Faulkner, I KEEL you.
Jun. 1st, 2005 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoopbeckSo my goal this summer was to read all those classic books everyone says that one "must" read. It was a good goal. A worthy goal, even. However. I shouldn't have started out with "As I Lay Dying." Because Faulkner? Can't write. [Don't shoot me.]
An Actual Sample:
"In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is.
*brain explodes*
I finished it. Not a particularly great book. In fact, Faulkner gets added to my List Of People Who Get Visited And Slapped Upside The Head When I Build My Time Machine. Because dang. If I turned in something like this... Gah.
It's just not fair. I guess I'd better get to work on that time machine... Faulkner, here I come.
An Actual Sample:
"In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I dont know what I am. I dont know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind are was, it is not. Yet the wagon is, because when the wagon is was, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewel is, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I am is.
*brain explodes*
I finished it. Not a particularly great book. In fact, Faulkner gets added to my List Of People Who Get Visited And Slapped Upside The Head When I Build My Time Machine. Because dang. If I turned in something like this... Gah.
It's just not fair. I guess I'd better get to work on that time machine... Faulkner, here I come.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 09:21 pm (UTC)Heh... Heehee...
My, my, my, my...
I should go EMPTY myself for sleep now. Or something. If you need me, I shall be EMPTY. There will be NO BRAIN in my head, because it will be EMPTY.
*giggle-snort*
Date: 2005-06-02 02:52 am (UTC)*stabs self in eye because typing above words made IQ go down many many points*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 09:30 pm (UTC)I didn't even finish the book...and I was supposed to read it for a class, so don't feel bad about not liking it.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 02:55 am (UTC)Good, I don't feel so bad now. Which class?
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 02:59 am (UTC)It was hard, I tell you what. Especially since I had checked out several books that I'd been waiting for since last summer, and I knew that all I had to do was to just put the stupid book down and I could be happily reading something fun... *sigh*
Ah, well. It's done now.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 01:49 am (UTC)*picks up Alex!brain pieces to start putting them back together*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 03:07 am (UTC)*picks up Alex!brain pieces to start putting them back together*
*giggles* That tickles!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 02:28 am (UTC)*note to self, never read Faulkner*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 03:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 02:31 am (UTC)"My mother is a fish," is a great chapter. Faulkner might be overrated, but he's still a great Southern writer.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 03:23 am (UTC)*sigh* What does that say about the south, though? I get that his books are radically different from what was going around at the time, and I get that he's got a lot of talent... but... gah. Why's he got to be so difficult? Yes, we GET that they're crazy. Could he be a little less obscure, though? GAH.
I tried reading him before, but I thought I was just having trouble with that book. I guess I just have trouble with him in general.
I'm glad that you liked it, though...
[The "My mother is a fish" got a "heh" out of me, though... :D ]
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-03 01:00 am (UTC):P
Date: 2005-06-04 03:21 am (UTC)*goes off alone to read Jane Austin*