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Hello everyone!
Let's start talking about William Faulkner's famous novel in this thread on Aug 24, 2024. You don't have to start reading before then, though it might be a good idea just to glance over a few pages just to get an idea of what we're dealing with.

See you soon!

EDIT: Threads to be found here:

Thread 1. Benji . April Seventh, 1928 . /topic/show/...

Thread 2. Quentin. June Second, 1910. /topic/show/...

Thread 3. Jason . April Sixth, 1928. /topic/show/...

Thread 4. Omniscient Narrator. April Eighth, 1928. /topic/show/...

Thread 5. End spoiler discussion . /topic/show/...

I cannot believe I have never read this. I think I've been intimidated, but very excited for this group read to give it a real deep review and finally cross it off the list!

Dianne wrote: "I cannot believe I have never read this. I think I've been intimidated, but very excited for this group read to give it a real deep review and finally cross it off the list!"

I think many people are in the same boat. Yes, so much has been written about it, and yet I wonder how many people have actually finished it. It's time! 💪🧐👍

I spent my younger days reading Latin American authors who cited him as an influence, now I'm back to the source!

Linda wrote: "I spent my younger days reading Latin American authors who cited him as an influence, now I'm back to the source!"

Great! In a sense, and taking into account this was published as far back as 1929, Faulkner was actually one of the pioneers of modernist<->postmodernist approaches. So as we explore TSATF in that context, maybe now the weirdness of those who followed will start to make more sense! 😂😏

I'm reading a physical copy and also listening to the audible narration by Grover Gardner - highly recommend!

Sounds good! Yeah, I love audiobooks for when I'm busy with a hands-on project like housework or driving. ..and now I find myself extremely curious as to how Benji's voice would be narrated!

So here I am on page 28 and it's hard going. Every bit as chaotic as it's poised to be, for starters. Good luck. let's get this collective journey started tomorrow!

Hello everyone, apologies that I've not posted a bit more background about the author and genre and so on as we usually do, but things are a bit busy in my life at the moment. Will try to get to it soon. :)

Bonitaj wrote: "So here I am on page 28 and it's hard going. Every bit as chaotic as it's poised to be, for starters. Good luck. let's get this collective journey started tomorrow!"

Hello Bonitaj, mm-hmm, I will refrain from saying I told you so! 😜😂
Don't worry, we're all in this together!

The thread where we can start discussing the first part of the book in detail, is here: /topic/show/...

Oh, and don't worry about what global timeline other participants might be operating in, just post as soon as something occurs to you; whether it be a question, a realization or an idea; remember we're divided into threads so that spoilers have less of an impact, and we will have a separate spoiler-rich end-discussion at the end in any case.
I will put up threads for the other parts of the book soon for those that like to go faster and may find themselves skipping ahead.

oh that's just great news! Thanks a lot. I already have something to report so I'll come back in a couple of hours!

Ok,folks, a bit about the background. I've been dipping into a book called William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury'. Literature Insights. by Michael Cotsell.
Cotsell says: "...to understand Faulkner, we need to
understand that his imagination works very powerfully through the local...." but then goes on to say that Faulkner's work opens out from the local to the global through his enormous literary skill, psychological depth, and sense of history, which give his work global cultural and political significance.

But to get back to the setting of the novel: Most of his novels are set around the area where he lived for much of his life, Oxford, Mississippi, a small college town in the northern part of the state and home to the University of Mississippi .
In his fiction Faulkner called Oxford ‘Jefferson�� and the surrounding Lafayette County which he actually lived in, he called ‘Yoknapatawpha County�� .

Bonitaj wrote: "oh that's just great news! Thanks a lot. I already have something to report so I'll come back in a couple of hours!"

Take your time, Bonitaj, though keep in mind that if your settings are on default, you should be getting updates if people post in a thread that you have commented in. So those of use that got our toes wet in the Benji thread will get notified when you comment there. However, as you pointed out, we might be in different time zones, so patience might be required!

All right, more about the background of books about the American South such as those of Faulkner's: one has to keep in mind what happened to the South due to the American Civil War of 1861-65; before the war it was prosperous; after the war it was decimated economically in part due to the loss of slaves, and in part to the destruction of infrastructure, and a great many taking part in the war had lost life or limb.
The average income of Confederate states plunged from people being more prosperous on average than those belonging to the Union, to less than half the income that they previously had.

This may seem a bit unfair, but Southerners had basically dug their own graves by relying so heavily on slavery (besides the fact, of course, that slavery is morally reprehensible), because slavery had skewed their economy and made it less resilient.

Because of the fact that Southern industry was so labour intensive, (mainly cotton-growing) their agrarian practices impeded the development of industry and cities and contributed to soil exhaustion, and a lack of technological innovation.

Be that as it may, I'm sure the trope of the "poor Southern white" is reasonably well known to readers here, as well the racism that had gone along with the slavery, etc. In any case, one of Faulkner's themes tend towards portraying the decaying South; and The Sound and the Fury is set roughly in the period between 1900 and 1928. Long story short, the South experienced many years of turbulence after the war and it struggled to recover economically and socially amid civil unrest and political turbulence.

Oh, and back to a comment I had made earlier as to the stylistic genre of the novel; it is of course stylistically a modernist novel due to the stream-of-consciousness narration made popular by authors such as James Joyce (especially in his famous work Ulysses, and author Virginia Woolf; but for me it already carries the seeds of post-modernism in the piecemeal fashion that the unreliable narrators revolve around the central story; (yes, Virginia Woolf did something similar in her modernist works; but she doesn't make you work quite as hard for clarity as Faulkner does).

...and yes, to me Ulysses also has some of the seeds of postmodernism in how extremely highly referential it is; the two genres should, in my opinion, not be seen as completely separate, and especially because the eclectic nature of postmodernism makes it so hard to pin down as a genre; basically I see postmodernism in the arts as artistic freedom; one is free to be as eclectic as you please.

hi Traveller, was wondering if I could continue to comment here as the link you gave doesn't work for me...

One of the characteristics of this type of work such as the work under discussion, is that we see the world in a subjective manner through the eyes of the narrator; the narrator is NOT the author, but is part of the story, and so, we have to kind of "read between the lines" to figure out what type of person the narrator him-or herself is.

Bonitaj wrote: "hi Traveller, was wondering if I could continue to comment here as the link you gave doesn't work for me..."

Bonitaj, it must work, we've started commenting in it already and you're going to miss out as well as put spoilers into the convening thread. Please just click on the link below:

/topic/show/...

EDIT: I've asked other friends to test the link as well, and it works for them as well. All you have to do is click on it, and it should take you right there?

it just says:
"Sorry, something went wrong"
and below it a box that says
Reload.
I am indeed sorry as I do desperately wanted to partake.
carry on please... I'll tag along. The only contributions I need to make I'll filter through you, if possible.
So far some good background material you've supplied.
Thanks.

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.

Macbeth, Act V

Nothing

Sorry the verse should end “signifying nothing. ��

Bonitaj wrote: "hi Traveller, was wondering if I could continue to comment here as the link you gave doesn't work for me..."

Bonitaj, it works for me.
However, there's another way. On this page, at the top right, you'll see the group info. Click on "Discussions". You should see, right uner this discussion, one called "TS and TF Part 1", or something yo that effect. Give that a try

Linda, Thank you! That link I have found and will continue to return to. It's just so quiet there I thought it was the "incorrect one"! Perhaps all this confusion is because I have been operating from my phone and not the laptop! Apologies and thanks!

Bonitaj wrote: "Linda, Thank you! That link I have found and will continue to return to. It's just so quiet there I thought it was the "incorrect one"! Perhaps all this confusion is because I have been operating f..."

No worries, Bonitaj, glad it worked! Yes, if I used the app, things might be easier. But still I resist, and these days, I'm not staring at a laptop as much as before.

Thanks again Linda! I've just posted on what I hope is the correct forum. TS and TF Part 1. There's a typo that I can't correct on my phone right now, but I would appreciate you checking it out...

Bonitaj wrote: "Linda, Thank you! That link I have found and will continue to return to. It's just so quiet there I thought it was the "incorrect one"! Perhaps all this confusion is because I have been operating f..."

It was quiet there because you hadn't commented yet, Bonitaj! 😏
I was going to ask you next which device you were using and which method you were using to get there, but glad to see that the admin problem has now been ironed out. Now that you have commented there, it should be easier for you to get there again.
See you there! :)

Thanks for helping out, Linda!

Mishek wrote: "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, b..."

I see you've already read it, Mishek, great that you're popping in to the discussion! Yes, indeed, that is quite a well-used phrase in literature, and of course originated with The Bard - thanks for pointing that out.

PS. A lot of T.S. Eliot's poetry also reminds me of that Shakespeare passage.

For your convenience, threads to be found here:

Thread 1. Benji April Seventh, 1928 . /topic/show/...

Thread 2. Quentin June Second, 1910. /topic/show/...

Thread 3. Jason April Sixth, 1928. /topic/show/...

Thread 4. Omniscient Narrator April Eighth, 1928. /topic/show/...

Thread 5. End spoiler discussion /topic/show/...

Traveller wrote: "Bonitaj wrote: "Linda, Thank you! That link I have found and will continue to return to. It's just so quiet there I thought it was the "incorrect one"! Perhaps all this confusion is because I have ..."

Happy to!

Traveller wrote: "Oh, and back to a comment I had made earlier as to the stylistic genre of the novel; it is of course stylistically a modernist novel due to the stream-of-consciousness narration made popular by aut..."

Thanks so much for all of the great background! Will be interesting to see how this progresses from local to global - it is so deliberately confined as to time and place in the beginning!

Dianne wrote: "Thanks so much for all of the great background! Will be interesting to see how this progresses from local to global - it is so deliberately confined as to time and place in the beginning!.."

Indeed, from the mundane to the eternal...
In any case, I think one of the "eternal" or philisophical themes is the futility of human life, as well as how our lives play out in the context of the absurdity of the man-made concept of time.

Then there are also a few more "human" subjects that we could perhaps see in a political light, such as the class struggle and how families such as the Compsons hold themselves in high regard, and then there is also of course the racism of the South (of the time, especially) that the book seems soaked in on a mundane level and the mundane utterances of the characters. Perhaps we can discuss the "global" themes a bit more in the ending spoiler thread once we're done with the novel.

Bonitaj wrote: "oh that's just great news! Thanks a lot. I already have something to report so I'll come back in a couple of hours!"

Hi Bonitaj, you mentioned you have an older copy of the Norton Critical edition, so I wondered if that would be the first edition? I have the second edition as a treebook and the third edition as an ebook, and I see that 1. they have different editors (David Minter for the 2nd and Michael Gorra for the 3rd.),
and 2. some articles overlap but the two books also have different articles that do not correspond!

Who is the editor of your edition if I may ask? (If it is the 1st ed. that you have)

Bonitaj mentioned the Norton critical edition which is an excellent series of lit crit that deals with many classics, then I also have the following on TS and TF that you guys might find interesting:
Reading Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury: Glossary and Commentary <--- this is a good un for sorting out the timeline, though I promise you on my granny's grave that I did not peek before going through Benjy at least once! XD

then, also a VERY interesting book which I haven't had the time to get to: Little Sister Death: Finitude in William Faulkner’s "The Sound and the Fury"

Traveller, my copy seems to be a first edition - 1987 publication. The editor is David Minter ,who lectured at Emory University at that time.

Oh, sorry, and then also this one William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury'. Literature Insights. by Michael Cotsell ; oh and then there's another reasonable good lit crit series, Harold Bloom's one (I personally don't like Bloom very much, I find him a bit arrogant) William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and then Noel Polk's collection of essays New Essays on The Sound and the Fury.

Well, you see, this is exactly why I said that if we were to read even just SOME of the literature that's been written about this novel, then we'll never get to the novel itself, which is why I, for one, have opted for trying to get through the novel itself first.

...but if any of you have read through these or some of these or other lit on the novel, please share, but also please make sure that you share in the context of where we are in the novel.

So, for example, if it is something about Benjy, please do it in that section, or about Jason, then in that section, or about themes in the novel, then where those surface, for example Bonitaj has mentioned the theme of "shadows", so since we have already encountered those, please share, perhaps there in the Quentin thread; which is also a very apt thread to comment on the role that "time" and "chronology" has to play in the novel.

Thank you in advance! 🌞😎🌟

O ne thing I want to mention - is Faulkner's phenomenal language usage, which sometimes gets overlooked in all the struggle to hang on to the various threads. Can we quote some profound sentences, or even passages from time to time?

Bonitaj wrote: "O ne thing I want to mention - is Faulkner's phenomenal language usage, which sometimes gets overlooked in all the struggle to hang on to the various threads. Can we quote some profound sentences, ..."

But of course! Please, please do!

FAULKNER AS A FATHER

William Faulkner fathered two daughters, the first, born in 1931, died in infancy, and the other, Jill, born in 1933, died in 2008 (aged 74).

By all accounts, Faulkner himself was a pretty absent father as well as a binge drinker, and there is a famous incident where Jill at age 12 begged her father not to drink on her birthday, only for him to retort that “Nobody remembers Shakespeare’s children.��

Ouch. So perhaps Faulkner really wrote what he knew about... I think it would be nice if we discuss the Compson parents' attempt at parenthood while we are reading the novel, as that aspect of the Compson family unfolds while we are reading.

interesting indeed. Subjectively I was constantly thrown in that first chapter by the narration of the parents juxtaposed to the "Southern Accents"/child speak/Benji's dialogue. They sounded "educated" and who then were these beings they had spawned?

Bonitaj wrote: " They sounded "educated" and who then were these beings they had spawned?."

Well, keep in mind that it is mainly the Negro/African American/Black/people of color (please choose the appropriate noun, I cannot keep up anymore with what is considered PC in which context) servants that speak in the first chapter, and of course children would sound childlike. On the few occasions that the parents speak they do indeed sound more educated. But I had in fact been wondering myself how much of the servant's lack of proper grammar use would rub off onto the children, but on the other hand, the mother does seem very quick to correct their speech.

Traveller wrote: "Bonitaj wrote: " They sounded "educated" and who then were these beings they had spawned?."

Well, keep in mind that it is mainly the Negro/African American/Black/people of color (please choose the..."

They almost seem to spend more time with the servants than with the staff, so that would make sense.

As mentioned above, herewith an example of Faulkner's prose:
"They all talked at once, their voices insistent and contradictiory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires become words"

Thanks for that, Bonitaj. Yes he could be quite eloquent when he wasn't trying to sound like an idiot. 😆😏

While we're on the subject of prose, I found that this paragraph tickled my fancy:

I stood in the belly of my shadow and listened to the strokes spaced and tranquil along the sunlight, among the thin, still little leaves. Spaced and peaceful and serene, with that quality of autumn always in bells even in the month of brides.

And yes, it contains the themes of brides and shadows that we're discussing elsewhere. I've not had time today, but I'll make that themes thread for "the shadow" etc. tomorrow.

oooh. Must say I find your quote poetic and catching. Do point out where you find him coming across as an idiot. I'm still just seeing the glitter from the golden nuggets of (albeit cynical) wisdom!

Bonitaj wrote: " Do point out where you find him coming across as an idiot. "
Well, for the most of section 1, isn't he supposed to be sounding like an "idiot"? Everyone mentions over and over that Benjy is supposed to be an idiot. (So that was kind of supposed to be a joke) 😉 Though I must say that I do find the Benjy section poetic in it's own right, through its vivid descriptions.

Poetic, exactly the right world for it, I think! :D