In the spring of 1983, my
gay South Asian friend Viju and I managed to get through a horrible class in Modernist Literature by finding gay content anywhere we could in the turgid, heterosexist "classics." First
Ulysses (by James Joyce), and then
The Waste Land (by T.S. Eliot). Next on the syllabus was
The Sound and the Fury (1929), by William Faulkner.
"Marvelous!" the Professor chirped. "Stupendous! A masterpiece! The greatest novel ever written!"
I doubt he has ever read it. I doubt anyone has. It is literally impenetrable.
It's about three brothers in the dying, decrepit, depressed Compson family of Mississipi: Benjy, Quentin, and Jason. I imagine they look like this.
Part 1: Narrated by Benjy, an "idiot" who has no conception of time, and jumps back and forth at random between events that he didn't understand in the first place. He cries a lot, and he's obsessed with his sister Caddy's muddy underwear.
Ok, the elderly "Negro" servant Dilsey warns her grandson Luster to stay away from the Man with the Red Tie, whom he asks for a quarter. Wearing red is probably a gay symbol, like wearing lavender today. Maybe they're having a gay affair. And hopefully Luster looks like this.
Part 2: Narrated by Quentin, a Harvard freshman who's crazy, and whose mind jumps back and forth at random just like Benjy's. He's obviously gay, in love with his roommate, Shreve, who responds by grabbing his knee. Someone even calls Shreve his "husband." He claims to have committed incest with his sister Caddy, but he's lying to hide a worse shame -- sex with someone out of the family.
Other than that, it's even more incomprehensible than the Benjy section. I understand he commits suicide.
Part 3: Narrated by Jason, Quentin's brother, the only one who thinks normally. He likes girls. He's also kind of a jerk. He stole money from his niece, Caddy's daughter Miss Quentin (calling a girl by a boys' name?).
Part 4: No narrator. We find out that Miss Quentin has taken the money Jason stole from her, plus some of his own, and run off with the Man with a Red Tie (the one Luster is having an affair with). So maybe Miss Quentin is a boy in drag. The homophobic Jason looks for her and gives up. The end.
Wow, that took a lot of creativity to get through -- and a lot of beefcake! Here's one more: a semi-nude William Faulkner, thinking up new and better ways to torture English majors.
