The story As I lay dying is very different from other books. First off we have the way that the chapters are set up. Each chapter gives us the perspective of a different character which is nice because in this this book its really important to know what each of the characters are thinking when they do what they do. It also skews our views because we end up finding out a lot about the characters they don't know. Like Addie's affair and deep hatred for her family. If Anse knew about this, he probably wouldn't be making such a huge deal about this trip.
In addition we have have the plot of the story. Everyone wants to bury Addie in Jamestown because it was her dying wish but is it worth the trouble? We've got this horrible storm that has flooded the river and taken out the bridge. Because of Anse's stubbornness, cash breaks his leg, their mules are sleeping in the bottom of the river and Addie's coffin is actually making everything smell like death. It's also kinda strange that most, if not all the people in the Bundren family have alterior motives for even going. Vardaman wants a toy, Dewey Dell wants an abortion, Cash wants tool, Anse wants teeth, and Darl doesn't even want to go. What a lovely family.
Lastly, Faulkner provides us the perspective of some people outside of the family. The Tull family would basically have the same views with most of the people the Bundrens would meet. Vernon thinks this trip is a bad idea but at least Anse is trying to respect his wife's wishes. Cora on the other hand thinks its its terrible that they are parading her body all over the place. In the end I agree with Cora. This entire trip doesn't really seem necessary and if they really wanted to get some random stuff from town, they could just get it later.
Yeah, I agree this is a book unlike many others I have read. Part of the reason I was so confused in the beginning of the book is because of its layout with one character narrating each "chapter". Another is because there were just so many characters introduced. On the other hand, I like how we get inside information whether it is from Addie or from Dell because we know facts that other characters in the book don't, making a more interesting read.
ReplyDeleteI also though that the format of this book made it really unique. I read books in the style where each chapter has a different narrator before, mainly the Game of Thrones series, but in that and books with similar structures, the characters are generally very far away from each other and are involved in completely separate stories, with narrating characters only occasionally meeting. I think that As I Lay Dying uses its own system extremely well, as all of the characters are virtually always with each other. This means that we get to see what all of the characters think about each other, the characters and story are developed more as it's a narrower focus and, most interestingly, we get to see the same events and people's reactions to those events through different narrator's eyes at different times. This adds a layer of ambiguity that, in my opinion, makes the book much more interesting.
ReplyDeleteI definitely grew to appreciate the multiple narratives in this book. At the beginning I was so confused and I think I slept through the first bit because I didn't even pick up on the fact that Dewey Dell was a girl (I mean they all have really weird names). But it made the story so much more fun to have different personalities presented, and it also gave us an interesting way to notice character growth over the novel. We can clearly see how Cash steps into the hero position through his chapters, which start as a list about carpentry and end as a reliable and reflective narration. On the other hand we see Darl's decline from an exceptionally perceptive and detailed narrator to an irrelevant, inconsistent, insane person. And Vardaman and Dewey Dell both become easier to follow and less random as the book progresses. I kind of wish we'd gotten more from Jewel, but I think with the multiple narrators we were still given a pretty good sense of his character.
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