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I have finished reading The Sound and the Fury, and the first comment that came to my mind was, what a messed up family, but replace the "mess" with a more vulgar four letter word. Anyways, after Ulysses gave a battering to my confidence, I somewhat regained by some of it through the less abstruse The Sound and the Fury. However, with the book having two characters with the same name, Quentin, and the Maury who is also named Benjamin (Benjy) and not to be confused with another different character Uncle Maury, mixed by a jumping timeline, at least the first part, it does get a bit difficult to unravel the story. I think the main strength of the book definitely lies in its profound and distinct characters. Even the mentally challenged Benjamin Compson, with a mindset of a three-year-old, and his only way of expression in the novel is to cry and hush, has depth to his character. Quentin Compson, the disturbed and highly cerebral male character (the other Quentin is female), is surely a character more akin to my liking. But Quentin Compson does not even come close in challenging Humbert Humbert for his king-like throne on my highest pedestal and role model. Also, the book serves as an insight in to a peculiar southern family and the social environment during the early part of the twentieth century. Overall, a fine novel. Caddy smells like trees.
Ahem, next up: Pale Fire. Some literary critics say that Pale Fire is actually Nabokov's greatest work, surpassing Lolita. They argued that Lolita gained its fame mostly by its controversial subject, but Pale Fire is technically the best of Nabokov. Well, with this in mind, I shall turn its pages with heavy expectation.
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