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A review by ratrug
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
It took me a while to get into, but I definitely did end up getting sucked into the story and really enjoying it.
I don’t think I’m enough of an English literature academic to fully appreciate this, and I will admit I did go on sparknotes after finishing it to get some basic analysis of what was going on. And now I’ve read that I totally get it and it’s really cool!!
The main thing that attracted me to this book was the line in the blurb “as epic as the Old Testament, as American as Huckleberry Finn”, and it totally was, just not in the way I’d been expecting.
The story isn’t told in a linear-feeling way, and you sort of piece together sections to get the whole story - that’s where the Old Testament comes in. It sort of feels like reading parts of the Bible, the way that people just say things, but they’re written assuming the reader has some contextual knowledge and they really don’t. Idk if that was Faulkner’s intention or maybe I read this (and the Bible) wrong but I enjoyed it!!
I don’t think I’m enough of an English literature academic to fully appreciate this, and I will admit I did go on sparknotes after finishing it to get some basic analysis of what was going on. And now I’ve read that I totally get it and it’s really cool!!
The main thing that attracted me to this book was the line in the blurb “as epic as the Old Testament, as American as Huckleberry Finn”, and it totally was, just not in the way I’d been expecting.
The story isn’t told in a linear-feeling way, and you sort of piece together sections to get the whole story - that’s where the Old Testament comes in. It sort of feels like reading parts of the Bible, the way that people just say things, but they’re written assuming the reader has some contextual knowledge and they really don’t. Idk if that was Faulkner’s intention or maybe I read this (and the Bible) wrong but I enjoyed it!!