Description

A complex, intense American novel of family from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

With an introduction by Richard Hughes

Ever since the first furore was created on its publication in 1929, The Sound and the Fury has been considered one of the key novels of this century. Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives, the novel explores intense, passionate family relationships where there is no love, only self-centredness. At its heart, this is a novel about lovelessness – ‘only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it.

What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?’

Publisher Review

"One of the most important works of American literature this century" -- Observer "Faulkner has inexhaustible invention, powerful imagination, and he writes like an angel" -- Arnold Bennett "For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterisation, humour and tragic intensity [Faulkner's works] are without equal in our time and country" -- Robert Penn Warren "Its unlike anything else in literature... The experience of reading it seemed closer to the experience of life than anything provided by a neatly contrived story line... After the war I read all I could of William Faulkner, and he continued to present some unique and, it seemed to me, valid way of looking at life" -- Nicholas Mosley * Guardian * "Not only was the book a kind of beginning for me, but that it endured still, it moved me deeply and remains "the damndest book I ever read"" -- Niall Williams * Sunday Times *