As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner
★★★★
Faulkner, why do you make my brain spin in such a disorienting way? This novel, like many of Faulkner’s books, has multiple narrators telling a story that is centered around one major event. In this case, Addie Bundren is dying and she has asked her husband and adult children to travel to another county in Mississippi with her body to bury her in her hometown when she dies.
The thing about Faulkner is that you often don’t know where you stand with his books. His work seems intentionally obtuse, almost like he doesn’t want you to understand what’s going on; he’s famous for this. His narrators are often unreliable, sometimes because they are lying to the reader and distorting the truth until it’s unrecognizable (Absalom, Absalom). Other times it’s because the narrators themselves are confused (The Sound and the Fury). In this book you have a bit of both. Everyone has their own agenda and they tell their story while hiding their secrets from each other and sometimes the reader.
I’ll admit, usually I’d prefer to know where I stand when I’m reading. There are certainly exceptions to this, but I tend to prefer narrators that I can trust. I really struggled to follow the flow of this book. I knew what was going on, but keeping everyone (and their back stories and motivations) straight is difficult. There are so many characters and as we progress across the state with Addie’s coffin in tow, we learn how each character has reached this point in their lives. None of them seem happy with their lot in life and it’s not hard to understand why.
The thing that always redeems Faulkner’s work for me is the descriptions. The writing is just so beautiful and that far outweighs the disjointed plot. His writing is poetic and since I struggle with poetry to begin with, it’s no hard to see why Faulkner is a stretch for me.
BOTTOM LINE: Absolutely worth reading, it’s an American classic, but go into it knowing Faulkner is going to take you for a ride. Sit back and enjoy the words that will take you there and don’t get too stressed about the details along the way.
“I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind -- and that of the minds who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town.”
by William Faulkner
★★★★
Faulkner, why do you make my brain spin in such a disorienting way? This novel, like many of Faulkner’s books, has multiple narrators telling a story that is centered around one major event. In this case, Addie Bundren is dying and she has asked her husband and adult children to travel to another county in Mississippi with her body to bury her in her hometown when she dies.
The thing about Faulkner is that you often don’t know where you stand with his books. His work seems intentionally obtuse, almost like he doesn’t want you to understand what’s going on; he’s famous for this. His narrators are often unreliable, sometimes because they are lying to the reader and distorting the truth until it’s unrecognizable (Absalom, Absalom). Other times it’s because the narrators themselves are confused (The Sound and the Fury). In this book you have a bit of both. Everyone has their own agenda and they tell their story while hiding their secrets from each other and sometimes the reader.
I’ll admit, usually I’d prefer to know where I stand when I’m reading. There are certainly exceptions to this, but I tend to prefer narrators that I can trust. I really struggled to follow the flow of this book. I knew what was going on, but keeping everyone (and their back stories and motivations) straight is difficult. There are so many characters and as we progress across the state with Addie’s coffin in tow, we learn how each character has reached this point in their lives. None of them seem happy with their lot in life and it’s not hard to understand why.
The thing that always redeems Faulkner’s work for me is the descriptions. The writing is just so beautiful and that far outweighs the disjointed plot. His writing is poetic and since I struggle with poetry to begin with, it’s no hard to see why Faulkner is a stretch for me.
BOTTOM LINE: Absolutely worth reading, it’s an American classic, but go into it knowing Faulkner is going to take you for a ride. Sit back and enjoy the words that will take you there and don’t get too stressed about the details along the way.
“I can remember how when I was young I believed death to be a phenomenon of the body; now I know it to be merely a function of the mind -- and that of the minds who suffer the bereavement. The nihilists say it is the end; the fundamentalists, the beginning; when in reality it is no more than a single tenant or family moving out of a tenement or a town.”
