The Sound and the Fury

by William Faulkner
List(s):"Carp 500"
"Racine Library List"
Category: "Fiction - General"
Pages:401
Year of Publication:1929
Date Read:03/13/1993
Notes:The book is set in Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, in the early 20th century. It describes the decay and fall of the aristocratic Compson family, and, implicitly, of an entire social order, from four different points of view. The first three sections are presented from the perspectives of the three Compson sons: Benjy, an “idiot”; Quentin, a suicidal Harvard freshman; and Jason, the eldest. In the fourth section, the Compson’s servants reveal the family’s moral decline.

COMMENTS — If you’re going to make a serious attempt at this book, I recommend you get hold of a copy of the Cliff’s Notes. If you don’t, we can’t be responsible for the consequences. The title is from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
My Rating: 1

Reviews for The Sound and the Fury

Review - Sound and the Fury, The

When I finished reading this book, I had no idea what it was about. I bought the Cliff's Notes to find out. Now that I know what the book was about, I have no idea why I wanted to find out. It was awful. The few bits I did comprehend depressed me. Perhaps it can be best summed up by this quote from Cliff's Notes: "We must therefore assume that Faulkner was in error in assigning Luster's age as fourteen. After all, he wrote the appendix approximately 16 years later without rereading the novel ..." If the author doesn't think it's worthwhile to read the book, I don't know why anyone else would want to.

Reviewed by Roger on 2005-06-02 14:08:03

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