James Franco Doing His Best to Make Sure High Schoolers Never Have to Actually Read Another William Faulkner Book

Kids these days have it easy. When I was in high school, struggling to figure out the 20th century's literary masterpieces, one couldn't just pop a tape in the old VCR and expect to get all caught up. You had to actually read William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying; no film adaptation even existed.

Today's youth, on the other hand, have James Franco on their side, and apparently he has dedicated himself to making sure no teenager ever has to try to grasp Faulkner's difficult prose ever again. First Franco wrote, directed, and starred in the film adaptation of the aforementioned As I Lay Dying, which debuted at Cannes earlier this year. Now comes word from the Los Angeles Times that Franco is lined up to direct Faulkner's other major stream-of-consciousness work, The Sound and the Fury. One can only assume Light in August will come next, before Franco then moves on to tackle the bibliographies of James Joyce and Franz Kafka.

But going back to the Sound and Fury project for minute—it's not exactly a sure thing just yet. Franco did say, however, that it's "in pretty good shape"...and that he wants Jon Hamm to star.

Don Draper doing Faulkner? Like I said, kids these days have it easy.