As I Lay Dying - Faulkner

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cdk71
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As I Lay Dying - Faulkner

Post by cdk71 »

hi all. I'm afraid no one will succeed in trying to convince me of an appreciation, but I'd like to just try to understand what's to be appreciated in -for instance- this take from As I Lay Dying.

When we reach it I turn and follow the path which circles the house. Jewel, fifteen feet behind me, looking straight ahead, steps in a single stride through the window. Still staring straight ahead, his pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face, he crosses the
floor in four strides with the rigid gravity of a cigar store Indian dressed in patched overalls and endued with life from the hips down, and steps in a single stride through the opposite window and into the path again just as I come around the corner.


So: what do we have here? Some all-knowing Author that exactly can see through walls, and count the number of steps taken by a friend walking through the house, while he takes steps around. How is this possible, in reality?

I really appreciate good literature. I like neat descriptions, with all senses involved. But I can't appreciate when an author tries to impose details upon me, when in reality he can't know. It's perfectly ok when he'd write as an objective tale teller. But with mixing in his personal role as an 'I', he just takes The Magic Eye and expects me to swallow all he has. I don't.
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DATo
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Post by DATo »

@cdk71

Where in the book is that passage? I own the book. I want to look it up but I don't want to scan the entire book for it. Number of pages in YOUR book - page number this passage is on.

There may be a reason why it is written that way, but I won't know till I read it in context. When I read the book this part did not stick out which makes me think there is something you are unintentionally omitting.

(Quote this message in your reply so I will get a notification.)
“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”
― Steven Wright
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cdk71
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Post by cdk71 »

hi DATo. I just honestly cited from a google books version. It's quite important to me to be exact in citing, in general, so I did here, too, as it is the most unbiased basis for interpretation. Via a site (no links are accepted here...) that zooms in on a page called 'William-faulkner-as-i-lay-dying-section-1-annotated' you could read this exact same citation too:

When we reach it I turn and follow the path which circles the house. Jewel, fifteen feet behind me, looking straight ahead, steps in a single stride through the window. Still staring straight ahead, his pale eyes like wood set into his wooden face, he crosses the floor in four strides with the rigid gravity of a cigar store Indian dressed in patched overalls and endued with life from the hips down, and steps in a single stride through the opposite window and into the path again just as I come around the corner.


So I remain with my feeling and appreciation. I'd be interested though in how other readers feel and appreciate, and how and why (it's been called a classic after all).
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Post by Bigwig1973 »

Maybe he heard the amount of steps Jewel took to get across the house? Maybe he did already know that he took four steps because he had seen him do this before. Maybe he guessed based on math and physics. The guy must be supple and somewhat nimble with good timing (or invisible) if he can walk in through a window, walk across the floor, and then out the other window. The book is very interesting - a bit morbid and sad.
"...I'd discuss the holy books with the learned man...and that would be the sweetest thing of all...would it foil some vast, eternal plan..." Hamick Fiddler on the Roof

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Post by DATo »

@cdk71

I'm thinking maybe the house was a shack with the walls (or some of them) down so he could actually see into the house as his brother is walking in "through the window". Something like that. But I know what you mean though. I see a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense in movies. Like in the Lord Of The Rings:The Fellowship - the witch king can't be killed by a mortal man --- and it was the witch king that stabbed Frodo on Weathertop --- so why did the witch king run away from Aragorn on Weathertop? Aragorn could not have killed him. I see lapses of logic all the time in movies.
“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”
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cdk71
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Post by cdk71 »

thanks for your thoughts. Now, still: he registrates Jewel is "still staring straight ahead" while already having entered the house. Regardless of a possibly audible number of steps, that too would coincidentally be visible in itself. Which to me only adds to the unlikely chances that this house -not being described as such- would be so shabby he could all see this while taking fifteen feet ahead.
To me, Faulkner just tricks upon the reader, while intermixing both the actor and observator role. That just, to me, makes it too far fetched. I don't like putting myself in a position to just take all one writes, that way. It would make me too submissive and resigned.
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Post by Barbara Vertein »

We read this in high school in an AP class, and I struggled to appreciate it. Frankly I still don't, but we did spend a lot of time discussing the way it's written, particularly that it is stream of consciousness from various characters' views. It lends to an odd narrative because you are seeing interpretations of reality from so many different places. For example, (and I am vaguely quoting this from 10+ years ago), but I believe he says his brother is a horse and his mother is a fish. Clearly, that's not reality, but it was reality for a young child trying to process a lot of horrible things happening at once. I believe that is what is happening here. It may not be fact, but it is this particular character's interpretation of his reality in this moment, and what that means to him. Jewel is exacting; he is wooden; he takes a particular number of intentional steps. The importance is in what the current narrator experienced in his reality, not reality itself.
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