As I Lay Dying
As I Lay Dying is a title all too fitting for its contents. It describes verbatim how I personally felt while reading it. This was my first Faulkner read and I desperately wanted to like him. A name like his appeals to my obnoxious side because it affirms that I’m reading “one of the greats”—a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner no less!
I was instantaneously disappointed. I kept thinking get me the hell out of here as I trudged through all 267 pages. The story centers on a Mississippian family of seven, which quickly becomes six when the matron, Addie Bundren, passes. To fulfill her dying wish that she be buried in Jefferson—a city far from their own—the children accompany their father in a wagon journey beset by physical and emotional obstacles. Just as Addie confronts the Great Unknown, her family faces unfamiliar territory while they get her earthly arrangements in order.
One redeeming quality of this novel is its range of narration. Each chapter is told from the viewpoint of a different character. For instance, “Darl” is told by Darl, “Cash” is told by Cash, “Vardaman” is told by Vardaman, “Anse” is told by Anse, etc. I think you get the picture, I just wanted you to see their stupid names. Showing the same scene from multiple angles unlocks a deluge of juicy family secrets. As the novel progresses, a back story develops and certain suspicions piece together nicely. The chapter expressed from Addie’s own perspective after her death was by far the most articulate and entertaining.
Unfortunately, the majority of the characters suck. They are simpletons with an unwavering trust in God and a completely impractical self-righteous sense of duty. Their stubbornness annoyed me to no end and the fact that everyone was putting themselves at risk of dying just to bury someone who was already dead was something that I couldn’t get behind. Somebody get this lady in the ground STAT.
Without giving too much away-- because the faint, sporadic surprises are really all this book has going for it—Faulkner addresses loyalty, both in death and in life. When someone dies with guilt and lies, do those untruths linger and haunt or do they disappear with the body?
To be fair, Faulkner has his eloquent moments. Here are two examples:
· “It is as though upon a face carved by a savage caricaturist a monstrous burlesque of all bereavement flows” (Faulkner, 78)
·“We go on, with a motion so soporific, so dreamlike as to be uninferant of progress, as though time and not space were decreasing between us and it” (Faulkner, 107).
I enjoyed reading that. That was nice. But you can’t just have a shitty story with a few beautiful sentences littered throughout and expect me to walk away focusing on the bright side. His words have a Joseph Conrad flair, and sure enough, the back of the book likens Faulkner to his Polish contemporary. My reservations with As I Lay Dying and Heart of Darkness are strikingly similar. Consider this passage instead:
·“Cash tried but she fell off and Darl jumped going under he went under and Cash hollering to catch her and I hollering running and hollering and Dewey Dell hollering at me Vardaman you vardaman you vardaman and Vernon passed me because he was seeing her come up and she jumped into the water again and Darl hadn’t caught her yet He came up to see and I hollering catch her Darl catch her and he didn’t come back because she was too heavy he had to go on catching at her and I hollering catch her darl catch her darl because in the water she could go faster than a man and Darl had to grabble for her so I knew he could catch her because he is the best grabbler even with the mules in the way again they dived up rolling their feet stiff rolling down again and their backs up now and Darl had to again because in the water she could go faster than a man or a woman and I passed Vernon and he wouldn’t get in the water and help Darl he wouldn’t grabble for her with Darl he knew but he wouldn’t help…” (Faulkner, 150).
No, I didn’t fall asleep with my head smashed on the keyboard… that’s how the novel was actually written. I get that Faulkner was trying to muster up an image of chaos through his speech pattern, but that is not enjoyable to read. He takes stream of consciousness too far—beyond the realm of tolerability. Moreover, his unusual use of punctuation—especially with dialogue—struck me as bewildering rather than inventive. And that’s precisely how I’d sum it all up: terribly confusing in a feeble attempt to be early-20th-century-edgy. There are so many amazing books out there with fabulous writing that are simultaneously sensical. Read those!
Clearly, I’m not crazy about this overly revered garbage. I don’t appreciate having to brain-strain to get through bulky, uninhabitable sentences just to reach the stunningly beautiful ones. Please convey your story to me in a less brutal way. As I Lay Dying gets 1 out of 5 flames.
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