The Sound and the Fury

336 pages
Published in 1929

This is going to be a short review, because, well, I did not read the whole book. I couldn't. I wanted to, and I tried to, and I even kept it past the due date, incurring yet another fine at my local library -- I really should be buying used copies at $1.64 from half.com instead of paying $2.00 in late fees -- letting weeks pass by with the weight on my shoulders of knowing that there was something on my nightstand that I should be reading instead of watching Olympic badminton.

But I just couldn't do it.

There is no doubt about it, Faulkner is a literary genius. The Sound and the Fury is definitely on a higher plane than most works of fiction, and it is probably right that it be hailed as an American masterpiece. I mean, hell, even Sartre reviewed it, opining that "Faulkner uses his extraordinary art to describe our suffocation and a world dying of old age. I like his art..."

Well I, unlike Sartre, do not "like his art." It was utterly incomprehensible, similar to the red, steel girder "sculptures" that seem to crop up like modern art dandelions in metropolitan areas.

I realize that the intention was to play with time, and that the story unfolds in the minds of the characters themselves, rather than being told firsthand or by an omniscient observer. After 30 pages or so I figured out that I was reading an account from a mentally handicapped person who experienced all events in the present, and I even began to decipher who the other individuals were, and how they related to which mixed-up time period. I thought that if I could push through the first chapter, I would begin to appreciate the narrative. But I was wrong. After an arduous week or two spent slogging through Benjy's tangled remembrances , the second chapter was written from the point of view of an adolescent -- but that's not really true. It was really told from inside his head. Meaning that I, the reader, was treated to run on sentences, random thoughts unrelated to the events at hand, inventive punctuation, and little back-story to help stake this jumble down.

It was just too damn hard to get into.

I'm sorry Faulkner, but I'll never know the true story of why Quentin kills himself, how Benjy ends up castrated, or who impregnates Caddy, but after almost a month and with only 100 pages down, I just don't care anymore. You're officially on the short list of famous-authors-I-can't-bear-to-read, previously populated only with Joyce and Tolstoy.

Congratulations.

The Kingdom (2007)

Peter Berg is misunderstood. Either by me, or by the people who market his films.

Take Friday Night Lights, which, in my estimation, is simply the greatest sport film to ever grace the silver screen. To me, it was a brutal examination of the extent to which sports have taken over the average American's life, serving as a proxy for all of the worthwhile things that we aren't achieving and allowing us to deal with the quiet desperation of our insulated lives. If it isn't that far reaching, it seemed at least to be a condemnation of the tenor that high school football has reached in Texas, where coaches make more than any three teachers combined and the stadium could easily serve an NCAA team.

However, if you watch the trailer that Universal Studios put together to sell the DVD, all you see is the same ol' feel good sports movie that debuts every year around Christmas time (e.g. Miracle, Remember the Titans, The Mighty Ducks, etc.)

And then we have The Kingdom.

Yesterday I stopped by my local red box with the somewhat unfounded hope that it might contain something I wanted to see. It didn't, so I settled for The Kingdom, a Berg movie that was marketed like this:



After seeing this trailer several times last year, I fully expected to hate The Kingdom, because it looked like every other action movie ever made -- intended to stoke U.S. fears of the "other," while convincing us that there's no geopolitical problem that a good ass-kicking can't solve.

Instead, Berg served up a decently taut movie that only flirted with absolutes, gave us a sympathetic Muslim hero, delivered what I thought was a great tongue-in-cheek performance by Jamie Foxx as the all-American hero (I hope that was what was intended,) and finished on the disheartening note that all of the bullet firing and Arab-killing that we witnessed over the course of the movie just might have made the problem of terrorism worse, rather than solving it.

I won't go too far with my praise, as this movie was far from perfect. The Kingdom was at its best while showing the orphans that were created on both sides of the battle scenes. It was at its worst when portraying the Saudi male as a witless chauvinist who assumed that all women wished to be swathed in pink at all times. The story line and detective work are also depressingly straightforward (gee, do you think Abu Hamza was behind the explosions? And who would have guessed that the story arc might take us back to the neighborhood of Suweidi?)

Despite its flaws, The Kingdom kept me entertained and even engaged my cerebral cortex at times, which is more than I can say for many of the movies I've seen lately (ahem, Vanatage Point.) The DVD even came with an interactive time line based on the opening credits of the movie which explores the history of Saudi Arabia and the complex reality of its relation to Wahhabism, oil and the United States.

After this, I may actually need to give Peter Berg's Hancock a chance -- it could turn out that what the trailers made look like a gimmicky, facile popcorn movie is actually a commentary on the emasculation of the consumerist male.

Or maybe not.