Well, I'm not really catching up, but I'm not really falling farther behind either.
Book 16 - The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury tells the story of what would seem to be the last generation of the Compsons, a once great southern family now in decline. Set in the deep south of the early 20th century, the story centers around four siblings: Caddy, Quentin, Jason, and Benjy. Caddy is a somewhat promiscuous young woman. She marries early and quickly divorces, and due to her dalliances, the paternity of her daughter is unknown. Each of her brothers is obsessed with Caddy in someway. Benjy, who is severely mentally challenged to the point of being non-functional, thinks Caddy "smells like trees," but when faced with evidence that she is sleeping with men, he becomes extremely agitated and begins to wail and moan. Quentin loves Caddy and even falsely admits to committing incest with her in order to claim fatherhood of her baby and save her reputation, but no one takes him seriously. He too cannot stand the fact that she is with so many different men, and eventually kills himself. Jason is obsessed with Caddy because he blames her for his lack of success in life and resents having to help raise her daughter, who seems to have inherited her mother's promiscuity. Caddy's husband was supposed to hook him up with a cushy bank job, but this fell apart when she got divorced, and now Jason is forced to work as a clerk in a grocery store.
The book is divided into four sections, each one representing a particular day. The first, third and fourth are set in 3 consecutive, but out of order days in April of 1928, while the second section is set in 1910. In addition to this odd sequencing of days, Faulkner also tells the story using four different voices. The first chapter is told by Benjy, who has little sense of time, and shifts constantly and without warning between various memories and current events. The second chapter is told by Quentin, whose mind races while he prepares to commit suicide, such that obsessive thoughts of Caddy's sexual escapades are constantly interrupting the narrative. Things become much clearer in the third section, which is told by the bitter misogynist Jason. In Jason we finally have a better chronicler of events, but we are forced to see these events through Jason's bitterness and cynicism. In the final chapter Faulkner switches to third person, allowing him to tie up the multiple story elements.
As you have most likely already surmised, dysfunction abounds in the Compson household. Mr. Compson drank himself to death, and Mrs. Compson is a hypochondriac who constantly complains about everything, and is supposedly to sick to do anything for herself. Benjy is legitimately and completely non-functional. He has to be dressed, fed and constantly watched. They are taking care of Caddy's daughter, named after Quentin, but do not allow Caddy near the house or to see her daughter. Jason is stealing money from his mother, who for some reason trusts him implicitly, and is also pocketing the child support that Caddy sends for Miss Quentin. The only sane and moral people in the house seem to be the black servants. Dilsey, a house servant, is the true bedrock of the household. She keeps the house, prepares all the meals and waits on Benjy and Mrs. Compton hand-and-foot. She also helps to run interference between Jason and Miss Quentin, who have nothing less than contempt for each other.
I found this book a little hard to get started on because of the stream of consciousness nature of the first two chapters, but once I got into it, I enjoyed it. I haven't read any other Faulkner, so I don't know how this rates against other things he wrote, but if you want to experience this great American author, I think this would be a good place to start.
No comments:
Post a Comment