William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying published 50 years ago this year

First posted 7/6/2020.

As I Lay Dying William Faulkner

First Publication: 1930 Category: Southern gothic novel Sales: ?

Accolades (click on badges to see full lists):

About the Book: “Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.” AZ Faulkner wrote his fifth novel while working at a power plant. He has said that he wrote it “from midnight to 4:00 AM over the course of six weeks.” WK “The novel utilizes stream of consciousness writing technique, multiple narrators, and varying chapter lengths.” WK Faulkner said, “I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall.” AZ “The title derives from Book XI of Homer’s Odyssey, wherein Agamemnon tells Odysseus: ‘As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades.’” WK The story is a “harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members – including Addie herself – as well as others the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos.” AZ Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon WK Wikipedia

William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury published 50 years ago today

First posted 6/9/2020; updated 7/6/2020.

The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner

First Publication: October 7, 1929 Category: gothic fiction Sales: ?

Accolades:

About the Book: Faulkner’s fourth novel, The Sound and the Fury, was not successful when initially published in 1929, but started getting critical attention after the publication of Sanctuary in 1931. WK In fact, critics came to see it as his masterpiece LC and Faulkner himself considered it his favorite. LC It has since been embraced as “one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.” AZ In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize and in 1951 he received France’s Legion of Honor. LC The action is “set in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi, as are most of Faulkner’s novels,” LC and “uses the American South as a metaphor for a civilization in decline” LC in the post-Civil War era. The story “centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats…struggling to deal with the dissolution of their family and its reputation. Over the course of the 30 years or so related in the novel, the family falls into financial ruin, loses its religious faith and the respect of the town of Jefferson, and many of them die tragically.” WK “The novel is divided into four parts, each told by a different narrator,” LC “some of the most memorable characters in literature.” AZ It “employs a number of narrative styles, including stream of consciousness,” WK“in which a character’s thoughts are conveyed in a manner roughly equivalent to the way human minds actually work.” LC The intellectually-disabled “Benjy” Compson’s section “is characterized by a highly disjointed narrative style with frequent chronological leaps.” WK “The haunted, neurotic Quentin,” AZ Benjy’s older brother, and the events leading up to his suicide are the focus of section two. The third section is told from “the point of view of Jason, Quentin’s cynical younger brother.” WK “The last section primarily focuses on Dilsey, one of the Compsons’ black servants” WK and is told from “a third person omniscient point of view.” WK Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon LC Library of Congress (2012). “Books That Shaped America” WK Wikipedia