'The Sound and the Fury' as William Faulkner imagined, in color (2012) | Hacker News Reader

'The Sound and the Fury' as William Faulkner imagined, in color (2012)

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19 points_Microft28 comments

Folio Society editions are amazingly gorgeous. I have a few, but none that cost $345.

Two things about the linked article:

1. The lede is just bad. Why would dense writing be in tension with winning a Nobel?

2. That the Folio Society consulted Noel Polk on this is an excellent sign. Polk, who sadly passed away in 2012, was one of the foremost Faulkner scholars. I had the pleasure of knowing him as I was growing up; his kids were a couple years behind me in school, and we attended the same church. I knew he was an English professor, but I had no idea of his stature until I picked up a copy of _As I Lay Dying_ for class, and saw it had a forward by Dr Polk.

Sadly, this edition of TSATF is long since sold out.

There are many people these days that use formatting to further their writing, but a particular example that I enjoyed immensely was Danielewski's House of Leaves.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves

I remember fondly the experience of reading a passage with either a chase or a fall, and each page having less words (down to 1 word per page, several times), the effect of which was that you started to page the book faster and faster, giving your reading a wonderful sense of acceleration.

The original 1979 edition of The Neverending Story was printed in two inks (red and green) depending if the action was set in the real word or in Fantastica. I wonder if more books use this technique?

It is a pity that later, cheaper editions of The Neverending Story were printed in black ink only. I read the original (well, original English translation) and it really added to the story.

Incidentally, for anyone out there that hasn't read The Neverending Story, I recommend it. The book is very different to the film and starts messing with the reader about halfway in.

Plus it had those fantastic illustrations by Rowitha Quadflieg! (which is decidedly the most Harry Potter-esque name I've ever read in real life).

There's a black and red edition of The Princess Bride.

Yes, the first edition of The Princess Bride had red text for Goldman's "editorial" comments. I don't know if there have been editions since which maintained that convention?

I loved this book when I read it in college. Things people should know:

* It's funny. * Benjy is just one of the characters. He has mental issues, which make his chapters more difficult, but the other characters' chapters are straight forward, give you context, and push the story forward. * Benjy's chapters aren't really that difficult. * It's been 20 years since I read this so everything I've written here may be wrong :)

I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and feel like I need to re-read it just so I know what's going on in context for the Benjy section.

Since these sold out really quickly maybe they could print some affordable versions in colour in the future (sans leather covers etc).

Are there any books that use different fonts or font sizes to convey for example feelings of a character? Large bold font when they feel strong; tiny, scribbled text when they feel frightened, and so on?

There might be a few things that could be explored here, turning a book from a simple way to present text into an indispensable part of the piece it contains.

Not for emotions, but House of Leaves makes excessive use of different fonts and typesetting techniques to interesting effect.

House of Leaves made me scared of my own house for months. +1

I'm thinking of Death in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, who speaks in sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs.

I found Sir Terry to be great with various mannerisms and speech patterns he devised for his characters. Just this small detail can add so much memorability to a character who may have been relatively minor otherwise. Like Inigo Skimmer's regular "mmh-mmph" in The Fifth Elephant which could be a sarcastic snigger or a nervous laugh and to some degree it is left up to the imagination of the reader to interpret it based. It somehow makes the character relatable and realistic.

Interesting. The ambiguity itself must create the kind of mental state associated with empathy. Clever trick for a writer of fiction, I'll have to steal that.

And that full page NO.

Works best in the hardcover where the text doesn’t leak through the page.

And if you want a perfectly cast voice in your head for him, play Discworld II for the PC.

According to IMDB¹, that was Rob Brydon. Although I thought that the voice of Death in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather (2006) was good (by Ian Richardson).

1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199468/

Check out House of Leaves. Some sections have text in every orientation possible. A engrossing and difficult, but rewarding, read. I now want to read it again.

I believe this was done occasionally in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

I’ve attempted to read The Sound and the Fury twice over the years: once giving up part way through Benjy's section, and the second time tapping out shortly after finishing it. Very validating to read that even the editor mentioned here found it tremendously confusing!

My sudden hopes to start a book collection, dashed

Well that seems to have sold out quickly.

Well, not necessarily; the linked story is from 2012.

Yeah hopefully they do a reprint

Oh God that is an awful awful book

I can't believe it is taught for anything other than "how to not write"

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