My Favorite Books

I was blown away by this book, especially Quentin's chapter. It is told in four parts by four different people--Benjy, Quentin, Jason, and their slave Dilsey (in the 3rd person). Having a good explanation of the first chapter would only benefit you--since Benjy (due to his autism) has no grasp on the concept of time and jumps from present times to distant memories and back without realizing it. But the mastery of this novel will become truly apparent once you finish it.

"If we could have just done something so dreadful and Father said That's sad too people cannot do anything that dreadful they cannot do anything very dreadful at all they cannot even remember tomorrow what seemed dreadful today and I said, You can shirk all things and he said, Ah can you. And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand. Until on the Day when He says Rise only the flat-iron would come floating up. It's not when you realize that nothing can help you--religion, pride, anything--it's when you realize that you don't need any aid." :: William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury