Guest Blogger: Hilary B.

As I was reading this book, I became continually more frustrated. It was a dumb book, with bad grammar, extremely hard to follow diction, and no apparent plot. Even though it was a short book, I struggled to make myself read it. When I finally finished I was more confused than ever and I was ready to come back to class and have things like “my mother is a fish” explained to me.

This made me consider why a book like this was ever written, or why the publishers would ever let it be published. But this book is ranked among the best novels of the 20th century literature. And it has “directly influenced a number of other critically acclaimed books, including British author Graham Swift's 1996 Booker Prize-winning novel Last Orders[12] and Suzan-Lori Parks's Getting Mother's Body: A Novel” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_I_Lay_Dying_(novel) . So there must be something about this book that makes it worth reading. Maybe it is the horrible grammar, or could it be that confusing use of diction? There must be something more to this than it just being confusing. I think it is revered for William Faulkner’s originality, while he does use stream of consciousness like James Joyce, he is unique because he uses many different characters and points of view to tell the same story. Many people liked Louis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland even though he was high when he wrote it, so maybe Faulkner has the same effect when he’s drunk.