As I Lay Living

I recently reread As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner for my tutorial (the last book of the semester). I first read this book back in grad school--it was the first Faulkner book I ever read. Not only did I really enjoy it then and now, I think it is probably the best choice for someone who has never read Faulkner and wants to see what he is like. It isn't all that long, has the Faulknerian touches of not explaining what is going on until much later in the book and a prose style that is rather unique. (Cormac McCarthy is the only other author who even remotely reminds me of Faulkner.)

As I Lay Dying also has one of the best chapters in all of literature:
"My mother is a fish."
[That is not the title of the chapter--that is the chapter.

In addition to a rather memorable cast of characters and plot developments, the book is an interesting meditation on life--what does it mean to be alive? There is a chapter in which Addie speaks after she is long dead--it is probably a flashback to when she was alive, but in the chapter she talks about how Anse is already dead and he doesn't know it, when Anse is most obviously alive. Darl tries to figure out if he exists. Varadman thinks Addie is alive when she isn't. Dewey Dell--similar issues (but that is a spoiler). Now, this isn't a zombie book or anything--these are real people and only Addie is really dead. But, when we say someone is alive now, what do we mean? Are they also alive in the past? Do I exist only now or also in the past? Does the person who is writing this still exist when it is done being written? Where and when does that person exist? Do the past me and the present me and the future me all exist simultaneously or only one at a time?

All this also has a nice relation to Augustine's meditation on Living and Dying: What is the opposite of Living? Dying? If one is living, one is alive. If one is dying, one is...alive. So the state of living is exactly the same as the state of dying. (We are all dying with a little patience?) So how do you move from Life to Death?

At any rate, the book is still quite enjoyable even if you don't want to follow Darl into madness by thinking too much on these things.