Summer Book #12

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Yes, I am that weirdo who reads Faulkner and Shakespeare for fun.

I first read this book in 2007, in my American Lit class at SHSU. It is the first Faulkner book I ever read, and that is what made me intrigued by his works. I decided to reread the book because I recently saw the movie made from this novel, and wanted to revisit it. The movie was fairly accurate to the novel.

If there is one thing you should know about Faulkner's style, it's that he is unconventional. He plays around with grammar and punctuation to fit his needs, and he uses dialect to put the reader exactly where he wants them. In this case, Jefferson, Mississippi.

Jefferson is a fictional town. It is supposed to represent Oxford. It is in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, which is supposed to represent Lafayette county. Everyone in his stories and novels is connected. It's like a giant spiderweb for a family tree. Faulkner had it all in his head, and he is the only one who knew all the connections. It's part of his genius.

As to the story....It is told from somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen narrators, including Addie Bundren, who is dead. In its simplest terms, it is the story of a dysfunctional family. There's Anse, the father. In my opinion, he's a snake. He tries to make his family feel sorry for him because he has no teeth in his head, that he is long suffering because he gave them everything he had. That may or may not be true. What is true is that he traded his son's horse, that his son paid for himself, and took his daughter's money because he felt they owed him for his suffering.

Next is Addie. She is lying on her deathbed, looking out the window at her son making her coffin. Another son drilled holes in said coffin while she was lying dead in it, and ended up drilling holes in her face. Her death is what puts all the craziness in motion because, some time before, she made Anse promise she'd be buried with her people in Jefferson.

The oldest son is Cash. He is a carpenter. He made the coffin, and on the way to Jefferson, broke his leg. His genius family thought it would be a good idea to put concrete on his leg, and nearly cost him the leg. Next oldest is Darl. This experience of transporting Addie's body to Jefferson has caused him to go crazy. Who could blame him with the father he has? He knows without her telling him, that his sister is pregnant, and that one of his brothers doesn't share his father. He keeps it to himself. He spends most of the book being the voice of reason. After eight days on the road with a corpse, he's had enough, and sets the barn it is resting in on fire in the hopes that they can end the journey. Instead, he is arrested, and his father is the culprit who made sure that happened.

The third child is Jewel. When he was fifteen, he worked his butt off overnight to earn the cost of a horse. The horse his father trades away without consulting him. Jewel is Addie's favorite, and it is because he is the product of something she did for herself. Basically, he's the child of an affair, and Anse has no idea. Jewel spends most of the book brooding over something. The fourth child, and only girl, is Dewey Dell. She got knocked up and hopes to find a cure for that in town. No one wants to help her, and she ends up getting into more trouble. Last is Vardaman. He's very young, and doesn't really understand any of what is going on. The most memorable chapter in the book is his: "My mother is a fish."

So, Addie dies, and the family is going to fulfill Anse's promise to have her buried in Jefferson. The night she dies, there is a torrential rainstorm that washes out two bridges. The Bundrens try to cross the river anyway, and end up with drowned mules and a broken leg. Anse trades some things, including Jewel's horse, to get another wagon team, and they make their way to Jefferson. Nine days it takes. In the heat. Buzzards following them every step of the way. Nearly arrested in one town for causing a public health issue from the smell.

I should mention that all the other narrators are people they know, who interacted with them on the journey.

Great book.