I’ve been reading for a long time now, and during that time I have reread more than a few books in my shelves. But I have never reread a book right after I’m done with it. But I strongly think that this is the best way to read The Sound and the Fury and perhaps the most correct way is to reread it a third time at some point later. In Richard Hughes’ introduction, he found that the book was more rewarding with every re-read, as he was re-reading it the third time. I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Faulkner found little success in literature prior to The Sound and the Fury and to be fair I’ve never read his earlier work prior to this. I can see why he was lauded with accolades after this book though. It is not anything that you’d ever read before and maybe not like anything you’d ever read again, except perhaps another of his work Absalom, Absalom! which blew me away. Faulkner’s influence in modern literature is set in stone. Blood Meridian is a lovechild of Faulkner’s style, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is enamored with his style and begat the styles of other magical realist writers, for better or worse. But The Sound and the Fury stands unique I think, even amidst Faulkner’s other works (at least the ones I’ve read).
That opening chapter is an absolute mindfuck. Who would’ve thought that reading a mind of an idiot can be so exhausting, complex and fantastic? Even though Benji is simple-minded, I find some of his thoughts poetic — watching the “hitters” play golf, drinking sasprilluh and getting trolleyed, and Caddy smelling like trees. SHE SMELLS LIKE TREES. Benji’s thoughts seemingly lack the overt emotional eloquence (as they all do to be fair), but he feels perhaps the most out of all the siblings. We need to catch him “bellering” after he hears his beloved sister Caddy’s name. When he showed any great emotion, we only find out about it from the reactions of those around him — as when he burned his hand. Benji is perhaps the most compelling character out of all the characters in the book.
It is through Benji that the “sound” and “fury” are embodied. He lacks intelligence but his existence is purely sensory. His observations are simplistic, but they are profound. When Benji feels something, we are triggered to another part of his life in his memory, when the siblings perhaps were living in happier times. Or not. As when the case when “damuddy” died, or when he got intoxicated by the sasprilluh. The past and present are all the same to Benji and his existence is based on the memories best befitting his emotion at the time. Then is Benji an autistic genius whose weight of his memory is his burden? Maybe not, but I’d like to think that Benji is smarter than he looks.
This is certainly not the case with Quentin, who’s a Harvard scholar but emotionally dumb as a cunt. I loathe Jason, but in many ways I despise Quentin even more. I met Quentin even before I read him in The Sound and the Fury via Absalom, Absalom!. In that book he is a mere proxy to the wild story of Thomas Sutpen, and his speculations with his roommate Shreve, who also features in both books. Quentin’s weakness is on full display as we walk with him in the final day of his life as his mind goes haywire with the memory of his sister Caddy, who he’s head over heels for. Quentin pisses away the family’s fortune on his Harvard tuition only to swim at night without learning how to swim. Quentin is passionate to a fault, which leads to the unhealthy attachment to his sister and consequently to suicide.
Jason’s chapter reads almost like a comedy as he tries to piss off everybody around him. In some ways, his character reads the most pathetic. Jason is entitled, blames everybody for his misfortunes and nothing more than a mommy’s boy. A mother who he regularly fools with fake cheques to pocket the real money, and who probably deserves it too. Jason is a speculator with dreams more haughty than his abilities. His work as a shopkeeper who snides on his redneck customer is a fitting career for someone whose progress is stifled by hatred and perpetual exasperation.
The last of the Compton siblings, Caddy, is an ethereal but important presence in all of the brother’s narratives. She is never present physically but she exists through the point of view and memories of all, as the multi-faceted flowers in Woolf’s The Waves with multiple perspectives of the same flower. Caddy is prevalent in Benji’s and Quentin’s memories. Their existences are tied strongly to her memories, even though those memories are often not as happy ones as Caddy gets around town like white on rice. Jason survives on the money that Caddy sends over to her daughter, and feeds his existence on his resentment of her.
All of the siblings are deeply flawed and in some ways, each represent a different human flaw. The fall of fortunes of the family can be seen allegorically as the fall of fortune of the South. Their once vast acres of plantation land sold for a golf across next door, and the grandeur of their career as stately agricolists petered away with Jason who ended up working in a hardware store. However, if we want to talk about the decay of the South, I personally think it is explored more beautifully in Absalom, Absalom! which also goes deeper into the race relations.
What we see in The Sound and Fury are snippets of the grander themes, and the focus is more on the individuals and the Compson family as a microcosm. Perhaps, it is better to read the book that way. It is also a novel where we can study how far the form of the novel and how far the writing of the English language can stretch. Faulkner seldom every uses complicated words — but his genius is in trying to reinvent the wheel of how a novel can be written, and in some ways succeeding.
