One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century by Nobel Prize–winner William Faulkner.
First published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury is a masterpiece of modernist literature. Although Faulkner originally called it his “most splendid failure,” the novel is renowned for its innovative narrative technique which brings to life a haunting tale of the American South set in his most famous fictional creation, Yoknapatawpha County. Told largely through the innermost thoughts of the Compson brothers as they grapple with the demise of southern aristocracy and the dissolution of their family, The Sound and the Fury is a powerful exploration of human fragility, family ties, and the relentless passage of time.
“I am in awe of Faulkner’s Benjy, James’s Maisie, Flaubert’s Emma, Melville’s Pip, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—each of us can extend the list.... I am interested in what prompts and makes possible this process of entering what one is estranged from.”—Toni Morrison
“No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there.”—Eudora Welty
“The Sound and the Fury is a masterpiece of the modernist movement that wasn't afraid to reveal the dark side of the Mississippi aristocracy. It is a haunting tale you won't soon forget.”—Medium
“The Sound and the Fury constituted an artistic breakthrough.... Careful patterns of words and images...create an artistic unity that transcends the fragmented perspectives on display.”—The Guardian
“William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is one of the monuments of High Modernism—America's answer to James Joyce's Ulysses.”—The Wall Street Journal
William Faulkner, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. He published his first book, The Marble Faun, in 1924, but it is as a literary chronicler of life in the Deep South—particularly in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the setting for several of his novels—that he is most highly regarded. In such novels as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! he explored the full range of post–Civil War Southern life, focusing both on the personal histories of his characters and on the moral uncertainties of an increasingly dissolute society. In combining the use of symbolism with a stream-of-consciousness technique, he created a new approach to fiction writing. In 1949 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. William Faulkner died in Byhalia, Mississippi, on July 6, 1962.
View titles by William Faulkner
One of the most influential novels of the twentieth century by Nobel Prize–winner William Faulkner.
First published in 1929, The Sound and the Fury is a masterpiece of modernist literature. Although Faulkner originally called it his “most splendid failure,” the novel is renowned for its innovative narrative technique which brings to life a haunting tale of the American South set in his most famous fictional creation, Yoknapatawpha County. Told largely through the innermost thoughts of the Compson brothers as they grapple with the demise of southern aristocracy and the dissolution of their family, The Sound and the Fury is a powerful exploration of human fragility, family ties, and the relentless passage of time.
Praise
“I am in awe of Faulkner’s Benjy, James’s Maisie, Flaubert’s Emma, Melville’s Pip, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein—each of us can extend the list.... I am interested in what prompts and makes possible this process of entering what one is estranged from.”—Toni Morrison
“No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there.”—Eudora Welty
“The Sound and the Fury is a masterpiece of the modernist movement that wasn't afraid to reveal the dark side of the Mississippi aristocracy. It is a haunting tale you won't soon forget.”—Medium
“The Sound and the Fury constituted an artistic breakthrough.... Careful patterns of words and images...create an artistic unity that transcends the fragmented perspectives on display.”—The Guardian
“William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is one of the monuments of High Modernism—America's answer to James Joyce's Ulysses.”—The Wall Street Journal
Author
William Faulkner, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. He published his first book, The Marble Faun, in 1924, but it is as a literary chronicler of life in the Deep South—particularly in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the setting for several of his novels—that he is most highly regarded. In such novels as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! he explored the full range of post–Civil War Southern life, focusing both on the personal histories of his characters and on the moral uncertainties of an increasingly dissolute society. In combining the use of symbolism with a stream-of-consciousness technique, he created a new approach to fiction writing. In 1949 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. William Faulkner died in Byhalia, Mississippi, on July 6, 1962.
View titles by William Faulkner
