The Sound and the Fury GROUP READ

Hi everyone! Welcome to The Sound and the Fury group read thread! I thought this would be a good book to read since it will dovetail nicely with Autism Awareness month (which has its own thread over in the 75ers http://www.librarything.com/topic/152197 ).

Feel free to join the discussion! :)

Hi! I found my copy and am ready to start! I've been meaning to get to this one for a while. I've had it on the shelf for ages.

Thanks for posting the link to the Autism Awareness thread.

Thanks so much, Rachel, for starting this thread. I have my copy by my bedside, so maybe I will start it tonight.

Although, this year, I haven't officially created a 13 in 13 thread, I'm in for the group read of Sound and Fury.

Hmm...I believe I may jump in on this read. Thanks for setting up the thread!

Karen O.

I've started, and so far am feeling a little lost. I know that it's stream of consciousness narration, and that the narrator is the young man who is developmentally disabled. (Autistic?) Part of me is tempted to read some kind of literary introduction or interpretation, and part of me simply wants to read on and see if the pieces start to fall into place. I'm torn between really slow, careful analysis while reading; or simply letting the passages wash over me and see if they form into a coherent story for me as the story unfolds.

How are the rest of you approaching this?

I haven't started reading it yet, but my battle plan right now is to read carefully. If that makes me feel bogged down, then I'll speed up and see if the plot washes over me, as you say. :)

ETA: I'm not sure if the character is really autistic or not, since autism wasn't a condition when this book was written. But that's certainly one way to interpret this book.

I started last night. I have never read Faulkner, except for A Rose For Emily, in high school. Last year, I realized that Faulkner was influential for several of my favorite writers, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So far, I think it's brilliant but hard to follow at times. I think this is because the narrator, who has some kind of developmental disability, views the world so differently than we do.

I would like to know more about how Faulkner came to write the book. Maybe I will check wikapedia, or spark notes.

A word of support -subsequent sections are by different narrators describing the same general events, so the plot is divulged in layers. Also, there are two Quentins, the brother in the family and the daughter of Caddy.

This is one of my favorite books!

Thanks, Japaul! I was happy to realize that the narrator would change, even though this is a cool way to start the book.

I looked it up in Wikapedia last night, and found out that the title is from Macbeth. I can't believe I hadn't realized that before;

"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I looked at the Wikipedia article, too, at least the part covering the opening section. It gave me some clues for interpreting the different time-frames the narrator moves between in that stream-of-consciousness narration. The biggest help: Benjy's caretaker changes to indicate the different time periods -- Luster in the "present," T.P. in his teenage years, and Versh during infancy and childhood. Knowing that helped to confirm that I was on the right track sort of deciphering what was happening when.

I'm planning to start The Sound and the Fury as soon as I finish Alias Grace - probably sometime next week.

I have plans to start this month but I am still near the beginning of The Thornbirds. I read 10 pages of The Sound and the Fury to see if I could read it at the same time and I can see it will be heavy going. However, I also managed to learn that the first chapter is the hardest and that it is not meant to make sense... the rest of the book will help with that.

How are people doing with this book? I am in the next section, but not finding it any easier to understand. Also, I am having trouble with the racist language, although I know it is accurate to the time and place.

I'm still in the first section. I think I'm following it OK. I'm not far enough in to know what's going on yet, but I do know that I'm not going to get much help from the narrator.

Well, I finished it today. I am afraid that I didn't understand at all what was going on, but I read up on it in Spark Notes. Anyone else done?

Not anywhere near done. I kind of got stalled . . . not enough brain power this week to go on with it . . . maybe next week . . .

I gave up on TS&TF. My mind was not allowing me to slip into this world so I'll put it aside for another time.

Yeah, I've been moving pretty slowly too. It's possible I won't finish this month, but I'll just keep reading at my own pace! :)