However there are two crucial perspectives which reveal a lot in the novel. Plus there’s the knowledge that we readers are discovering the Bundren’s secrets, and there are quite a few. One section even deals with Addie’s only daughter trying to abort her baby, for a 1930 novel this was probably seen as controversial. On the surface this may seem to crowd the narrative but it comes off well. Each perspective adds to the backstory of the family and, in some cases, goes deeper.ĭue to the varied viewpoints, Faulkner is able to weave in a lot of themes At times it’s a meditation of culture in the south, one of Addie’s children has highly philosophical musing and even goes into Cartesian theory at times, there’s existentialism and religious attitudes as well. We readers experience this death through the Addie’s children, husband, doctor and locals. It centres around one event but through different perspectives, the event being, as the title states, a mother, Addie Bundren, is dying and her wish is to be buried in her hometown.

The biggest problem about reviewing a classic is that everything about it has been said so pardon me if I repeat what others have written.Īs I Lay Dying is a kaleidoscopic novel. Well as you can see it’s one off the reading bucket list.

William Faulkner is one of those authors I’ve been wanting to read for a long time.

As i lay dying 1930