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.