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.
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Date: 2005-06-02 02:28 am (UTC)*note to self, never read Faulkner*
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Date: 2005-06-02 03:11 am (UTC)