As I Lay Dying

By William Faulkner

Set in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, As I Lay Dying tells the story of the dysfunctional Bundren family as they set out to fulfill Addie Bundren’s dying wish. Told by fifteen narrators, including Jewel, Cash, Darl and Dewey Dell, As I Lay Dying uses stream of consciousness to unveil each character’s motivations for carrying out Addie’s wish, along with a multitude of lies they have been hiding from each other.

HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jan 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781443421065

William Faulkner

William Faulkner (1897-1962) is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all American novelists and short-story writers.  His other works include the novels The Sound and the Fury, The Reivers, and Sanctuary.  He twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and in 1949 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews for As I Lay Dying

[ron18-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Easy to see how this was a revolutionary piece - - but the dialect dragged for me, and the seriously strong story and character elements took a lot of wading and digging to get to. It took a viewing of the faithful (and highly worthwhile) 2013 James Franco movie to show me a few things I missed in the accented quagmire.

[iansales_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although Faulkner was a name known to me, I’d read none of his books and knew nothing about him or his works. But my father had two novels by him, which I took, and I read one, The Sound and the Fury, last year and was hugely impressed. So I picked up a couple more on eBay. And I brought them with me to Sweden. The first of these was As I Lay Dying, arguably Faulkner’s best-known and most highly-regarded novel. There’s even a commercially successful metal band named after it. The story is told from several viewpoints, each in their own voice, and it concerns the death of Addie Bundren, and her husband’s attempt, with family and friends, to take her body to a neighbouring town to bury her among her kin. But all that is either incidental, or merely the trigger, for what happens in each narrative. It all takes place in Faulkner’s native American South – Mississippi, I think, for the most part – and the language reflects the setting. Despite As I Lay Dying‘s reputation, I didn’t find it as impressive a work of literature as The Sound and the Fury, possibly because the latter had the more adventurous structure, and I’m big on novels that experiment with narrative structure. But that’s really damning it with faint praise as this is full-on classic American Literature, and though not all works and writers described as that appeal to me, I do admire Faulkner’s prose a great deal. Definitely worth reading.

[pwaites_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I hated As I Lay Dying. Part of me worries about this, since it’s a classic and presumably there must be something great about it. But whatever it is that makes people like Faulkner completely skipped me by.I think I should preface the rest of the review with the acknowledgement that I read this as a school assignment. I would not have picked it up otherwise, and I would certainly not have continued with it.The writing was torturous to get through. Just take a gander at “his pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face”. Thank goodness it was only 260 pages. It was hard enough to get through the writing and the tedium of it, and there was no way I could do so for longer.It was also difficult to figure out what was actually happening in the book. If I hadn’t checked SparkNotes, I would never have figured out that a character was pregnant.Also, I didn’t care about any of the characters, not the slightest bit. They were all self obsessed and unlikable.I would not recommend As I Lay Dying.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

[stephlaymon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As I Lay Dying is told from a zillion points of view. (15 perspectives in 59 chapters) Pretty much anybody who crosses the path of this family has a bit of the story to tell from their perspective. Normally this sort of thing drives me mad, but in this case the multitude of storytellers added a lot of insight. The main characters, the Bundren family, are poor and extremely uneducated and the addition of a few narrators who are halfway well spoken kept things more balanced.

There is a lot of backwoods language along with a lot of babbling, especially from Vardaman, the youngest Bundren family member, whose perspective offers one of the most famous chapters, and the most ridiculous in my opinion. I got it, it's just that I am not into knowing anyone's random garbled thoughts. We all have them, but it doesn't make the most impressive writing. Hidden meanings in literature are can be thought provoking, but start to seem kind of pointless when it seems so intentional. Oh, and intentional it was. Don't believe the rumor that Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in one go with no edits. It simply isn't true, although it would offer a reasonable explanation for the rambling.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner is a book with fascinating but miserably unlikable characters. Each has an interesting and mostly conflicting point of view. I am really getting into these undesirable characters who I can come to understand and Faulkner definitely has an interesting approach to bringing insight along with compassion for a family that is difficult to like or to relate to. Selfishness, stubbornness, horrid social skills, dishonesty, and false pride are just a few of the Bundren family traits.

The end is also makes me question my senses. There is not an ounce of redeeming quality and it did piss me off, but...There again goes another miserable reality for a family such as the Bundren's and the story would have felt like pointless trash had it ended in any other way. I loved almost every torturous moment.

[never_sam · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this to primarily be an exploration of grief and the various ways the members of Addie's family dealt with her passing. I didn't think it was a good as [i]The Sound and the Fury[/i], but was definitely typical of Faulkner. I did find the constant changing of point of view more distracting than in [i]The Sound and the Fury[/i] where there was just the four sections. If you are a fan of modernist American literature or Southern literature I would definitely recommend this book, but just be forewarned this employs quite a few unconventional techniques and formal experimentalism. Highly recommended for those interested in study literature but if you are more of a casual reader probably not something to just pick up on the spur of the moment.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A difficult read, but one worth the label of classic. Rarely is poverty so atmospheric in a novel, nor do characters' accents emerge in the story's telling. However, the point of view switches frequently among a wide expanse of characters, which made the book more than a little confusing to me.

[jennifersalderson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful, wierd, fantastic book. Breaks every rule ever created about writing and still manages to captivate. This is difficult book to review because there's so many twists and suprises, all the way through to the last page, that I'm afraid of saying to much and spoiling it. Should be a required read.

[alexrichman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pretty dazzling. Every character's voice is so clearly defined that you'd be able to name each one just from reading a few paragraphs of their thoughts. Like all great books, it hops nimbly from comedy to tragedy. Glad I fished it off the shelf.

[potatoangel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

By showing different view points from each character, the story was able to captivate me to the point where I could not put the book down. The use of different archetypes for each character made the plot more interesting. Addie's family and the mishaps that happen to them while they are on their way to bury Addie makes you question what really ties a family together and if this family was stable at all.

[razinha-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was never forced to read Faulkner when young. I certainly wouldn't have appreciated him in high school. And yet, forty years later, I guess nothing has changed on that respect. I am utterly at a loss as to how this is "one of the greatest novels of the 20th century". Faulkner said he wrote this over six weeks and didn't change a word. Bully for him and condolences to the readers. This has no redeeming value that I can see, no light shining on a human condition, no entertainment value, no educational component.

Too bad time has a direction arrow. I'd love to get this time back and read something good. If this is one of his most "accessible" novels, well, I'm not going to be reading any more Faulkner. Kind of knew that from the start.

[lord_boris-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A book you have to invest perseverance in to get the reward. But well worth it. Each chapter is written in the first person but from a different characters perspective. So you get a multi character (17 I think) point of view. Sometimes hard going with the style used and being written in the vernacular. Black comedy. Tragedy.

[natek_23 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Faulkner is an acquired taste. As with "The Sound and the Fury" I gave the book a good try but just couldn't get through it. Specifically I didn't really care to see where the characters were going. Faulkner may be a literary master of depicting a time/place/human condition, and for that I can see how he's loved among some. But I want a story about characters who I want to know about. These people... I could't care where they wound up.

[roblong_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Addie Bundren is dying, and has requested to be buried amongst her family 40 miles away. Her impoverished family attempt to fulfil this wish, hampered by conditions and their own stupidity, greed, and distraction with their own problems.A great, great book. A modernist novel where each chapter is told by a member of the family or the people who know them, yet it's still accessible and easy to read (Faulkner is often very tough), as well as a gripping story. All the characters are fascinating and the writing is often out of this world. I'm slightly irritated with myself that I've only read this twice.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Yet again, give me Eudora Welty anytime. This guy is not only confusing, he's also bloody depressing! I borrowed this book years ago and I could never get into it. Now I see that I should have given up. I really hate shifting perspective. I want to know who's telling the story, what their relationship with the other characters is, etc. Give me some freaking exposition too! Need I say I wasn't real wild about the book?

[ninelarks-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story follows a rural Southern family that deals with the practical and emotional concerns of waiting for the mother to die, then the burial. It tells the story through many eyes, with each character's first-person narrative in the mindset of how he or she thinks and acts, which usually contradicts a previous character's thoughts. The plot is straightforward, but the emotions are not. Who lies, who tells the truth, or even harder.. who lies to themselves? It is left to the reader to determine the true thoughts of each character.

I hated this book so much, and I loved it so much. I honestly hate these characters for their bull-headed stubbornness and inability to see beyond their on mindsets. And I love the writer for this, because ugh I did love these characters. Well most of them. Anse is just an ass.

I loved the intrigue, the mystery behind the back-story of each character until it is slowly revealed piece by piece, by things said and the things unsaid.

It was a slow read in some ways because there aren't crazy plot twists or explosions and fight scenes like in action novels. But oh, the mystery, the emotions of these characters. This book is a character study of people and it is worth reading.

3.5 stars because I really liked it, but not enough to read over and over again - so that bumped it down to 3 stars. Recommended for people who want to learn about characters and how to write emotion. Recommended for people who love understanding people and want to be drawn into a book.

[danielalgara · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read it twice in a row. I can't say anything that hasn't already been said about the book, so I'll limit my review to an expression of regret that a book like this would NEVER be published today. Not by the big 5 anyway. Screw you, big 5. Just screw you. So it goes.

[bayardus-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I haven't read much Faulkner, but I've read enough to know he's not my cup of tea. Written in the vernacular of the south, in an intense stream of consciousness style, usually with a degree of willful obfuscation. I don't think Faulkner is a bad writer, I just dislike his work, and As I Lay Dying hasn't made me reevaluate that opinion.

As I Lay Dying takes place in the strange ahistorical version of Mississippi where Faulkner sets almost all his stories, a place where it could just as easily be the 1880s as the 1920s. Besides a few references to things like telephones and cars in the final chapters of this book there is very little to give you a temporal anchor for when this trip occurs. This uncertainty extends not only to the setting, but to the events of the story and sometimes the characters as well. The character of Dewey Dell, for instance, is female, but this isn't firmly established until after her first point of view chapter has already occurred. She's mentioned on page 15 (in my edition) by name for the first time, but without any identifying pronouns. She isn't concretely identified as female until page 48, though it's possible to figure it out prior to this. The problem is that Dewey Dell's first point of view chapter makes very little sense if you think she's male as her name would suggest. It's obvious enough what's happening if you know she's female, but again that information is only concretely provided later. This is an example of Faulkner's willful obfuscation: all the other characters know Dewey Dell is female, and if the writer was actually present at the scene that information would be clear as well, but despite this Faulkner leaves the reader in the dark. This intentional denial of information also occurs when characters are speaking, for instance on page 96 and 97 in a Cash and Darl chapters it's not at all clear who is speaking, the book instead referring to an unidentified "he." You find out quickly enough who it is, but my complaint is that the text adds uncertainty where the characters have none. Faulkner is thus willfully complicating the book, and there doesn't seem to be sufficient justification for doing so.

Other things in this book also require that the reader put in more effort than normal to follow. The book drops the readers into the middle of the lives of these characters without any introductory explanation of who they are or why they are the way they are, and leaves the reader to figure out what is happening on their own. Note: I don't mind this. The story also skips around in time with little indication, leaving the reader to piece together the timeline. The chapters taking the point of view of Vardaman are especially hard to follow, as he is either especially young or has been unbalanced by his mother's death or both. There are also a few chapters that deal with Darl thinking about some half-baked "was is is-not" thoughts that have no substance to them. Much of this feels like Faulkner making the narrative more complicated primarily for the sake of making the narrative more complicated, not for a deeper purpose. It's easy enough to figure out everything that happens in this book by flipping back and forth a few times, but I don't see why Faulkner made it necessary to do this. Life is complicated and uncertain, and family relationships are complicated and uncertain, to be sure, but Faulkner isn't just obfuscating that stuff from us, he's also disguising the very actions of the characters and events of the book, which in my interpretation hurts the work more than it enhances Faulkner's themes.

So anyway, willful obfuscation and needless complication, with a few chapters that are particularly stupid or convoluted are my main complaints with this book. I imagine that if you're someone who loves Faulkner's writing these will be easy enough to overlook. For my part, though, much of Faulkner's prose doesn't hit home. There's a page where a character is "vomiting his crying," and it's clear that Faulkner thought that this was a very evocative turn of phrase, but I found it an utterly ineffective image. I also tend to very much dislike stream of consciousness prose, and while some books are strong enough to overcome that dislike (Under the Volcano), this one was not.

Credit where credit is due though, Faulkner does a great job of establishing characters and giving them real depth in a relatively short book. There is a ton of characterization, each character having a distinct personality and motivation and mostly distinctive ways of thinking in their point of view chapters. Dewey Dell's parallel quest made her the most compelling for me, though it also helps that she's the most "normal" of the characters. Darl is an interesting riddle of a character. I oftentimes don't find hotheaded characters sufficiently explained or compelling, but Jewel was an exception. Anse is a perfect portrayal of those pathetic people we all know that blame all their problems on anyone but themselves. Only Vardaman did I find relatively generic.

As I Lay Dying cranks up many of the aspects of Faulkner I dislike, and I think some of the intentional obfuscation is more of an annoyance than an effective literary choice, but its characters make me understand why someone would love this book. I, however, didn't. At least it was short, but in the future if I want to try more Faulkner I'll probably just read a few more stories out of Go Down, Moses.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Started out kind of slow and lost me in a few spots where it got kind of too abstract for me, but the device of first person impoverished southern vernacular every now and then abruptly swerving into out of character extremely precise and elegant metaphor is cute and actually works at what it sets out to do in a few places. And the book does in the end build up to a crescendo of lovely black humor. And it's thoughtful enough to not take up too much of your time in doing it, so overall a good read.

[bontley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well, what d'ya know, I liked a Faulkner book for itself as opposed to its significance.

[mamashepp · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I know a lot of people strongly dislike Faulkner. But I read this in high school and had a great teacher who made you really understand why Faulkner is so wonderful.

[jbarr5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As I lay dying by William FaulknerStories of farmers as they survive with the work they do.Chapters from various family and friends. Other medical emergencies arise and how they deal with them.I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).

[alisony-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was my first Faulkner book; I'd expected it to be fairly arduous, but once I got into the swing of the language and his style of prose I really enjoyed it. Written in a modernist stream of consciousness style, the story is about the death and burial of Addie Bundren, as observed by her children, husband, and other characters from the surrounding area. It's one of those books where nothing much happens and yet everything happens. At the beginning of the book we learn about the perceived natures of each of the family members through different narrator perspectives, and as the journey to bury Addie progresses we see their true colours emerge, concluding with different opinions of them than was originally presented to us.There were many moments of black humour throughout, often to do with poor deceased Mrs Bundren in her homemade coffin as the final journey to her hometown continually got derailed. Faulkner's method of narration left a bit of work for the reader at times, so I read the online Sparknotes for the book as I went to make sure my understanding was staying on the right track.4 stars for a very different and worthwhile read.

[jamesmscott-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My first Faulkner. My hunch was that I'd find his oblique Joycean, stream-of-consciousness style a bit much, and generally I did. I came away from Mrs Dalloway by Woolf with a similar tilt. That said, he could carve out some turns of phrase that were worth lingering over (I much preferred his narrative voice to the hick dialogue). Also, his spare directness and alternating narration are clearly influential in literature today (I think of Cormac McCarthy and Jon Clinch for example). And, as to the Bundren clan of this story, think of the poorer and less redeemable Mississippi cousins of the Joads.

[jvioland_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the great American writers. He drips of the Ol' South. He's so good, you'll feel the humidity and smell the sweat.

[scott.bradley · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rich, descriptive, gritty, harsh prose worth 5 stars for individual chapters, but ultimately fails for trying too hard and is a case study in why to edit sober.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. The prose is, at moments, stunning. The opening narrations draw in the reader with rich description. You can almost taste the sweat, the dirt, the cool water from a cedar bucket.

Ultimately, however, the multi-voiced approach lacks cohesion and narrative direction. The number of voices is at moments overwhelming and at most times simply confusing. Coupled with the pseudo-stream of consciousness, it just seemed like too much.

I think the approach and style could have worked well if just told through the voice's of Addie's five children. However, even that is probably a bit much. Jewel has a natural distance/difference from his siblings that causes his voice to add little to the story. Further, the attempt at Vardaman's voice as a young child makes him seem more mentally handicapped than merely young, and is perhaps the biggest failure of the novel. Thus, I feel like an approach just through the eyes of Darl, Cash, and Dewey Dell would have kept to the spirit and style of the novel while providing a much more cohesive and comprehensible narrative. Any decent editor would have told Faulkner this, yet the novel was published "without changing a word" (not really, but still).

In the end, I can't get myself to give it even 4 stars, let alone the 5 that are warranted by snippets of Faulkner's prose.

[kraysaulis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I hated this book ... at first. It was haphazard, disjointed, difficult to understand. I was annoyed and irritated and just wanted to get through it. Something happens to it, though, somewhere in the middle. Something changes in the writing, or maybe I just got used to the style and began to understand it better. All of a sudden I got it. I got themes, I got the point. I understand the message and I could suddenly even understand the characters themselves. I finished it not loving it, but I finished it at least enjoying it.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a very Southern take on the grieving process of one family told through alternating viewpoints of various persons. Addie has died; one of her sons constructs her coffin; they take the coffin on a journey to honor her wish to be buried in Jefferson. I won't go into all the things along the way. This was a re-read for me. I must say that I found the story more compelling and appreciated the literary devices and imagery far more this second time.

[forthwith-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a major American work. The characters live on the pages, if they did not actually live near Jackson.The language uses few words from characters with little or no literary/language training. Faulkner at no time devalues them as people but he takes an unflinching view of their lives. This is a moody landscape during hard times. He gives the characters no excuses for their actions. Having recently walked the grounds of his home, Rowan Oak, and walked through his home, the moods can still be felt. He left not only the scribbling on his bedroom wall of an outline and phone numbers in pencil on the wall near the phone in his kitchen, but a quiet. He listened to stories and the mode of speaking with care.A lady was visiting there and recalling speaking to him in the local grocery. I think that he would like that a little girl remembered meeting him at the store. The people in the area and the University know him well even now.

[pgturner-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I must admit, I was totally surprised by what a good read my first Faulkner was! This novel left me drained but wanting more. Very impressed how each character displays grief, some understanding and others without sense. Only part I did not care for was the ending or last few chapters, leaving the story sort of hanging to me, guess that is why I did not want it to end yet.

[est2lm · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is my first Faulkner and I have to say - boy, what a book! I don't think I'll go as far to say that it's one of my favorite novels, or that he's my new favorite author, but it's definitely a book that I'm going to be thinking about for the next couple of weeks.

It is a strange book, and what makes it unforgettable is how psychological it is. The youngest character gave me the creeps because it wasn't until late in the book when I understood why he says his mother is a fish. Nevertheless, the metaphor still creeps me out a bit. The entire family to me seems a bit off their rockers, and a bit insincere as to why they are complying with the mother's wish to be buried in a town miles and storms away from where they reside. I wanted to believe at first that it was love or respect but towards the end it becomes hinted at that that wasn't the case.

What I wasn't quite able to like (though I do appreciate the work it requires) is that there is sort of a backwards foreshadowing, where something happens but isn't explained or hinted at why it happened til later in the book. Some points were a tad too ambiguous for my liking and left unclear, though other points were well-balanced between ambiguity and clear hints.

But overall, an interesting book, I'm glad I finally got around to it.