. Spinning .

Hate that–I’m racing through an action scene in the last few pages and I need to stop and get this down:

But the other still struggled, and Jason freed one hand and struck him on the head.  A clumsy, hurried blow, and not hard, but the other slumped immediately and slid clattering among pans and buckets to the floor.  Jason stood above him, panting, listening.  Then he turned and ran from the car.  At the door he restrained himself and descended more slowly and stood there again.  His breath made a hah hah hah sound and he stood there trying to repress it, darting his gaze this way and that, when at a scuffling sound behind him he turned in time to see the little old man leaping awkwardly and furiously from the vestibule, a rusty hatchet high in his hand.  (p. 310)

Faulkner quickens the pace in Jason’s search for his niece, Quentin, who has robbed him of cash and taken off with a man connected to a traveling show.  Jason’s bullying isn’t working against this wild little old man he questions, coming up against someone finally who can’t be verbally intimidated as he’s done with Caddy, Quentin, his mother, the servants, even his employer.  The "hah hah hah sound" of Jason’s breath is exquisitely in step with the aftermath of the encounter, and yet carries us through to the next action as we breath with him in a heightened state of panic and anger. 

And in the next sequence, as Jason is "rescued" by other show workers and pushed along his way, he sees a sign in electric lights, "Keep your eye on Mottson."  In the middle of this sentence is a drawn eye–a visual among the text, along with "the gap filled by a human eye with an electric pupil."  This in itself must have been innovative in fiction, and Faulkner’s inclusion of it can serve many purposes.  It is stark upon the page.  It is an invitation.  It is the story looking back at the reader as if to say we’ve come through a long journey together, remember this tale.

Back in ten pages.

"Ef I jes had a quarter," Luster says, "I could go to dat show."

"En ef you had wings you could fly to heaven," Dilsey says.  "I don’t want to hear another word about dat show."

"That reminds me," I says.  "I’ve got a couple of tickets they gave me."  I took them out of my coat.

"You fixin to use um?" Luster says.

"Not me," i says.  "I wouldn’t go to it for ten dollars."

"Gimme one of um, Mr. Jason," he says.

"I’ll sell you one," I says.  "How about it?"

"I ain’t got no money," he says.  (p. 254)

In the opening of this story, Luster and Benjy were walking the grounds, Luster searching for a quarter he’d lost.  Faulkner brings that quarter back in this scene with Luster and Jason.  It displays the singlemindedness of Luster, his need for a break from his care of Benjy, his dependence on his mother, his grandmother (Dilsey), and his subservience to Jason for this little pleasure.

And, it reveals the truly evil nature of Jason:

"I don’t want them,"  I says.  I came back to the stove.  "I came in here to burn them up.  But if you want to buy one for a nickel?" I says, looking at him and opening the stove lid.

"I ain’t got that much," he says.

"All right," I says.  I dropped one of them in the stove.

"You, Jason," Dilsey says.  "Ain’t you shamed?"

"Mr. Jason," he says.  "Please, suh.  I’ll fix dem tires ev’y day fer a mont."

"I need the cash," I says.  "You can have it for a nickel."

"Hush, Luster," Dilsey says.  She jerked him back.  "Go on," she says.  "Drop hit in.  Go on.  Git hit over with."

"You can have it for a nickel," I says.

"Go on," Dilsey says.  "He ain’t got no nickel.  Go on.  Drop hit in."

"All right," I says.  I dropped it in and Dilsey shut the stove.  (p. 255)

Faulkner has created one of most dislikeable characters I’ve ever met.  And worse, he seemed familiar.  I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew Jason, although who came to mind didn’t jive with this rough man in the book.  I looked up the movie made from this and sure enough, my image of Yul Brynner came back as the smooth, cold, suave Jason of the film.  I remember Joanne Woodward as Quentin.  The movie was made in 1959, and I’d seen it on television some late night many years ago.  Brynner, as I recall, was the perfect domineering, cold and calculating villain.  Faulkner’s is more earthy, less deliberate; a natural rather than a practiced snake.

My God, Jason’s the family prick, ain’t he?

We ate a while.  I could hear Ben in the kitchen, where Luster was feeding him.  Like I say, if we’ve got to feed another mouth and she won’t take that money, why not send him down to Jackson.  Hell be happier there, with people like him.  I says God knows there’s little enough room for pride in this family, but it don’t take much pride to not like to see a thirty year old man playing around the yard with a nigger boy, running up and down the fence and lowing like a cow whenever they play golf over there.  I says if they’d sent him to Jackson at first we’d all be better off today.  (p. 222)

Jason was a tattletale as a boy.  He resents the burden of Benjy, the sins and subsequent wealth of Caddy, Quentin for being sent to Harvard, his father for being soft, and his mother for still wanting to accept her children.  He has taken Caddy’s daughter, Quentin, in to the household after his father’s death, and rules with the brutality of a tyrant.  He allows his mother to symbolically burn Caddy’s checks for Quentin, unknowing to her that they are duplicates while he cashes the originals and keeps the money.  He is rude and crude and overbearing to the loyal Dilsey and her family who have cared for the Compson family for decades, and with the lack of respect for the "niggers" he seems to have less for women, and even less for his own family.

He’s a head trip all right.

Odd that I should have just posted about symbolism in reality and have come across it so cleverly wrapped with Faulkner’s novel.  Or maybe not so odd; often we read without realizing what we’re seeing.

Caddy’s muddy drawers were seen by her brothers as she climbed a tree (in the first section, told by Benjy) to peek in a window at the adults.  Not only does it foreshadow the feelings the brothers have toward their sister (a single girl among three brothers as well as Versh and often T.P. as playmates), and the resulting protectiveness, dependence, and for Jason, revulsion and resentment that comes back later in their lives, but the great sin she’s committed is emphasized by the "dirtied" part of her body.

Faulkner reminds me of Marquez’s techniques of repetition (the begonias for example) that are skimmed over once, noted the next few times as meaningful, and later made clear.  I love it.  It shows an involvement on the author’s part to carry an idea through and present it gently yet powerfully. 

Another reference I’m considering as a symbol is Benjy’s insistence that Caddy "smells like trees."  This is reinforced by his nature of seeing the world in his small immediate area via his senses.  We need be told to stop and smell the roses; Benjy’s life is all about the smell of roses.  Even Quentin cannot drive out the overpowering scent of honeysuckle as he contemplates his last day of life and its immediate recall of Caddy’s indiscretions.    The tree reference not only identifies her as the most natural and earthy of the lot, but may also have been considered for its roots and its stability.  Benjy’s world is rooted in Caddy; he is dependent upon her for love and for expanding his world as wide as it can be by teaching him as much as she feels he can learn.  No one else cares.

Jason’s section of the novel is not written in the stream of consciousness style, but reveals so much more about the actualities in their clearer form.  One’s mind constantly goes back to all the things that didn’t make much sense as told by Benjy or Quentin, yet is as telling of Jason’s personality and thought as the more direct being in the mind of the character through s.o.c. technique.

No doubt Faulkner shines as an innovative writer while still maintaining the basic elements of arc, showing, pace, narrative structure, imagery, conflict, character exposition and development, as he twists the rules to in fact make the story more real than any straighter-coursed tale could be told.

Okay.  So now I like Faulkner.

The second section of the novel, Quentin’s view, takes place in a single day of wandering around Boston with a plan of sorts in mind–he cuts classes at Harvard, dresses up, writes a few letters and ruminates on the past in the same pattern of randomness.  We do find out a few things here though, despite Quentin’s state of mind.

He is obviously upset, and mostly about his sister (Caddy) having fooled around with someone, gotten pregnant (I think) and then married someone else in haste.  The often wildly disoriented thought process shows just how deeply disturbing the events have been to him, and they seem to be piling up to a point that hints at suicide (the suiting up, the letters, etc.).  Quentin has been a rather strange personality, even seen from Benjy’s simple relating of events in the first part of the novel.  Benjy is always being removed from Quentin’s sight, and I seem to think that Caddy is the nurturing force in lieu of her mother, who has made it clear that all her children except for Jason have been a dissapointment to her. 

There’s been a lot of emotional trauma in this family, and it seems, very little showing of love.  Even Dilsey and her sons who have taken care of the household and in particular, Benjy, are rough in their ways.  Mrs. Compson’s a basket-case, though Mr. Compson seems level-headed and caring in the time he spends with his children.   

There are some points in this section that I couldn’t really feel comfortable with; and that’s mostly the stream of consciousness style that just didn’t feel real to me.  This happened in reading Benjy’s section as well.  However, it’s obvious that everyone thinks differently, especially under stress and particularly when obsessed with emotion (though I didn’t feel real emotion here, just a sense of being distraught and having lost hope).  Even in my most obsessive and worrisome times, I believe I have a more regular rhythm and connection in my thoughts.  Who knows, though, and Quentin certainly is an odd one.  And this day, I think, is the culmination of a lifetime of pain.

So on to Jason.

Faulkner’s understanding of human nature comes through in this small scene.  Quentin, away at university, is standing on a bridge when three young boys stop to consider fishing.  There is one large wiley trout upon whose head a bounty has been placed:

"I’d take what I could get, then.  I can catch just as many fish with this pole as I could with a twenty-five dollar one."  Then they talked about what they would do with twenty-five dollars.  They all talked at once, their voice insistent and contradictory and impatient, making of unreality a possibility, then a probability, then an incontrovertible fact, as people will when their desires become words."  (p. 117)

Not only an astute perception, but I see as well a tie in with Quentin’s childhood, the games they’d played and their values.  And too, the value the Compson parents had placed on their children in their different personalities and their bearing of the burden of Benjy.  And all the while, the trout swims safe and free.

All right, so on this one I cheated–I did a bit of research on Faulkner’s novel and came across the term "stream of consciousness" to help keep me going on it because having done with Benjy’s section and finding that Quentin’s is written in the same manner, I needed to want to continue reading.  Usually, I read without even checking the back flaps of a book so that my thoughts are not influenced by others.  That’s why I post as I’m reading, rather than after completing the book.  This is useful to me to see how I have grown along with the reading.

However…Faulkner’s "Sound and Fury" while not incomprehensible to me, was frustrating to my anal retentive nature and relative like of order and sense.  I must say how very much I admire all those who have opened the book, read it and loved it for itself.  I’m still making up my mind.

While I am awed by the concept–and I’m not sure here if Faulkner was the first to write in this "stream of consciousness" manner (at least in novel form, rather than personal diary)–it is similar to my wholehearted praise for some contemporary art that while I can do naught but prize the idea, I may hate the piece itself as far as its visual effect. 

Something bothers me about Faulkner’s narrative:  In Benjy’s story, I find it unbelievable (check the Great Lettuce Head posting on believability) in the language.  While the thoughts are (as far as I can assume) in keeping with what I might guess of Benjy’s state of mind (mentally retarded to a fair degree), I am thrown off by the mix of thought versus language:

"I’ll run away and never come back."  Caddy said.  I began to cry.  Caddy turned around and said "Hush"  So I hushed.  Then they played in the branch.  Jason was playing too.  He was by himself further down the branch.  Versh came around the bush and lifted me down into the water again.  Caddy was all wet and muddy behind, and I started to cry and she came and squatted in the water.  (p. 19)

"Roskus was milking at the barn.  He was milking with one hand, and groaning.  Some birds sat on the barn door and watched him.  One of them came down and ate with the cows.  I watched Roskus milk while T.P. was feeding Queenie ad Prince.  The calf was in the pig pen.  It nuzzled at the wire, bawling.  (p. 28)

For me, someone with Benjy’s level of comprehension might not have understood the concepts of "started", "squatted", "nuzzled", "bawling" or "all wet."  More so, the concept of "one" as mentioned in the second paragraph of "one hand" and "one of the birds" or the concept of time as in "then they played in the branch," or of distance as in "he was by himself further down the branch."  It would seem to me that comprehending "then" and "further" is inconsistent with Benjy’s concept of something being out of sight as "away" or his frequent description of change as something "stopped." 

The stream of consciousness in Quentin’s section, which I will post on in a bit, is even more disbelievable to me.  While Benjy’s thought process is scattered between memories that go back and forth in time periods–and this I can easily accept–Quentin’s is even more random.  I’ve tried to relate to the half-sentences and broken thoughts, and maybe this is impossible to determine as a pattern that may be as individual as individuals come, but for an educated man, Quentin’s structured process appears even more troubled than Benjy’s.

Again, maybe this is a personal thing; in the back of my mind I’m considering my own tendency to write out a paragraph of story complete with action, imagery, proper grammar, etc. versus the more common method of seeking the words to suit the idea of story.  (I’ve posted on this before.) 

I’m ashamed to admit that I sought help along with the reading, and even worse–I’ve joined Oprah’s Book Club to gain some insight from the guidance there (as well as on more literary critique and research sites).  But Faulkner does have me fascinated.  He has me angry and frustrated but yes, fascinated too.