Als ich im Sterben lag (1930)

Goofy, goofy story. Always love Faulkner! The many narrators thing is really not a big deal. I think I discovered a hidden joke throughout the book, where they quote the bible and then do the opposite, or the opposite happens right then. ( )

I read this as part of a Master Fiction text that I’m reading. This was the assigned novel to demonstrate the use of rotating first person point of view.

A simple story of a family delivering their mother/wife to her ancestral home for burial. Each of the family members plus many others they encounter along the way tell a piece of the story.

The multiple points of view allow us to see the members of the family (Anse, Cash, Darl, Jewel, Vardaman, Dewey Dell) from several different perspectives. It is difficult at first to get a handle on each of the characters, but by the end of this short novel, they have been conveyed brilliantly in all of their complexity.
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Just couldn't get into it. I'll try again next year, when my brain is more focused for Faulkner's writing style.

I enjoyed this more than The Sound and the Fury (it's a lot easier to follow) but I think Faulkner's just not for me. ( )

I wanted to read this book after I watched the movie, just to see how the two compare, and I have to say, the movie really did the book justice. The plot is simple, yet exhausting, in its constant jumping from one mind to another, and the hints of story are easily missed (some of them are made more explicit in the movie). Very Southern (of course) in its careful, honest and critical depiction. ( )