I've had my copy of The Sound and the Fury for several years, but never picked it up out of fear. My experience with it couldn't have been further from my expectations however — I anticipated coming out of a real slog with the following ranking of Faulkner's work: 1) Absalom, Absalom! 2) Light in August 3) Sound and the Fury 4) As I Lay Dying. Instead, I've emerged from one of my most engaging and vital reading experiences ever with (for only the second time) a definitively favorite book.

Faulkner's formal and stylistic experiments are never unjustified. Rather, each choice illustrates the psychological depth with which Faulkner designs and constructs his characters, without ever becoming shtick-y. Like in As I Lay Dying, it is evident that Faulkner uses his (peerless) grasp of Stream of Consciousness as his primary vehicle for characterization. Each character thinks differently on a mechanical level, and the reader gets to experience them in a way that makes each so real.

These stylistic decisions also serve to develop Faulkner's primary project with the novel — laying out a metaphysics of time. Benjy and Quentin deliver the first half of the novel in narratives that explore a time without clocks: Benjy in his lack of chronological sense and Quentin in the symbolic gesture of dashing his pocket watch against his dresser. Jason, in contrast, is a prisoner of time and its synthesis with capital. He is painfully recognizable as a Millenial figure and Faulkner again displays his unique power to make readers sympathize with the most traumatized and cruel characters. In the final chapter, Faulkner explores an omniscient perspective that reveals a Bergsonian time as emergent from action.

I am so thankful this book exists. It is poignant and human, and fully deserving of all praise.