William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury

"Probably one of the worst travesties ever to mar the concept of literature."


"Why is it all the 'great novels' the 'classics' seem like crap to me?"


"I don't know how this pile of crap ever got published, let alone became a classic! It's absolutely unreadable! Pure upchuck in print."


"This book has inspired me to start a list of crap that is admired only because no one has the guts to admit they have no idea what the hell is going on."


"When I read reviews on books like this I can only come to two conclusions; 1) I am an idiot or 2) It is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes."


"Damnit, i'm not stupid. I graduated with honors, i went to a prestigious college on a merit scholarship, I majored in English, and I have read many books that others consider a 'difficult read.' I am not some schmuck who only reads supermarket paperbacks. And if a book is so d*mned inaccessible as this one, that a college graduate, writer and dedicated reader can't get it without three readings -- then to hell with it. For me, the book is a failure and a bastardization of what a book is truly supposed to be."


"I, the reader, was treated to run on sentences, random thoughts unrelated to the events at hand, inventive punctuation, and little back-story to help stake this jumble down."


"seemed incomprehensible and I thought it was printing mistakes but is apparently written through the eyes of a retarded man."


"there was no regard for correct grammar"


"It’s needlessly abstract. To jump around spatially and temporally with little rhyme or reason forces the reader to pay attention not to the narrative they are reading in a linear fashion, but to the meta-narrative—what exists when you step back, when you examine and play around with all of the pieces. That’s truly the only way to come to understand the precise events of the novel and the actions of the characters. How does that make an enjoyable story for a reader? A novel should never be a jigsaw puzzle."


"If I have to be all 'literary' to appreciate and understand this book, then I don't want to be literary ... Perhaps I'm missing something great here. Or perhaps there are too many 'good' books out there to waste my time on this 'literary' one."


"A painful and objectionable experience. This book is written in such an offensively obtuse manner that it was probably an instant classic among the pretentious."


"I love classics and was attracted just by the power of the title, but I couldn't follow the story at all when it jumped between 4 different time periods without any indication to the reader."


"Why anyone would choose to voluntarily read this book is completely beyond me. Just because someone says this is a work of literature, does not make it worth the pages it was printed on. As an English major, I have read a lot of 'literature' books that I would not pick up if I had the choice ... Do yourself a favor and skip this book."


"Obviously he was drunk when he wrote this book."


"Faulkner tries too hard to be 'deep'"


"This is the literary world's equivalent of a blank white canvas hanging in an art museum with a pompous five paragraph description of the artist's 'inspiration' next to it."


"This made me roll my eyes and sigh and scream in frustration."


"It's so old that the price of the novel was only $1.95."


"Ugh. Are you kidding me?! Too complicated. I had to exert too much effort to understand the style."


"Too many folks confuse challenging with good. Hey Faulkner, if you're going to write in that ridiculous stream of consciousness style, at least have the balls to do so for the entire novel. It's like he just got tired halfway through the book and decided to change the style up. Sorry guys, the emperor truly has no clothes on this one."


"Absolutely, positively the WORST book that exists on the planet. I call it The Sound of My Fury. Ahhhhhhhhh.... Truly awful. Whoever called this a 'classic' must be illiterate. :)"


"A Great American Classic? Not in my opinion."


"Faulkner has a lot of 'issues...'"


"I wanted to read this because he deals with the Blacks and comes from a famous author. Wayne understood what I meant when I said I couldn't handle the author's lurky-jerky style. There were so many conversations that went like this, 'What a nice morning.', Tom said. 'Yes, it is.', Bob added. 'What are you going to do?' Tom asked. 'Not sure.' Bob replied."


"Wow, this book sucked. Stream of consciousness of a retarded man?"


"My mother is a fish"


"Denoting nothing."


"it's hard 2 read ><"


"Yeah... Boring. Sorry Willy."


"I read this at a time when I was reading tons of books...and this book cured me. I don't think I read one single book after reading The Sound and the Fury."


"If you like Hemingway, as I do, there is really no chance you can also like Faulkner."


"This book was a piece of shit. Faulkner was obsessed with his penis and was a total pervert. Either that or he really hated Southerners ... Oh, and one more thing. Faulkner, if you can read this from wherever you are, stream of consciousness is a bullshit way out of writing a coherent story. Asshole."


"I'm sorry, if I could go back in time and drown Faulkner before he ever had the opportunity to write something that a teacher would one day force me to read, I would. I absolutely would. That probably makes me a bad person."