dalton ames and the quentins.

First of all...my new goal in life is to form a band called Dalton Ames and the Quentins. I think that would just be great.
Secondly, I have this blog post to write.

Benjy's chapter was, yes, difficult to read. He jumps around, his mind wanders, italics, non-italics, does it mean anything, thank god for hypertext...etcetera. But we're okay with it. We accept it and struggle through it without getting pissed off. Why? Because we know he is mentally retarded. It's almost like real life. You don't get frustrated when you can't understand a mentally retarded person. You feel bad. You're sympathetic. You put on your most gentle voice, a big smile, and dive into this dark communicative sea that you know you can't navigate, but you'll try it anyway because you're a bad person if you don't. So when we read it, we recognize that Benjy's chapter is difficult but, in a strange way, we forgive the difficulty as though we were trying to speak with Benjy himself.
Quentin, on the other hand, frustrated, flustered, and flabbergasted the crap out of me. I was genuinely upset trying to get through that beast of a chapter. Was it well written? Yes. Did it rattle my soul? Yes. Did it make me think harder than I've had to think in a while? Yes. Did it piss me off? You know it. Quentin is no Benjy. He's enrolled in Harvard. We all assume that punctuation remains a part of the Ivy League curriculum, but for the most part, Quentin disregards it. The whole chapter is full of this strange and confusing juxtaposition of well-phrased, highly intellectual passages with completely unconventional, borderline incomprehensible portions.
I understand completely why Faulkner wrote the chapter the way he did. I felt the effect he intended it to have, this kind of rushing, uninhibited, beautiful stew of thought, emotion, memory, etcetera. I get it. That doesn't make it any less frustrating to read. We don't pity Quentin, specifically his mental condition, the way we pity Benjy. Subsequently, we do not forgive his chapter for being difficult to read. Without the "oh-he-can't-help-it" factor of Benjy's portion, Quentin's tale is completely frustrating. Because we know he can help it. But really, the fact that he can help it is what makes the chapter powerful. When a Harvard student's thoughts and memories are comparable in confusosity (not a word, I'm well aware) to those of someone like Benjy...red flag. Now we have to not only get through the labyrinthetic (again...not a word, sorry) prose, but also figure out why Quentin's chapter is written this way. Faulkner is making a point by enrolling Quentin at Harvard, the most prestigious college in American history. Benjy is an idiot, Quentin is not, but their chapters are in many ways equally jumbled. Faulkner gives us Benjy's "why," but he leaves Quentin's lost in the labyrinth. And Faulkner, that scoundrel, expects me to figure the whole thing out?
The nerve.

But for real...
Quentin's chapter kicks some literary backside.