and finally Jason, heartless, shrewd, sneaking, nursing a perpetual sense of injury and outrage against his outrageous family.

If Benjy's section is the most daringly experimental, Jason's is the most harrowing. "Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say," he begins, lacing into Caddy's illegitimate daughter, and then proceeds to hurl mud at blacks, Jews, his sacred Compson ancestors, his glamorous, promiscuous sister, his doomed brother Quentin, his ailing mother, and the long-suffering black servant Dilsey who holds the family together by sheer force of character.

Notoriously "difficult," The Sound and the Fury is actually one of Faulkner's more accessible works once you get past the abrupt, unannounced time shifts--and certainly the most powerful emotionally. Everything is here: the complex equilibrium of pre-civil rights race relations; the conflict between Yankee capitalism and Southern agrarian values; a meditation on time, consciousness, and Western philosophy. And all of it is rendered in prose so gorgeous it can take your breath away. Here, for instance, Quentin recalls an autumnal encounter back home with the old black possum hunter Uncle Louis:

And we'd sit in the dry leaves that whispered a little with the slow respiration of our waiting and with the slow breathing of the earth and the windless October, the rank smell of the lantern fouling the brittle air, listening to the dogs and to the echo of Louis' voice dying away. He never raised it, yet on a still night we have heard it from our front porch. When he called the dogs in he sounded just like the horn he carried slung on his shoulder and never used, but clearer, mellower, as though his voice were a part of darkness and silence, coiling out of it, coiling into it again. WhoOoooo. WhoOoooo. WhoOooooooooooooooo.

What Faulkner has created is a modernist epic in which characters assume the stature of gods and the primal family events resonate like myths. It is The Sound and the Fury that secures his place in what Edmund Wilson called "the full-dressed post-Flaubert group of Conrad, Joyce, and Proust." --David Laskin

Product Description

First published in 1929, Faulkner created his "heart's darling," the beautiful and tragic Caddy Compson, whose story Faulkner told through separate monologues by her three brothers--the idiot Benjy, the neurotic suicidal Quentin and the monstrous Jason.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (January 30, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679732241
• ISBN-13: 978-0679732242
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (206 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,277 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

138 of 161 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ..., February 20, 2001

By	Walter Sobchak (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Okay. I have had a bitter love/hate relationship with Faulkner since the first work I read of his, "The Bear." Well, after reading this novel, struggling, cussing, and questioning, I think it is safe to say that Faulkner is the greatest American author of the 20th century. (Deep breath) So what do we have in "The Sound and the Fury"? Too much to type, and I don't know most of it anyway. What I do know is that reading this book turns the experience into an obsession. It is tremendously difficult to read and it takes over your life. I believe that the reason Faulkner wrote it this way is because he is arguing that language can unite people. No, you can't use language to make good mothers, fathers, brothers, or sisters - just take a look at the Compson family. But maybe language can serve as a unifying factor between this and other books in Modernism? Whatever. Here, this might be at least slightly helpful. Caddy: Central character of the book. She is the object of fixation by her brothers, yet there isn't anything exceptional about her - the obsession is arbitrary. Faulkner doesn't give her a voice, but she speaks through her actions (Example: Squatting on the branch with muddy underwear looking through the window at her grandmother's funeral -- a feat her brother's looked upon with awe). Benjy: His narration is the first one of the book and it contains the truth of the Compson family situation objectively because he is retarded. The only thing he notices is that things happen, no emotions or thoughts attached. No desire. He does have an amazing ability in being able to predict Caddy's sexual decline (Young Caddy smells like trees, purity) - (Teenage Caddy smells like rain, she is wearing perfume). Benjy loss is Caddy as he wonders up and down the old pasture, now a golf course as he hears the golfers yelling "Caddie!" Quentin: He cannot see himself. He wants to restore Caddy into a body that is real, but his obsession with her is so he won't have to look at himself (Man this is hard to explain without giving away plot). Jason: The embodiment of evil. The weird thing is that his obsession with material things is what makes him the sanest character in the book! For isn't this obsession a nationwide phenomenon? Mr. Compson: A failure of a father on all levels, despite his effort. His once aristocratic family is now borderline poor. Mrs. Compson: The mother who is so helpless that she cannot take care of herself, let alone her family. Dilsey: The housekeeper who is the sole source of responsibility in the family. ----------------------------------------------------------------- For me this book absorbed me but, in many ways, it was a nightmare. I have never experienced characters as vivid as the Compson family. I would argue that Caddy might be the most developed portrait of a female ever written. This book also has great rereading value. I estimate that after my detailed reading, I picked up on about twenty-percent of all the symbolism and implications. No, this is not a beach book. It is a book you read at your upstairs desk with your pencil in hand to make notes in the margin and a cup of coffee at your side. I urge you to become obsessed. You'll fit right in with the Compson's.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking American Novel of the Century, April 21, 2000

By	Chris "moore_on81" (United States) - See all my reviews

What could I possibly say besides this might very well be my all-time favorite book? This story of the fall of the Compson family, an aristocratic Southern family, mirrors the fall of the Old South after the Civil War. Faulkner is one of my favorite authors, and the way he changes the narrative viewpoint in this book is amazing. The first section of this book is told through the eyes of Benjy Compson, a thirty-three year old mentally retarded man. Only Faulkner could tell a story from this viewpoint. This section is incredibly difficult to read because it has no chronology: Benjy has no concept of time so he jumps from event to event as the story progresses. Often, he will make a jump of thirty years with little or no warning to the reader. The reader should not be discouraged from reading because of this; the reading gets progressively easier through the book, and future sections will also explain what happened in Benjy's section.

The second section is told by Quentin Compson on the day of his suicide. It may very well be the best use of stream of consciousness narration ever. It is filled with long, flowing thoughts, and there are even two sections where Faulkner disregards ALL punctuation to simulate the frantic pace of Quentin's obsessive thoughts.

The third section, told by Jason Compson, the "evil" brother, is my favorite; it is a darkly humorous masterpiece. Read it yourself to see what I mean. The fourth section is told by an omniscient third-person narrator, and this section contains Faulkner's trademark flowing prose.

I can't say enough good things about this book. It is an awesome book, rich in symbolism and imagery, and it contains many well-developed characters and themes. For this and for its groundbreaking experiments in narration, I consider The Sound and the Fury to be my favorite book of all time.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A simple Key, August 5, 2004

By	Itchywool "itchywool" (Portage, MI USA) - See all my reviews

The first chapter is what puts people off this classic. Here is a simple way to understand that chapter. By followong who is caring for Benji you will know when things are taking place. It becomes a very easy chapter to read once you get used to this.

Versh - 1900-ish when Benji is 3-5
T.P. 1905-1912 when Benji is 15-ish
Luster - Present when Benji is 33.

Each time italics are incorporated Benji is changing his train of thought.

I find this book moving and very rewarding.