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Aug 27, 2018danielestes rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I attempted Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury once before, and again recently before calling it quits. The arguments for this novel and its stream-of-consciousness narrative style, which I learned was relatively new at the time of its publication, remind me of classical music and its transition to the romantic era of the 19th century and eventually to what is known as "20th century music." And here I'm not talking about popular genres like ragtime and jazz and what would eventually become rock n' roll. I'm talking about what classical music evolved into. I had a college professor once refer to this genre of 20th century music as "intellectual exercises" and I think he was being kind. This is what I think of when I try to read books like The Sound and the Fury—they were well-regarded, successful attempts to push the boundaries of a genre but the side effect is it has become a niche product for a niche group. Also, and I'm only being somewhat flippant here, it's a go-to for torturing high school and college students.