this is what keeps me up at night

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth V.v. 24-33

i am obsessed with william faulkner. actually, the word "obsess" doesn't even begin to cover it - i want to steal his brain and inject his genius into my veins so that i too can be maddeningly brilliant. it takes real patience and determination to make it through the sound and the fury, but the result is more rewarding than any other novel i have read (except, perhaps, absalom, absalom! and one hundred years of solitude). mulling over the novel, it strikes me just how appropriate/incredible/there are no words for the sheer brilliance the allusion to macbeth V.v. 24-33 is to the content of the novel. i turn the lines over again and again in my mind and can't help but wonder if faulkner means it in a cheeky way as well since he is prone to infuse everything he does with multiple levels of meaning: is he the idiot telling the tale? the obvious reference is to benjy, since his section clearly reflects this idea, but faulkner's own words on writing the sound and the fury leads me to believe that there is more to this than initially presents itself. exhibit a, from an interview with faulkner:

"since none of my work has met my own standards, i must judge it on the basis of that one which caused me the most grief and anguish, as the mother loves the child who became the thief or murderer more than the one who became the priest."

faulkner has also called the novel his "most splendid failure" because he was never really satisfied with the way it turned out.

okay, so maybe it's not the brainstorm of the century to figure out that faulkner is probably referring to himself in a tongue-in-cheek way with the allusion to macbeth, but it's enough of a revelation to have kept my mind occupied for the past week. more than that, i'm also inspired by the way each section reflects a bit of the allusion, such as quentin's section and his "walking shadow" or jason's section, in which he makes himself out to be the "poor player." i often wonder if authors set out to be geniuses or if it just sort of falls together for them. with faulkner, i believe that there was a real, concerted effort to forge the sound and the fury into the masterpiece that it is. perhaps nothing is coincidental about the craftsmanship of this book, but the bittersweet beauty of it lies in faulkner's own dissatisfaction with it which, oddly, gives me a tinge of hope that maybe we are all capable of creating something this "splendid" if only we are willing to fail in our own minds.