As I lay dying: A concordance to the novel (The Faulkner concordances) [Hardcover]

Jack L Capps (Author), Cleanth Brooks (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1977 | Series: The Faulkner concordances

447PP

Product Details

• Hardcover: 428 pages
• Publisher: produced and distributed on demand by University Microfilms International (1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0835702545
• ISBN-13: 978-0835702546
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,569,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars rather eat mud, April 21, 2002

By 

"siris98" (Beattyville, KY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: As I lay dying: A concordance to the novel (The Faulkner concordances) (Hardcover)

Well lets start with the things I liked about this book, I thought that Faulkner really caught the amount of emotional stress of someone dying, and he cleverly allows you to see all the aspects of how this death affects everyone in the family. On the other hand it was hard to follow, the dead character has a "speaking" part, and there are several occurrences of deus ex machina.

When the character Vardaman is introduced he has just caught a large fish and is instructed to clean it before entering the house. While he is busy doing this a major character dies and this image/act is stick in his head. Several times throughout the rest book Vardaman mentions the fish. The title and one sentence composing an entire chapter is him saying "My _____ is a fish."

The entire Book is comprised of chapter entitled only with a characters name. That chapter will follow that characters thoughts and conversations. This allows the reader to understand what each character is feeling and why they do what they do and it also makes the book a little easier to follow because you know who's mind you are in.

While this aspect makes it a little easier to understand the book some events are a little hard to follow especially the ending. At the beginning of the book Anse, who is the father of the family, gives up a set of false teeth he has been looking forward to getting, then at the end after he leaves for a short period, Anse returns with a new set of false teeth and an unexpected guest.

As I mentioned before a character dies early on but about half way through the book there is a chapter where you get into their mind and can see their thoughts. This reveals a scandalous secret, and a lot about their life.

One thing I several was disappointed with was the way the author would put the family in precarious situations then just allow then an easy way out. Much like the deus ex machina of the Greek story tellers. On such occurrence is an incident in which the family try to cross high flood water and even though the rapids are strong enough to carry away the mule's the family manages to catch the coffin and pull it to shore. This happens a couple more times in the text of the novel.

Over all I'm glad I tried a novel by Faulkner but in speaking now with the voice of experience I would rather eat mud than do it again.