As I Lay Dying [Paperback]

William Faulkner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 1996

The death and burial of Addie Bundren is told by members of her family, as they cart the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her people. And as the intense desires, fears and rivalries of the family are revealed in the vernacular of the Deep South, Faulkner presents a portrait of extraordinary power - as epic as the Old Testament, as American as Huckleberry Finn.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Faulkner's distinctive narrative structures--the uses of multiple points of view and the inner psychological voices of the characters--in one of its most successful incarnations here in As I Lay Dying. In the story, the members of the Bundren family must take the body of Addie, matriarch of the family, to the town where Addie wanted to be buried. Along the way, we listen to each of the members on the macabre pilgrimage, while Faulkner heaps upon them various flavors of disaster. Contains the famous chapter completing the equation about mothers and fish--you'll see. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

"For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner's works] are without equal in our time and country."
--Robert Penn Warren --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (January 4, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099479311
• ISBN-13: 978-0099479314
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (238 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,916,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, William Faulkner was the son of a family proud of their prominent role in the history of the south. He grew up in Oxford, Mississippi, and left high school at fifteen to work in his grandfather's bank.

Rejected by the US military in 1915, he joined the Canadian flyers with the RAF, but was still in training when the war ended. Returning home, he studied at the University of Mississippi and visited Europe briefly in 1925.

His first poem was published in The New Republic in 1919. His first book of verse and early novels followed, but his major work began with the publication of The Sound and the Fury in 1929. As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and The Wild Palms (1939) are the key works of his great creative period leading up to Intruder in the Dust (1948). During the 1930s, he worked in Hollywood on film scripts, notably The Blue Lamp, co-written with Raymond Chandler.

William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize for The Reivers just before his death in July 1962.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

262 of 273 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faulkner with training wheels: helmet still advised ;-), June 8, 2002

By 

notaprofessional "notaprofessional" (san francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

To quote the briefest chapter, the one that would surely catch your eye if you picked it off a shelf and skimmed through it: "My mother is a fish."

As with his stunning _The_Sound_and_the_Fury_ and _Absalom_Absalom_, this book makes use of the author's masterful use of stream-of-conscious writing to render an entire reality with internal monologues. The story unfolds as you construct it from the observations and responses of the characters. Though briefer and less challenging than these other two books, it's as absorbing a read as they have been for decades. When you reach the end, you can imagine that you'll pick up the book again someday, sure there's more to explore.

The structure is simple once you get the hang of it. Each chapter is the name of a particular character in the story of the family of Addie Bundren, dead in the first few pages, and being transported by her clan to the land of her birth for burial-by wagon, in the heat and dust, over rivers, for weeks, before the vacuum seal... There is no "Once upon a time." Instead, whatever that character is thinking at the instant the chapter begins is what you're reading. Soon, you know who everyone is and what she thinks of everyone else. The effect of this structure is that you can inhabit the narrative as each of the players, can see how events are interpreted differently. It's also like a mystery-someone will have troubled thoughts about something you can't quite distinguish; then, twenty pages later, you figure out what they've been talking about and you flip backward in a frenzy to see how the early references to the issue flesh out the story. This is a terribly rewarding way of reading.

This is a great first Faulkner for everyone. You develop the ability to read his complex novels by virtue of the simplicity of the story and the mostly brief chapters, each from a fresh point of view. You learn to read on if you don't get something. (Important skill: Faulkner is one of my absolute favorite authors since high school, and one of my favorite things is that you have to trust the story to tell you what you need to know in time. Not only do you get the reward of context for the occasional non sequitur, but you have the thrill of anticipation when something weird happens. This book is a great example of how, unlike Hemingway, where you have to read a basically boring story over and over to understand all the juicy stuff, Faulkner gives you nibbles of fantastic plot to hold you through the ultimate analysis.

113 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rubbernecking on the Literary Highway, February 6, 2007

By 

Alesha N. Gates "Christian, Mother, Daughter,... (Mississippi) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

I was re-reading this book last week, pen and highlighter in hand, when my husband walked into the living room and said, "What are you reading?" I lifted the cover. "Is it any good?" To which I replied, "No," and he responded, "Why are you reading it?" And, slightly irritated, I said, "For the same reason you are watching the American Idol Audition show. It's DEFINITELY not good, but you can't look away."

And so it is with most of Faulkner's work. As a reader, you should not go into his work expecting anything "good." You won't find an easy or clear plotline, clear language, or (and this is USUALLY a major gripe of mine) likeable characters. But even though you don't really like what you are reading, you just have to know how it ends. You have to know what makes these reprehensible people tick. And, surprisingly enough, you are usually unsatisfied in the end, but not so much that you don't want to double back and have one more look at the car-wreck that is the work of Faulkner.

And so it is with *As I Lay Dying*. It's a fascinating piece of work, masterfully crafted, ultimately depressing, and darkly funny all at once. Having been to Rowan Oak a few times, I can see Faulkner sitting in his front garden chuckling over the idea of Vardaman's infamous "My Mother is a fish," chapter and how it captivated the world with it's "brilliance."

I also have no doubt, having grown up in Mississippi, that he was writing about real people, warts and all. I'm probably related to some of them. Maybe for that reason, Faulkner reads a little differently to locals. While I certainly appreciate his literary genius, the truth and realism of what he wrote also shines through. Reading Faulkner is a little like attending a funeral in Mississippi, something that closely resembles a family reunion set anywhere else - everybody's talking at once (in the most genteel manner, except for that blacksheep son - we all know he's not his Daddy's child, bless his heart - who keeps using bad language) about stuff that would absolutely curl the toenails of anyone is polite "society." The stream-of-consciousness style reminds me very much of what I picked up on as a child overhearing these conversations in the viewing room of the funeral parlor.

So . . . read with an open mind. And if the humor throws you at first, find a copy of the short story of *A Rose for Emily*. It will help you to better understand what Faulkner considered funny. Though off on other literary journeys, I'm sure that eventually my morbid curiousity will draw me back to this trainwreck again before too long . . . just can't stop looking . . .

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Faulkner Book, February 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text (Paperback)

Many people contend that Faulkner's books are only concerned with the nature of man in the American South. Although set in the South (Faulkner was, after all, from Mississippi), I think his books explore the nature of man...everywhere.

In my opinion, As I Lay Dying is his masterpiece. The Bundren's are the poorest family Faulkner ever wrote about and their journey across Mississippi to bury their wife and mother is both harrowing and revealing.

Faulkner uses multiple viewpoint and writes perfect stream-of-consciousness. This is not the poetic stream-of-consciousness of Virginia Woolf, however, or the elegant stream-of-consciousness of James Joyce. Faulkner's unique brand is more intimate and revealing, more raw, more down-to-earth.
Each of the characters we hear from has his own unique perspective and voice, but the differences are subtle and never jarring as is the case with lesser authors. Faulkner had enormous talent; he knew there was no reason for him to "try too hard."

As I Lay Dying isn't always an enjoyable read, but it's a classic of American (as well as world) literature and definitely should not be missed.