Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Jayne Anne Phillips’ latest book, “Lark and Termite,” opens with an epigram from William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” “Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.” It is a fitting borrowing in a number of ways—both books use the time span of four key days to piece together the meaning of family through four different points of view; both extensively utilize stream-of-consciousness style in order to do so; and both feature sons with mental retardation that gives way to a type of clairvoyance.

Phillips gives an explicit nod of acknowledgment to Faulkner and the inevitable parallels readers will draw between them. However, there is a key difference. While Faulkner’s characters are riddled with vice that brings them to ruin, Phillips’ characters are more hopeful. While this makes “Lark and Termite” a less distressing read, its grip upon the imagination is sure to fade in comparison to Faulkner’s classic.

The narrators in “Lark and Termite” are all introverted, insightful, and observant. What’s more, they are uniformly and oppressively good. The novel opens with the perspective of Corporal Robert Leavitt, father of the as-yet-unborn Termite (the portions that feature Leavitt occur on the same days as the other perspectives, but nine years before). Leavitt is an American soldier in South Korea who is devoted to his wife (read: does not have sex with prostitutes), and, ultimately, gives his life to protect a young Korean mother and her blind child from American fire. Lark and Termite are half-siblings through their mother, who dies before the narrative begins. Though 17, and just discovering her own sexuality for the first time, Lark is completely devoted to Termite’s care. She decides not to go to college so that she can stay and be “Termite’s mother, one of them.” Termite can only parrot words, not speak them, and has never cried, but his section of the book’s narration is imbued with an otherworldly clairvoyance.

The most interesting perspective is that of Lark and Termite’s aunt, Nonie, who has effectively raised them. Nonie has taken pains to cover over the memory of her sister, a woman whom it seems was always more beloved than she was. Her attitude toward the children is constantly shifting, and she dribbles out her emotion in jaded comments. “Don’t ever let a man inside you,” she tells Lark, starting when Lark is only about nine years old. If Nonie was jealous of her sister, her story would have a little more depth. But it becomes clear that, deep down, Nonie cannot be jealous of a selfless gift (that of children)from her sister. The narrators on a whole are nauseatingly blameless, and in another novel a compelling plot would pick up the slack. However, in 250 pages, the only real plot points are a melodramatic unfurling of family lineage and a rain storm.

Another syrupy note in sharp contrast to “The Sound and the Fury,” is the perspective from the previous generation. Corporal Leavitt, Termite’s father, makes his account almost a decade before the rest of the events of the book, an ocean away. His story draws to a close in South Korea precisely as Termite is being born in America. He has been shot in the spine and is dying in an underground tunnel, and his final thoughts are beautiful in their own respect. But his story serves only to explain Termite’s condition, as Leavitt’s dying vision becomes the telepathic stimulus for the images Termite draws.

Termite’s back story gives him a sort of religious aura, the potency of which is explicated (and thereby diminished) when Lark says straight out, “From the beginning, I confused him with an angel, a good part of me that didn’t speak and wouldn’t talk in plain language.” An albino Social Service worker, literally invisible to the rest of society, appears to him in times of desperation. With a voice of many whispering sounds, bearing gifts such as a wheelchair and flowers, the albino serves the role of a not-so-subtle angel. Phillips’ conceit to render a mentally handicapped boy in a Christ-like light plumbs, anemically, into the same well as Faulkner’s Benjy. What separates Benjy from Termite is that Termite’s transcendental nature is flat and incompatible with the greater story, while Benjy’s presence is one that illuminates religious allegory. Even the poetic prose of his section lends Termite an elevating sense of omniscience. “He sits by the window and hears the faint roots of the grass in the berm of the alley, long veiny threads that reach deep in the ground to drink where no one sees.” These elements fail to indicate any deeper, more enlightening reading of the story, and since they are not sufficiently integrated into the plot, they stand out glaringly. And, for a novel following in Faulkner’s footsteps to mimic the human mind as closely as possible, such flat goodwill and deeply poetic style undermines Phillips’ very premise. It stands, not as an exposition on the human psyche, but one of human ideals. And this isn’t anything new.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Schuetz can be reached at schuetz@fas.harvard.edu.