The Sound and the Fury: Mausoleum of Hope & Desire (Section Two Faulkner Lecture)
'I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then...'
Today we are burrowing deeper into William Faulkner's sublime modern novel. And we are now seeing the world through the eyes of Quentin Compson.
We're discussing remembered time, eternal recurrence, how to deal with the absurdity of life, overcoming the fear of death, the saddest words in the language, voices within voices, the curse of bad blood, Southern codes of honour, and much more.
Please do feel free to enjoy the discussion even if you haven't this entire section yet. I'm being mindful to stay away from spoilers for things that are revealed later in the narrative.
Timestamps:
0:00 making it through Benjy’s section
2:00 appreciating Quentin’s section
4:00 the difficulty of this part of the book
6:00 modernistic stylistic POV shift
8:00 Joycean anxiety of influence
10:00 more sublime literary influences
12:00 why you need to reread Faulkner
14:00 ‘when the shadow of the sash…’
15:00 we are trapped in temporality
16:00 receiving Grandfather’s watch
18:00 Mr Compson’s philosophy
20:00 who was Quentin’s grandfather?
22:00 symbolism of Grandfather Time
24:00 family drama of biblical proportions
25:00 St. Francis & Little Sister Death
27:00 half in love with easeful death
29:00 mausoleum of all hope & desire
31:00 what does history actually mean?
32:00 reductio absurdum of human experience
33:00 struggling in a world without meaning
35:00 anxiety, denial, & conquering of death
37:00 journey from innocence to experience
39:00 thinking about the journey of our life
41:00 most dangerous periods in a man’s life
43:00 ‘we are the sum total of our habits’
45:00 compounded habits as character
47:00 nihilistic reading of Christianity
49:00 ‘stalemate of dust and desire’
50:00 depression & disease of overthinking
51:00 Quentin in the watchmaker’s shop
53:00 how Quentin spends his final moments
54:00 what is this? a wedding or a wake?
56:00 haunted by memories of his sister
57:00 the Old South’s code of honour
59:00 stoic philosophy of assigning meaning
1:00:00 tragic concepts invented by men
1:02:00 the saddest words in the language
1:04:00 thinking about eternal recurrence
1:06:00 it’s never too late to change your life
1:07:00 Faulkner meditates upon the South
1:09:00 race, class, prejudice, & slavery
1:11:00 how Quentin thinks about race
1:14:00 having a sense of noblesse oblige
1:15:00 does birth determine our destiny?
1:16:00 defending the Compson family honour
1:18:00 who is the father of Caddy’s child?
1:19:00 Caddy as afront to the Old South
1:20:00 jealous of two shadows become one
1:21:00 Quentin before Caddy’s wedding
1:23:00 showdown with Dalton Ames
1:24:00 ‘I’ve got to marry somebody…’
1:25:00 the sins of the mothers & fathers
1:26:00 how Mrs Compson sees her family
1:28:00 ‘they’re not my flesh and blood…’
1:31:00 ‘walking upon the belly of my shadow’
1:33:00 autumn even in the month of brides
1:34:00 Quentin Compson contemplates the bridge
1:36:00 a clean flame from Dante’s Inferno
1:38:00 saddest word vs peacefullest words
1:39:00 ‘Non fui. Sum. Fui. Non sum.’
1:41:00 every man is arbiter of his own virtues
1:45:00 assignment for our next discussion
Resources to Explore:
Film Appreciation: If you're enjoying using great literature as a springboard into classic films, then I have a couple more recommendations for you. The 1957 film Tarnished Angels, starring Rock Hudson and directed by Douglas Sirk, is an adaptation of the 1933 novel Pylon, one of the Faulkner novels set outside his Yoknapatawpha heterocosm. For another cinematic treat, you might like to check out the 1949 crime drama Intruder in the Dust, based on the 1948 novel by Faulkner, which is about an African-American farmer accused of murdering a white man.
Literary Criticism: Some of Quentin's meditations anticipate Toni Morrison's powerful writings on race relations in the United States. You might find it rewarding to check out her incredibly thought-provoking Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination here.
Article: There is a plaque commemorating the character of Quentin Compson on the Anderson Memorial Bridge in Cambridge, which reads: 'Quentin Compson III, June 2, 1910, Drowned in the Fading of Honeysuckle.' There's a wonderful little article from the Harvard Gazette here about a Faulkner fan pilgrimage to this plaque.
Documentary: If you want to go deep into the historical background of the Civil War, the legacy of which looms throughout the tradition of Southern Gothic literature, I highly recommend checking out some of Ken Burns' documentary series from PBS on the conflict. His documentaries are absolute masterpieces and real feats of historical storytelling in film.
Philosophy: One of the reasons why this section is so difficult is because it is aesthetically complex and philosophically dense. If you want to follow up some of the ideas we touched upon, you might find some of the ideas of Epicurus, Aurelius, and Aristotle to be illuminating. If you're interested in the Nietzschean idea of eternal recurrence, you might like our discussion here. And if Camus' ideas on the absurdity of life resonated with you, then check out The Myth of Sisyphus. If some of the Freudian ideas intrigued you, we have a lecture on his works here. Becker's The Denial of Death or Brown's Life Against Death are always worth dipping into too.
Influence & Allusions: The influence of Macbeth is clear from Faulkner's title, but can you discern the tragedy of Hamlet lurking throughout Quentin's tortured consciousness too? In addition to book club writers like Joyce and Melville, we might also see the impact of Dante running through this section too. Who else leapt out to you? Is there a biblical quality to Faulkner's prose? And, if you're interested in that St Francis allusion when Quentin thinks of Little Sister Death, you can read his Canticle of the Creatures here.
Fun Videos: You can step into the great writer's household of Rowan Oak by virtue of this wonderful video of the Faulkner family's life in Oxford. If you want to hear Faulkner talking about why The Sound and the Fury is his favourite book that he wrote, you can do that here. And, if videos of rare books are a comfort watch for you, like they are for me, then check out this video of a handmade poetry book by Faulkner. You can also see what a first edition of a Faulkner novel looks like here.
Reading Assignment:
Our next discussion will cover both of the next two sections of the novel, which are titled 'April Sixth 1928' and 'April Eighth 1928'. This will cover the next one hundred and twenty pages of the work, depending on which edition you're working from, and will take us to the climax of the novel.
Having made it through the difficulty of the first sections, take heart that the work is now about to become, comparatively, much easier to read. Pay attention to the shift in narrative style, from first to third person, how the non-linear temporality feels, the significance of the symbolism, and what message you think Faulkner is leaving us with.
Our alternating weekend release rhythm continues, which means this coming weekend we will have our next Chaucer discussion before returning to Faulkner. Has reading these works throughout the Spring season had an effect on your experience? How are you finding the challenges of deep reading such monumental writers?
Questions for You:
1) What did you make of Faulkner's characterisation of Quentin? How did you find the experience of seeing the world through his eyes?
2) What is the saddest word in the language for you? What is the peacefullest word?
3) What do you think it would be like if we had a section from Caddy's POV?
4) What was the greatest challenge of this section for you?
If this is your first reading of The Sound and the Fury, I would love to know how the story is meeting your expectations. If this is a reread for you, what is it like returning to the story? And please do share with us your favourite passages, characters, and ideas from the story so far.
Happy reading, everybody!