Every few years I come back to it. I’m not even sure exactly why anymore, only that the book makes me feel bereft, and sometimes this is what I need. To feel bereft. It’s not as if we don’t have enough grief to go around. So why do the troubles of an imaginary family have such pull? If I could answer this. All I know is that this week I’ve found myself, once again, flailing in the cauldron of The Sound and the Fury. And, again, everything is new, nothing’s familiar. I’m as disoriented as I was the first time I began.

Takes me a bit. Oh, right, golf.

Golf?

One of the majestic novels of the last century opens with one of humankind’s most inane and unnecessary inventions: golf.

(Aside: I’m reminded of a conversation I once had with my father. I said, the whole sport seems like a land grab to me. My father said that golf courses were essential for flood control. And where the hell do you think I conduct all my business?)

In any case, yes, Benjy’s following the golfers from the other side of the fence because he’s waiting for them to shout “Caddy!” which happens also to be his sister’s name. Whenever Benjy, who’s unable to speak or communicate, hears “Caddy!” he begins to yowl. On its face, the premise is a little ridiculous, and yet I buy it. Every time, I buy it. Why? Because Benjy’s love for his sister is so palpable that even her name becomes, after just a few pages, a physical ache.

It’s Macbeth, blood-soaked Macbeth, who says that life itself is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. Faulkner turns Shakespeare’s line on its head. You think idiots don’t have sisters? Sisters who run away from home? And so, the first chapter, “April Seventh 1928,” is narrated by a character who can’t otherwise speak. Still, as you make your way, groping, you begin to perceive, gradually, that Benjy exists in the present and multiple pasts—at the same time. The miracle of the novel’s opening section is Benjy’s capacity to replicate simultaneity on the page. In the present, Benjy is thirty-three. He’s also five. And twelve. And twenty-three. For Benjy time isn’t linear. Time’s associative. One memory bleeds into another and another. All it takes is a weed, a quarter—a name—and Benjy conjures another year, another moment with his lost older sister.

And there’s no hierarchy of time, either. All that matters is Caddy, and if she’s not there in the present, she’s there in the past. The present doesn’t occupy a privileged position because, for Benjy, there is no now.

Late in the first chapter, there’s a moment when Benjy remembers a time when he was five and Caddy carried him on her back.

‘Candace.’ Mother said. Caddy stooped and lifted me. We staggered.

‘Candace.’ Mother said.

‘Hush.’ Caddy said. ‘You can still see it. Hush.’

‘Bring him here.’ Mother said. ‘He’s too big for you to carry. You must stop trying. You’ll injure your back. All our women prided themselves on their carriage. Do you want to look like a washer-woman.’

‘He’s not too heavy.’ Caddy said. ‘I can carry him.’

No, not remembers—Benjy’s not remembering—it’s happening. He’s five. Caddy who’s gone, Caddy who he’ll never see again, Caddy, Caddy, Caddy is carrying him on her back.

Peter Orner is a novelist, story writer, and essayist—as well director of Creative Writing at Dartmouth. He’s just published Still No Word from You: Notes in the Margin*, a highly personal collection of essays about literature that Kirkus Reviews calls a “wise, welcoming, heartfelt book.” He is a volunteer with the Norwich Fire Department.*