Faulkner —The Sound and the Fury

Unforgettable reading experience

This is a book I read when I was 16 or 17. It tells the story of…does it tell any story? With Sound and Fury, I understood that literature was not just about stories, beginning, middle, end. It was not even about sentence. It is about words and emotions, and how they violently intertwin.

But about the story : it starts with a genius literary idea : to tell the story from the point of view of someone who doesn’t think like you and I.A child. A mentally disabled child, Benjy, who thinks like a a child, and for whom, things, persons and objects, past and present, memories and reality, are blurred into the same mass of impressions. The first part of the book is from his point of view. I believe you should not try to read this part like a novel, searching for meaning, but just letting you drift along the words and impression, appreciate the words for their poetry, beauty and evocation.