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Loading... As I Lay Dying (1930)by William Faulkner
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I think Faulkner's writing is really beautiful, but also really hard to follow. I read this in college and when it came time to write papers, I seriously feared that I'd maybe misunderstood the entire book. Years later I tried reading some of his other novels and realized that As I Lay Dying might be his most accessible work. As I Lay Dying is an astounding book and a deceivingly challenging one at that. It's probably the most popular of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County stories. It's a short, dark, and compelling novel set in what he called “my apocryphal county”, a fictional rendering of Lafayette County in his native Mississippi. As I Lay Dying, Faulkner's novel of 1930 about a Southern family of poor whites narrated by its members and their neighbors, its events refracted through multiple points of view, is accessible yet somehow dense; poetic yet plain. It seems simple on the surface, As I Lay Dying tells the story of the Bundren family as they attempt to move a coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi. What makes As I Lay Dying challenging and so innovative is its narrative voice. The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her poor, rural family's quest to bury her - but it becomes so much more than this simple journey. It becomes a novel about the inner lives of each character. As they talk they reveal what Addie calls their own "secret and selfish though" -their private responses to Addie's life and their own separate reasons for undertaking the perilous journey to bury her. What first appears to be a simple task– transporting a coffin to a burial ground– quickly transforms into a journey that will change the family forever. This jigsaw puzzle of perspectives forces the reader to piece together the story bit by bit. Each chapter is labeled with the narrator’s name, though Faulkner writes his characters so distinctly that the reader would likely be able to identify the narrator even without the helpful note at the top of the page. Over the course of the novel, we learn the many secrets this family has been hiding, including knowledge that only certain family members know. Many shocking revelations are revealed throughout. And the ending - is a doozy! Truly, the brilliance of this sometimes difficult novel lies in Faulkner’s compulsive, bleak unfolding of Addie’s history and her relationship with her beloved son, Jewel, the result of her affair with Rev Whitfield, the local minister. In counterpoint to this, we also meet her family, an extraordinary cast of weird southerners – Cash, Darl, Dewey Dell and Vardaman Bundren. Dewey Dell, the teenage daughter, who is trying to get an abortion, is probably the most sympathetic character throughout the novel. It is interesting that Faulkner chooses to contrast the death of the matriarch with her teenage's daughter pregancy. I'm not sure exactly why this is, but I'm willing to meditate on this for a bit. This was my second time reading this classic novel. I read it once in my early twenties. Now that I'm in my thirties, I am seeing this novel differently. Families are often built on secrets, on difficult personalities, members often selfish and compulsive. If anything, this novel reminds me that I must love my family well and choose not to be selfish if I can. I'll be curious to see how I relate to this novel next time I read this novel.
The influence of William Faulkner’s immersive tale of raw Mississippi rural life can be felt to this day. No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there. He is the greatest artist the South has produced.... Indeed, through his many novels and short stories, Faulkner fights out the moral problem which was repressed after the nineteenth century [yet] for all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for greatness of our classics. Brilliant and compelling...one is constrained to follow to the end In a single brief decade, Faulkner had produced more lasting works of fiction than many great writers do in a lifetime Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inIs abridged inInspiredHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a studyHas as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideNotable Lists
Classic Literature.
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML:Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time From the Modern Libraryâ??s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by William Faulknerâ??also available are Snopes, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Selected Short Stories One of William Faulknerâ??s finest novels, As I Lay Dying, originally published in 1930, remains a captivating and stylistically innovative work. The story revolves around a grim yet darkly humorous pilgrimage, as Addie Bundrenâ??s family sets out to fulfill her last wish: to be buried in her native Jefferson, Mississippi, far from the miserable backwater surroundings of her married life. Told through multiple voices, As I Lay Dying vividly brings to life Faulknerâ??s imaginary South, one of literatureâ??s great invented landscapes, and is replete with the poignant, impoverished, violent, and hypnotically fascinating characters that were his trademark. Along with a new Foreword by E. L. Doctorow, this edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Faulkner No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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But now I've read Faulkner. Some writers brush style on the page lightly, and some slather it on in heavy strokes, so thick and lumpy you might have difficulty making out the picture. Faulkner obviously being one of these latter ones. At points I was left scratching my head, as here:
Well, that manner of stylistic whirlymagig isn't particularly my sort of tea. Yet most of the writing doesn't reach those heights of opulance, and after you've settled into it, we have here a compelling novel that I did enjoy. A dysfunctional family on a dysfunctional week long funeral march through rural 1930-ish Mississippi; you got your pathos, your black humor, your surprising revelations, your sympathetic characters and your crazy ones, making for a rollicking ol' ride. ( )