Reading Order
Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner Novels Reading Order
William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1929) is one of the most formally daring and psychologically intense novels in American literature — the story of the decline of the Compson family in Mississippi, told four times from four different perspectives, including the opening section narrated by Benjy, who is cognitively disabled and experiences time non-linearly. The novel requires active participation from the reader and rewards it with one of the most complete portraits of grief and loss in fiction.
Where to start
The Sound and the Fury
Complete Sound and the Fury Book List
- 1Buy
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner·1929·The novel — four sections in order: Benjy's (April 7, 1928), Quentin's (June 2, 1910), Jason's (April 6, 1928), and Dilsey's (April 8, 1928). The appendix Faulkner wrote for The Portable Faulkner (1946), introducing the Compson family history, is often read first or after the novel as an aid; most editions include it. - 2Buy
As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner·1930·Faulkner's next novel — fifteen narrators including a dead woman recount the Bundren family's journey to bury their matriarch Addie in the town of her choice; written in six weeks, it is more accessible than The Sound and the Fury but equally committed to multiple-consciousness narration and the gothic Southern landscape. - 3Buy
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner·1936·Faulkner's most ambitious novel — a Harvard student and his Canadian roommate reconstruct the story of Thomas Sutpen, who arrived in Mississippi in 1833 with a hundred enslaved people and a scheme to found a dynasty, and whose story collapses through pride, violence, and the legacy of slavery; the densest and most rewarding of Faulkner's major works. - 4Buy
Light in August
William Faulkner·1932·Faulkner's most accessible major novel — two stories braided together: the pregnant Lena Grove walking to Mississippi in search of the father of her child, and the tragic life of Joe Christmas, a man of uncertain racial identity in the Jim Crow South; more conventionally narrative than The Sound and the Fury. - 5Buy
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez·1967·García Márquez explicitly credited Faulkner as the major influence — the multigenerational Buendía family saga of Macondo uses the same techniques of temporal compression and multiple consciousness that Faulkner developed in Yoknapatawpha County; reading them together reveals the Colombian writer's transformation of the Mississippi model into magical realism. - 6Buy
Beloved
Toni Morrison·1987·Morrison, who wrote her dissertation on Faulkner and Virginia Woolf, explicitly engages with Faulkner's techniques of fragmented consciousness and temporal disruption while centering the enslaved community that Faulkner's fiction always positions at the periphery; Beloved and The Sound and the Fury are the two most formally challenging masterpieces of American literary fiction. - 7Buy
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston·1937·Published eight years after The Sound and the Fury, Hurston's novel is the other major work of American Southern fiction of the 1930s modernist moment; where Faulkner's South is overwhelmingly white in its focalization, Hurston's centers Black consciousness and vernacular culture — reading them together gives a far more complete picture of the American South as a literary subject.
Sound and the Fury — Frequently Asked Questions
How do I read the Benjy section of The Sound and the Fury?
The Benjy section is the most challenging opening in American fiction — Benjy Compson is a 33-year-old man with severe cognitive disabilities who experiences time non-linearly, so the section moves without warning between events from different decades. Most first-time readers find it confusing on first read and recommend not fighting the confusion: let the images and emotions accumulate without trying to construct a linear timeline, and the emotional truth of the section — Benjy's grief for his sister Caddy, who was expelled from the family — becomes clear even if the temporal sequence remains murky. Some readers recommend Faulkner's appendix first (published in 1946, it provides the family history) or reading the fourth section (Dilsey's) before the first to orient yourself in the story.
In what order should I read William Faulkner?
Most readers start with As I Lay Dying — it is the most accessible of Faulkner's major novels and demonstrates his multiple-narrator technique at its most immediately graspable. The Sound and the Fury is the canonical choice for second; Light in August is often recommended third for its relative accessibility. Absalom, Absalom! is generally placed last among the major novels because it is the densest and most demanding. The early novels (Soldier's Pay, Mosquitoes) and the Snopes Trilogy (The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion) are typically read after the four major novels. Go Down, Moses, the linked story collection that includes 'The Bear,' is often recommended alongside Absalom, Absalom!.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.