I’m really not sure. Now that I have read this, his supposed masterpiece, as well as As I Lay Dying, I really don’t understand why he receives so much deference. His style and structure was unique; however, the story itself is not terribly interesting. Faulkner maintained that he told the story (centered on Caddy) from a different perspective multiple times, because each section, for different reasons, failed to do a worthy job. Learning about his personal life, it is easy to see each character in this book as a different aspect of Faulkner’s own despair. They never materialize into complete persons for me, but exist almost as little more than props on a stage. Perhaps I am too hard-hearted?

In his Nobel acceptance speech, he said, speaking of the fearful modern writer:

“He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion.”

...

“Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man.”

...

“The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.”

Faulkner does not seem to follow his own advice. (With the possible exception of Dilsey), no one makes sacrifices for other than selfish reasons, trying and failing to uphold the good name of the family. Any concept of honour, of hope for a future, or of reverence for a past are dissolved in the slow malevolent dissipation of the family. The strong sense of fatalism makes it difficult to afford pity to any member of the family (Benjy being essentially an animal, Caddy being doomed from birth, Jason’s fundamental amorality, the mother’s incapacitating self-pity and narcissism), the best that can be said is that some of them endured. I don’t think that’s saying much.