The Sound and the Fury (Vintage Classics) Book

British novelist Richard Hughes writes, in his introduction to William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, of the story told of a celebrated Russian dancer who, when asked by someone what she meant by a certain dance, answered, 'If I could say it in so many words, do you think I should take the very great trouble of dancing it?' Hughes repeats the story as an explanation for the validity of obscurity in literary fiction. He writes: 'A method involving apparent obscurity is surely justified when it is the clearest, the simplest, the only method possible of saying what the writer has to say. This is the case with The Sound and the Fury.'

Ever since its initial publication in 1929 Faulkner's novel, like much of his work, has gained a reputation for such obscurity. But, as Richard Hughes suggests, unlike those writers who too often use difficult writing not because of its intrinsic necessity but rather to drape the poverty of the writer, The Sound and the Fury, far from being arduous, is in fact a pleasure to read.

The novel is, put most simply, the story of the gradual disintegration of the Compson family. But to put it simply is to do the novel a disservice, for - through the story of this once august family from the American south - Faulkner reflects on the whole gamut of his thoughts and concerns as a writer, namely the effects of the fast changing social landscape shaping the United States in the post-Civil War era.

The Sound and the Fury begins with an opening section narrated by Benjy Compson, a man of thirty-three whose development has not advanced beyond babyhood. Benjy's thought process, having no sense of time, is purely associative. The past and the present are all one to him, and his stream-of-consciousness narrative becomes an uninterrupted tale spanning many years. Benjy, it is possible to say, is representative of the idiot in the Shakespeare quote from which the novel derives its title: 'It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Yet, however confusing to begin, vague forms of people and events, apparently unrelated, soon begin to emerge from his unconventional narrative which, the reader comes to find, signifies plenty.

With the second section, though no less abstract in form, the vagueness of Benjy's section begins to clarify. The narrative is now lead by Benjy's brother Quentin, one of these vague figures of the earlier section, and portrays the last day in the life of an anguished young man drawn to suicide. With the third and fourth parts the fog rolls away altogether and it is here that Faulkner's early obscurity becomes justified for, as a reader, we find that we have understood more of this sound and fury than initially realised.

The Sound and the Fury is an emotionally powerful and thought-provoking novel, the complexity of which is impossible to do full justice in a short review. It is a book that, to be fully understood, needs to be read and then perhaps read a second time for it is a novel that, like poetry, has the essential quality that upon subsequent readings it shall appear different, revealing things to the reader that at first remained secret - it shall, in short, be a new book.

In all The Sound and the Fury, like other great novels of the modernist movement, rewards the effort of a reader willing the meet the demands of the writer.

With an introduction by Richard Hughes. Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929 The Sound and the Fury has been considered one of the key novels of this century. Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives The Sound and the Fury explores intense passionate family relationships where there is no love only self-centredness. At its heart this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?'

The Sound and the Fury : Paperback : Vintage Publishing : 9780099475019 : : 19 Jan 1995 : A complex, intense American novel of family from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature With an introduction by Richard Hughes Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929, The Sound and the Fury has been considered one of the key novels of this century.