Classics and the Western Canon discussion

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner was published in 1929. Critical reaction was initially mixed, mainly because the first section (the Benjy section) presented so many challenges. Its use of interior monologues and stream of consciousness led to comparisons with James Joyce’s Ulysses. Faulkner claimed he was dissatisfied with his novel. In 1957, he described it as a series of failures:

And I tried first to tell it with one brother, and that wasn’t enough… I tried with another brother, and that wasn’t enough… I tried the third brother… And that failed and I tried myself—the fourth section—to tell what happened, and I still failed.

Today it is considered a masterpiece.

Our discussion will begin on April 1. Meanwhile, here are some links you may find interesting.

William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. This is his speech at the Nobel Banquet in 1950: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lit...

Faulkner reading his Nobel Prize speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENIj5...

A 1952 interview with William Faulkner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tQ-...

The title for the novel comes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth has just learned of his wife’s suicide and realizes his end is imminent:

She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Act V, scene v: 16-27)

We’ll circle back to these lines after we’ve finished the novel.

Since libraries may be closed for the next few weeks (months?), I thought some of you may have difficulty locating a copy of the novel, so I looked for an on-line edition. My go-to for online classics is Project Gutenberg. Surprisingly, I couldn’t locate a copy there. But I did find this free online edition. It includes two of Faulkner’s Introductions followed by the full text of the novel.

https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content...

Cphe wrote: "Remember watching a movie of TSATF many many years ago. Had Yul Bryner in it. Was it based on the novel?"

I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how close it was to the novel. I watched the trailer, and it looked to me to be only very loosely based on the novel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_XEz...

Seems odd to think of Yul Bryner in TSATF. I can only ever picture him as Ramses II or the Gunslinger from the original Westworld.

I think he plays Jason in it. Really weird. He just seems so out of place.

Yes... that would be bizarre. Makes me want to watch it now just to see that.

The Sound and the Fury is one of those books that I can't imagine being made into a film.

The point of the novel is the language, which can't be translated into celluloid. Lolita is another one. I had seen the Kubrick film (which is a good film) before I had read the book, but after I'd read the book the movie seemed so superfluous that I haven't watched it since.

I’m with DaytimeRiot. TSATF doesn’t lend itself to performance. I first read it last year and have been spending hours highlighting and notating the Benjy section in recent days. There’s just no way to translate its beauty to screen effectively.

Aiden wrote: "I first read it last year and have been spending hours highlighting and notating the Benjy section in recent days. There’s just no wa..."

That's awesome! I look forward to your comments and insights as we navigate our way through the novel.

Tamara wrote: "That's awesome! I look forward to your comments and insights as we navigate our way through the novel."

I studied it last year with Cliffsnotes and Bloom’s Critical Interpretations. I’m happy I get to add to that now with intelligent discussion (something my studies in general have been lacking).

Since the Benjy section is the first (and most frustrating) section of the novel, I wanted to help out. I don’t think it is spoilers to point out that Faulkner uses time jumps through stream-of-consciousness in this section. I found a simple guide in Cliffsnotes from 1992 that maps the time shifts into 104 scenes denoting approx. date.

I absolutely recommend reading the Benjy section through at least once without the key since that produces the effect Faulkner intended, but to assist our discussion, the link below may be useful.

Benjy Section Key: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-...

Thanks, Aiden.
I'll be posting an introduction to the Benjy section when we begin the discussion on April 1.

I haven't read any biographies of Faulkner. I did a search and several biographies came up. I had hoped to recognize some of the authors from my lit crit days in graduate school, thinking that maybe one of them had written a biography. But none of the authors were familiar to me.
Sorry I can't be more help.