As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text

Very Faulkner true to his writing deep dark outstanding book

Updated review: I was quickly sent a replacement with a perfect cover. I'll still be able to give this book as a Christmas present after all! Original review: First of all, five stars for the story itself, one of my favorite classic books. This one, however, arrived with a torn front cover. It was meant to be a gift, and if I had wanted to give someone what looked like a used book, I would have saved myself the money and shopped at a used book store.

To say that Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" is a tale about a dying woman with five kids and a husband who wants to be taken to her ancestral land after her death is like saying that "The Odyssey" is about a man shipping home with his fellow soldiers after fighting in a brutal war and meeting with some adventures on the way. As with a select few stories of this kind, the symbolism in Faulkner's construction far outpaces its factual content. Astonishingly, Faulkner hammered out the book in six weeks while he was working on the night shift in a power plant. Superficially, "As I Lay Dying" is indeed a story about a woman named Addie Bundren and her dirt-poor family in backward, dirt-poor Mississippi. The poverty depicted in the story is achingly real. The novel begins with the eerie vision of one of her sons building her coffin outside the ramshackle hut in which she's dying; the chug, chug of his tools fills the air, and with a last gasp of effort the mother makes it to the window to watch her son building the vehicle of her passage to the other world. This son, Cash, is a craftsman who is dedicated to the operational details of her death. Her husband Anse is a complicated man, partly sympathetic and partly despicable, who is awaiting the event in a matter of fact way; so matter of fact that one of his goals in getting his dead wife to her chosen destination is to buy a set of dentures which he has craved for a long time. Poverty can do these things to men. The second son, Jewel, has fire in his wild eyes and a way with horses; he's as rebellious as his favorite steed. The third, Darl, who is one of the principal narrators is thought to be a little slow in the head, but somehow manages to see more than almost anyone else. Then there’s poor, wretched, seventeen-year-old Dewey Dell, hiding a pregnancy and desperate to secretly get it terminated. Finally, Vardaman, the youngest child, watches what is happening to his mother and the rest of the family through, curious, darting, fearful eyes. Every one of these people is trying to come to terms with Addie Bundren's death in their own unpredictable way. Like Faulkner’s other work, “As I Lay Dying” is not an easy read, but with a little patience it pays significant dividends. The two main reasons why the novel challenges the readers are its stream of consciousness style and non-linear narrative; the former turns single sentences into paragraphs-long meditations. Another layer of complexity is added by the language, which is what you would expect to hear in the poor, rural, 1930s South. Each chapter is a first person account by a different person, often of the same event. Some events switch between past and future; the mother herself narrates one of them. Each person carries his or her own baggage, and friends and neighbors play important supporting roles. The story unwinds like a bad dream through the death of the mother and the journey of the family with her coffin to her hometown where she is to be buried. Along the way the family meets with tragedies and adventures and reckons with their relationship with each other and their personal pain and history. The uniqueness of the novel lies in the way in which it alternately evokes both disgust and sympathy for the characters, as well as for the unexpected beauty of the language. This wretched, uneducated family speaking poor English nonetheless can display great stores of wisdom and eloquence, and in their interactions with each other and with their neighbors is showcased both humanity and pitiful indifference. As in “The Odyssey’, many aspects of their trip, including a mesmerizing account of a swollen river threatening to end both their lives and their aspirations, reflect some of the deepest fears and hopes in their souls. And, befitting any tale that plumbs the depths of human nature, there’s also no dearth of black comedy. “As I Lay Dying” is ultimately desolate and hauntingly beautiful in parts. Like Steinbeck and McCarthy after him, Faulkner managed to strip down the human experience to its raw elements and serve us some of its inner essence, with the American South serving as the grand stage on which this tragicomedy unfolds. It's eminently worth reading.

I purchased this book for my masters LIT class for an assignment. I was apprehensive about it at first but glad I purchased it. For the year it was written, it was well worth it. It is not easy for everyone to read a story that was published 1930. We have to keep in mind that movements towards women were in motion and that the novel may challenge what we perceive as ignorant now. It was just the way of life then. It was an easy and quick read for me. The impact of how the family had to make a journey to meet the wishes of Addie. Each chapter is told from a different character and you get a feel for how each character interacts with each other but also what they are feeling during this harsh time. No one wants to watch someone slowly leave them but the fact they are doing what she wanted makes it all the more worth it. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a story that has heart, this is the one for you.

At first I hated it, but as you read on it becomes easier to understand the story and the character's communication style. However, I don't understand the significance of the novel. People say it's one of the greatest ever, but I thought it was just ok. The imagery was so strange and illogical, some of it made no sense at all. The plot was stitched together through the monologues of nearly illiterate characters, making it hard to deduce the actual plot. After reading a synopsis online I could understand "iconic" moments in the book like "my mother is a fish", but I wasn't impressed by their meaning at all. A lot of reading between the lines is required. If I had a lot of extra time and brainpower to waste trying to derive some deeper meaning from a book like this then maybe I'd like it more, but I don't. It's still worth finishing, though. It's a decent story and it will make you a better reader for sure, but don't get hung up on it.

A classsic

book as described arrived fast

It's an authentic Vintage Classic books.

To my shame, this is the first Faulkner I’ve read. He’s another author that has been on the edge of my radar for years, but I’ve never got round to reading him, save for a few extracts given as examples when I was studying English Literature. This is a classic that is really worthy of the name. It’s a deceptively simple tale - a woman dies and her family transport her body back to her home town to fulfil her dying wish. But Faulkner uses this journey to take his reader on a journey too, revealing bit by bit the relationships between Addie’s children and with their father - their rivalries, their jealousies, their fears, their hopes, their dreams. The story to me though is in a way secondary to the writing. It is so, so well-crafted that it is almost awe-inspiring. That might sound over the top, but I had to keep stopping and re-reading, and reading out bits to my poor family because the sheer skill of the writing was so amazing. That isn’t to say that the writing is complicated. It’s dense, yes, but dense with meaning. Faulkner offers a masterclass here in saying a lot with a few words and images. Every word has a point, has a place and is needed. Nothing is wasted. Faulkner is a writer whose works are often studied, rather than simply read. And that’s a bit of a shame. It was lovely to read this simply for the pleasure of reading - and it really is an absolute pleasure to read.

libro che ho letto in italiano tutto in una notte l'ho amato profondamente questa è l'edizione in inglese del titolo italiano mentre morivo