As I lay dying Book

I've been working up to a William Faulkner book for years. His books always appear on lists of "best books of all time" and "books you should read before you die". But when I've felt in the mood for a classic or something "literary", I've always passed him up for other authors, even those with 1000+ page monsters. I think, deep down, I always sensed Faulkner just wasn't for me.

The first problem is my lack of enthusiasm for stream of consciousness narratives. If I'm being honest, I rarely like it. I don't mind working at a book if it's hard-going, but this style of narration makes it difficult for me, personally, to ever settle into the rhythm of the book. And Faulkner takes it to a whole new level. He drops us into scenes and scenarios without any explanation; I genuinely felt like Faulkner wanted to deliberately confuse his readers about characters and ideas he could have easily portrayed in a more accessible way. Confusion for confusion's sake.

Honestly, I can think of little more boring than suffering through every thought, feeling and instinct that passes through the human mind. I have my own mind that plagues me with this randomness; I don't need to read it in someone else's perspective. I want an author to organize language into a structure that is interesting, compelling, thought-provoking... and stream of consciousness, for me, is rarely any of those things.

But that's just my tastes for the style. Trying to take a step away from that a second and view what the novel did as a whole, I can't say I enjoyed the story. Nor do I tend to enjoy books with more than two or three perspectives - and this one had fifteen! In less than three-hundred pages!

The plot follows the Bundren family after the death of their matriarch, Addie. Fifteen perspectives tell the story of the family's journey to Jefferson, where Addie is to be buried. Hauling a wagon with Addie's decomposing body, the Bundren family sets out on a nine-day journey of frequent hunger and discomfort.

Faulkner includes important themes in his work, such as religion, poverty and identity in the Southern United States, but I still feel like other authors have done this in a more palatable way. I would much rather read Steinbeck any day.

One reviewer said this of Faulkner's style and I couldn't agree more:
It is easy to be confusing. It is easy to write something beautiful and understandable for yourself. It's hard to write universal words which we can all connect.
So, so true.

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