I'm still having trouble keeping up with the posts, but as of this entry, I'm about to start book 51!
Addie Bundren is dying. Outside her window, her son Cash is employing his carpentry skills in the construction of her coffin, working methodically but steadily in hopes that the coffin will be ready before she passes. Her daughter, Dewey Dell, waves a fan to help her bear the summer heat, while two of her other sons, Darl and Jewel, debate whether they can embark on a delivery and return before she dies.
So opens As I Lay Dying, a book many consider to be Faulkner's best. It tells the tale of Anse Bundren's misguided quest to fulfill his wife's dying wish and bury her in Jefferson, some 40 miles away. They must make the trip by mule-drawn wagon, and in addition to Addie's coffin, Anse expects his five children, four of which are at least teenagers, to ride on the wagon as well.
The trip seems doomed from the beginning. Addie dies soon after Darl and Jewel leave for their delivery, and Cash is not yet finished with the coffin. A storm washes out the bridge that spans the river they must cross. When they finally do set out, Addie's body has already been baking in the hot July sun for a few days, and buzzards have picked up the scent. A failed attempt to cross the river, one that proves fatal for the mules and very nearly fatal for Cash, sets them back even more. People try to convince Anse to just bury her at home, but Anse insists on respecting her dying wish, no matter how much risk it presents for the living.
With this book, Faulkner expands on his multiple-narrator technique employed so well in The Sound and the Fury (see my review here), which was published the year before. This time, rather than four, there are fifteen narrative voices taking turns telling parts of the story from different perspectives. This unique technique allows the reader to develop his or her impression of the characters from the way they react to the events and the other characters around them. The narration is not always temporally linear, and often different narrators overlap and re-tell events from another point-of-view. At one point Darl is telling us about events that he could not possibly be witnessing, as he is miles away at the time, and Addie herself narrates a chapter posthumously, although it is not clear if she is speaking to us from the grave, or if Faulkner has time-shifted to a point where Addie is still alive.
There is much dysfunction in the Bundren family, and many contradictions between the outward appearances of the characters and what is really going on in their minds. Anse seems dedicated to Addie and the mission to bury her, but he reveals himself to be lazy and selfish, allowing others to put themselves in harm's way for the mission, and seeming to be more concerned with acquiring a set of false teeth for himself than for the safety of others. Dewey Dell is secretly pregnant, and her thoughts are dominated with sexual reveries and thoughts of what she is going to do about her situation, rather than with grief for her mother. Jewel outwardly seems withdrawn to the point where some believe that he doesn't care, but inside is grief manifests itself as anger and he turns out to be the chief defender of the coffin, often going to foolishly heroic lengths to ensure its safety. Darl seems to be the most reliable voice at the beginning, but grief and the stress of the journey get the better of him and he descends into madness. Cash barely speaks at the beginning, concerned only with the construction of the coffin, and whether it is balanced when it is on the wagon. Ironically, as the book progreses he emerges as the book's most lucid and rational narrator.
I really liked this book. Initially, the constantly changing narration threw me off, and I found myself re-reading passages because the first time I was still in the mindset of the other character, but once I got used to it, I really enjoyed the shifting voices. As with any of these Deep South books, one has to struggle a bit with the peculiarities of Southern dialects, but one gets used to that as well. I've only read two of Faulkner's books in my life, both of them in this challenge, but I have to say this is my favorite of his so far.
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