Tuesday, October 15, 2019

As I Lay Dying – #1930Club

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been trying to read all 100 books listed on the 100 Best Novels which is a list of English-language novels published in the 20th century.  I do understand that this 100 Best Novels list was a marketing ploy on the part of the Modern Library, an imprint of Random House, which – SURPRISE- publishes all 100 titles.  I also understand that any list of "best" books is incomplete and subjective.  But for me it has been an interesting challenge to try and tick off every title and while there have been a few stinkers, there have been wonderful discoveries too.  

When the 1930 Club (hosted by Simon, who blogs at  Stuck in a Book and Karen, who blogs at Kaggy’s Bookish Ramblings) was announced for November, I saw that As I Lay Dying, which is on the 100 Best Novels list, was published that year. My choice was made! I worried at first that I wouldn’t finish it in time for the 1930 Club, but it is pretty short (my edition had 244 pages) and aside from some of the stream of consciousness bits, not too difficult to digest.   

As with some high falutin’ modern classics, the story is simple: Aggie Bundren is dying. Her feckless husband has promised her that she will be buried in Jackson where her “people” are from, which is 40 miles away from their farm. She dies and the journey with her corpse is bedeviled by bad luck and ignorance on the part of the Bundren family.   A journey that should take a couple of days ends up taking over a week and meanwhile, the body starts to decompose in the summer heat.

This is the second novel I’ve read from Faulkner and I am confident he will never become a favorite of mine. Despite the book's brevity, it still behooves the reader to read it fairly slowly. I did think the sections that were straight dialogue were great. I looked up a few samples of Mississippi accent on YouTube so I could get the right voice in my head. U.S. Southern dialects and accents are all really different from another and I needed some verisimilitude. 

In Faulkner's depiction of the various character’s innermost thoughts, he often uses references and vocabulary that wouldn’t be known to persons of the Bundren’s socio-economic class.  It is here where the book didn't work for me. I get that there is a line between what one states and what one thinks and we don’t think in words but it was jarring nonetheless.  Especially when the speaker/thinker is supposed to be a child. The characters also drove me insane! I realize it was purposeful, but they all make the worst choices, whether out of ignorance or spite or selfishness. I think what makes the book and the characters so frustrating is that, while the book doesn't come right out and say it, in death they are honoring their mother in a way they neglected to when she was alive. But this is foolish. She is dead and there is no point to this ritual. It only damages and impoverishes them further. The devotion should have been shown when she was alive and could have had some benefit from it. But this is often the way of human motivation I think. 

In some ways As I Lay Dying reminded me of Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road which also features poor, rural whites in the American South in the first half of the 20th century. But Caldwell went more for comedy - dark comedy, but still comedy. I guess some readers might find humor in the various setbacks that plague the Bundren family as they journey (or maybe in the youngest child Vardemann's confused thoughts, "My mother is a fish") but I found As I Lay Dying pretty bleak. 

I am glad to have read it however. I am glad that Faulkner’s works exist. He had an significant influence on other writers;  Cormac McCarthy for one, whom I’ve never read and Toni Morrison for another, whom I revere. I can see the through line to Morrison, although I find her books and her style to be much more compelling. 

20 comments:

  1. Two difficult Modern Library choices in a row! Yowza! Congratulations!

    The Bundrens aren't very bright, but I can well imagine them trying to honor Addie's last wish even if--or maybe especially because--they took her so for granted during her life.

    I've still got Light in August to go (sounds like you do, too) but I also read Absalom, Absalom once upon a time & I think that's my favorite of the ones I've read. I found it the most difficult (Arghh!) but also the most suggestive of Toni Morrison.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Reese!

      There were a few non-Modern Library reads in between, never fear. I would go crazy if I had to read back to back James and Faulkner. Good thing I wasn't a lit major.

      It is all too human to make grand gestures to soothe our feelings of guilt. This is not limited to the Bundrens, for sure.

      I read Light in August last year and it wasn't too bad. Pretty light on the stream of consciousness stuff. No one's mother was a fish. :D But I do still have to read The Sound and the Fury. GULP!

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  2. Faulkner's not a favorite of mine either. Good job finishing this one! :)

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    1. Thanks for the comment Lark! I feel accomplished. :D

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  3. Then I can look forward to Light in August without too much trepidation!

    Long (long, long) before I read any Faulkner "My mother is a fish" was a watchword among my reader friends for a book completely unintelligible. :D

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    1. Ha! I love it when that kind of shorthand exists among friends. :D

      Light in August is longer but the writing is fairly straight forward. What I remember most about it was the use of portmanteau words, which were effective IMO.

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  4. My favorite is The Sound and the Fury, but there were others I liked and some I hated. Sanctuary and Requiem for a Nun...just no.

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    1. Thanks for the comment jenclair! I've heard that The Sound and the Fury is pretty heavy going. I might use a reader's guide for it since I have heard it is mostly all in stream of consciousness style. The use of that technique in As I Lay Dying was fairly light. It would pop up but there was a lot of dialogue too. And the name of who's narrating was given at the top of each chapter.

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  5. I've had trepidation about Faulkner and your review confirms my sense that I need to read the books I really WANT to read before I try one of his. I've already wasted time on The Good Soldier so I need to go a long while before I waste more time. Good for you for trying these modern classics though, you have more tenacity than I .... I will stay with my Greeks, English and Russian literature for now ... Great review!

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    1. Thanks for the comment Cleo! Absolutely, so many books, so little time. Readers need to choose wisely! The Good Soldier is also on the Modern Library list, which is why I read it in the first place! LOL.

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  6. Hi Ruthiella, Congratulations on reading As I Lay Dying and continuing through the Modern Library List. I had the same reaction when I read The Sound and the Fury I found much of it incomprehensible but like you I would suddenly come upon straightforward dialogue and it was clear from those oassages that Faulkner is a great writer and that fact was confirmed when I read two of his short stories. One thing I noticed about Faulkner from The Sound and The Fury and his short stories is that he has empathy for female characters which differentiates him in my opinion from Steinbeck and Hemmingway.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Kathy and the congratulations! I am glad to hear there are glimpses of straight dialogue in The Sound and the Fury too. I will tackle it some time in the next few years for sure.

      That is an interesting point you make about female characters and Faulkner vs Hemingway and Steinbeck. I'll definitely keep it in mind as I read on. Certainly when I think of Cathy in Steinbeck's East of Eden I think of a very one dimensional female character. It is one of the reasons I didn't get on that well with that book. I wanted more nuance.

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  7. I've never ventured to Faulkner yet, and don't think I even own any books by him. One day... but only when I'm feeling brave!

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    1. Thanks for the comment Simon! Neither of the two books that I've read have been as difficult as I had feared. But I understand your trepidation...I feel it too! :D

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  8. Ya know, I don't think I had every read/heard what this book is actually about! I read Sound and Fury in HS and have avoided Faulkner ever since.

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    1. Thanks for the comment Care! The Sound and the Fury is the next Faulkner I need to tackle. Wish me luck! :D

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  9. I read this in high school, actually thought it pretty good, but have never, not once, felt the urge to reread it. I can remember talking with my kids about it when they also read it in high school. I think the recommendation to read it slowly is a good one!

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    1. Thanks for the comment Jane! I suspect I will also never feel the urge to re-read Faulkner (or Joyce either). But I am glad to have this one under my belt and also glad is wasn't as difficult as I had anticipated. :D

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  10. Well done, Ruthiella -- a Faulkner under your belt! I've had this one on my TBR list for a very long time, so I was particularly interested in your review.
    My first Faulkner experience was quite unfortunate -- The Sound and the Fury. I finished it in the sense that my eyes moved over all the words with very, very little comprehension of what I had just read. Many years of intense Faulkner avoidance after that, broken only because a very close friend was a Faulkner fanatic. Although my exposure to Faulkner is still pretty limited (no short stories and maybe five of his more stylistically straightforward novels) I ended up liking him quite a lot. I've even thought of spending some time to get familiar with more of his work. He's created that whole cosmos with many cross over characters and themes and I'm a sucker for seeing connections this way; I just love it when one character appears or is referred to in different books.
    My fav Faulkner novel, from what I've read BTW, is Absalom, Absalom (sibling murder! blood guilt! incest! doomed love! Melodrama!).
    Loved the accent research on You Tube (you ARE correct -- there's lots of variations in southern accents) I immediately went on the Tube myself to explore my own . . .

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    1. Thank you for the props Janakay! The Sound and the Fury is the next Faulkner title I have to read...*SHUDDER*. I will probably read it with a guide, to help make the incomprehensible more comprehensible. I do love the idea of a greater universe within a writer's works -David Mitchell does it, Stephen King does it, even Barbara Pym does it - it adds a layer of both enlightenment and discovery for readers. Absalom, Absalom is not on my list, but maybe once I am finished with the Modern Library and free to read what ever, I will give it a whirl. I remember the biblical story of Absalom (the hair and the tree), in fact, the story of David and his progeny is also full of sibling murder and doomed love, right?

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