William Faulkner
A first reading William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is a bit like scrambling to piece together a puzzle when you have no idea what picture will emerge. You read the words, trying to make sense of it all. And as you read, some of the pieces may fall into place. But it is only after you turn to the last page that a complete picture materializes. If you decide to go back and re-read the Benjy section, you’ll discover the clues, the flashbacks, the shifts in time, the broken sentences, the tangential hints, and the howls that made sense all along. They just had to be pieced together to make them coherent. At the end of it all, you sit back, admiring the immense scope of the work and the sheer brilliance of its execution.
The novel is in four sections. The first three sections are told in first-person points of view of each of the three Compson brothers utilizing the stream of consciousness technique in which thoughts and recollections bounce off each other. The disconnected time frame is a confused jumble with the past constantly intruding on the present in a flat continuum.
It opens with the Benjy section on April 7, 1928. It is Benjy’s birthday although he doesn’t know it. Benjy is 30 years old but has the mind of a toddler. He is incapable of speech. He howls, moans, and whimpers. He has no concept of the passage of time so events in the past impact him as if they are happening in the now. For Benjy, time never heals. His section initially appears to be the most confusing with its apparently illogical shifts in time and incoherent, baffling associations. But as the novel progresses, the logic of his behavior and the triggers that set him howling become predictable.
Section two, the Quentin section, takes place on June 2, 1910, the day of Quentin’s suicide. Told from Quentin’s point of view, this section is in many ways the most complex. Quentin has his own set of triggers that generate flashbacks. One minute he is in the present; the next he has flashed back to past events with no warning. His obsession with clocks and watches reflect his desire to turn back time. This section is replete with long, convoluted sentences and pages with few paragraph breaks, revealing the inner workings of his tortured mind.
Section three, the Jason section, takes place on April 6, 1928. Jason sees the world through an embittered, angry lens. He reveals himself to be cruel, resentful, mean-spirited, a liar and a thief. He lives in the present, dashing from one place to the next as if he wants to outrun time.
The final section, April 8, 1928, is in the third person omniscient point of view. It is the calm after the storm. We encounter the surviving members of the Compson family through an objective lens: Benjy with his hulking frame, drooling as he is fed his breakfast; Jason with his nasty, cutting remarks in short, curt sentences; Mrs. Compson with her incessant, self-absorbed whining. And Dilsey, the housekeeper, who holds the family together and who demonstrates compassion and endurance.
The title of the novel is taken from Act 5, scene v of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
The novel is full of sound. It is full of fury. And it is partially told by an idiot. But it is far, far removed from signifying nothing. It is devastating in its impact, brilliant in its execution, and stunning in its ability to capture the tortured minds of each of the characters.
An absolute masterpiece and highly recommended.