The Sound and the Fury
- 359
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
- 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction
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Our view
“The Sound and the Fury” is a demanding novel that pays back the effort: section by section it puts the reader inside a different narrator’s head. Faulkner gives each voice so much character that the book seems to change author as it goes, and the Compson family’s story arrives in fragments, out of order. It is for readers willing to be lost for a while; some find a second reading gives far more.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Sound and the Fury is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, published in 1929. Faulkner's fourth novel, it is the second to be set in Yoknapatawpha County and the first featuring the Compson family, both of which would reappear in his later fiction. The novel's highly experimental style, including its use of stream of consciousness and multiple different unreliable narrators, are hallmarks of modernist literature. Its bleak and candid portrait of Southern life in the early 20th century is paradigmatic of the Southern Gothic genre.
Reading order · Sin and Salvation
Full order & progress →- The Sound and the FuryThis book
7.67.6 / 10 - As I Lay Dying
7.57.5 / 10 - SanctuarySanctuary–Not ranked yet
- Light In AugustLight In August–Not ranked yet
- Absalom, Absalom!
8.28.2 / 10 - Requiem for a NunRequiem for a Nun–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 348 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 70% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.8 | 8 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 340 | 98% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Sound and the Fury?
It has 359 pages — longer than 77% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Classics — and a score of 7.6, the closest to this book.
