So far, As I Lay Dying is my favorite of the Faulkner books we have read. I read in a few places that it was supposed to be darkly comic, but I just did not see the humor in it except for at the end when Cash is describing the new Mrs. Bundren's eyes. The characters of Vardaman and Cash were my favorites and Addie was my least. The whole journey, to bury this woman who was miserable in life and (if she was speaking from the grave, which I am still not clear on) miserable in death. I don't really think it was necessary to bury her in Jefferson, but that Anse was set on it, I thought, was his saving grace. He was not the best father, for sure, and his motives in pushing forward on the journey to bury his wife were questionable, but at least he did fulfill her wish.
Vardaman and his "my mother is a fish" lines were and are still slightly confusing to me. With him, he seemed to be continually grasping for something that is certain, like "Darl is my brother. Jewel is my brother." When he said "My mother does not smell like that" I wanted to cry. He was not really allowed to acknowledge the state that his mother was in, even though he seemed to be very aware-- with the smell and his chasing away the vultures. I felt so bad for Vardaman.
I liked Cash, too, because he seemed so focused on whatever task was at hand and he never complained, even when his leg turned black.
When it came to the dead body, I noticed that the only people to show revulsion were either women or black people. I could not recall an instance where he wrote that a white man had reacted to the smell of Addie through facial expressions or disgust. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
The animals in this book were pretty prominent. Jewel's horse, the fish, the mules, the cat, the ever-present vultures-- there were animals present throughout, and they were pretty significant, although silent, characters. The growing number of vultures was something that was really unsettling. I looked up vultures and I read that a group is called a "wake." Which was pretty fitting.
I really liked As I Lay Dying. I read it twice and I think that it served me very well to do that. I think for me, that's how I got a better grasp of this book, even though I still don't know if I fully "got it." I tried, though.
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Wow I wish I had managed to read it twice. I think I would have gotten more out of it.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of Vardaman grasping for something "certain." But the sentence that made me want to cry was said in Darl's section: "It is a composite picture of all time since he was a child." Something about that reminded me of my own mother.
As for Anse - ugh. He was awful and I think he added most of the humor to the story. The idea of people not being able to help but help him. Him never doing anything himself, yet seeing himself as such a martyr. And, to me, burying Addie (at least partly)was about getting new teeth and a new woman.