Published in the 1920’s, this book is notable for its use of stream of consciousness and deploying various narrative styles – writing techniques that were revolutionary at the time. The novel is set in the early 1900’s (not of interest to me) and is notorious for being a difficult read. It was. The author doesn’t provide any context for the characters, disregards common punctuation in some sections and switches time frames without warning. Within each section there is repetitiveness and then each of the four sections covers and recovers much of the same territory. Consulting online resources helped clarify things as I went along. Having completed the main text, it would be easier to get through on a re-read, but the book doesn’t interest me to do so. Faulkner later wrote an intro to the book to help the reader make sense of his work. Not a good sign. I wasn’t interested in reading the intro, nor the numerous essays or commentaries included in this edition. In sum, the story is about both a white family that loses its wealth and reputation and the poor black family that works for them. Faulkner created strong characters through dialogue and repetitiveness, but it wasn’t worth the effort to slog through this one.