The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

Category: Adults, Classic, General Fiction, Literature
Language: English
Keywords: American South Family Dynamics Mature Themes

Written by William Faulkner
Read by Grover Gardner
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date: July 12, 2005
Duration: 08:54:41

I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. . . . I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.” —from The Sound and the Fury

The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

A reviewer in Goodreads said - Whew. This is a devastating book. Probably one of the most depressing stories I’ve read. Incest, castration, suicide, racism, misogyny—this one has it all. Even at the beginning, when it is possible to make out only pieces of the events, a nauseating sense of dread permeates Benji’s narrative per Faulkner’s pungent writing style. And this feeling never really dissipates.

Jumping into The Sound and the Fury with no prior introduction is like driving through an impenetrable fog or into a blinding glare—you can’t quite tell who is who; male or female; black or white; first, second, or third generation; relative or friend or stranger. But gradually, before frustration has a chance to set in, the fog begins to burn off and the glare becomes less direct. By the time the omniscient narrator closes things out in part four, the scales have been fully removed and you are left with a crystal limpidness in which you can smell the sweet southern honeysuckle and feel the rotting wood of the old barn.

Have fun.