So, I finished William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury a few weeks ago. And I can confidently say it is the most confusing novel I've read to date.
As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner
ISBN 978-0-679-73225-9
As I Lay Dying is a fictional piece of literature written by William Faulkner in 1930. It is available from Amazon.ca.
The story is told in an interesting fashion--each chapter is narrated by a different character (mostly members of the Bundren family, but also people who come into contact with them). I'm not sure, but I'm guessing this might be largely stream of consciousness (which I found annoying at times due to the lack of punctuation and such).
The plot follows the Bundren family through the death of Addie, wife of Anse and mother of Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. It follows them as they prepare for her death, recover from her death, and then as they transport her body to her home town for burial.
The characters are interesting, each having their own style of communicating and thinking. Although, it does get confusing at times, having the point of view switching every chapter. Also, I had problems connecting certain personalities to certain people at different times.
Nonetheless, the writing style was pretty light and enjoyable. The plot was fairly easy to follow. One thing I'll be looking out for through my second reading will be piecing all the little clues together that I found the first time through (there is a massive amount of repetition and other devices that seem to be indicating some sort of importance); I have the pieces, I just need to complete the puzzle now.
I'd recommend this book to people trying to ease into more difficult reading (as it is a pretty light read). I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.
