In Search Of. . . Written Words: As I Lay Dying

In Search Of. . . Written Words: As I Lay Dying

My Mother is a fish.

~Vardaman Bundren

Addie Bundren was dying, that started everything. Her dying wish was to be buried miles away in her home town, and she placed the burden of taking her there on her family.

However, life preoccupied the family more than their mother's death. Jewel and Darl leave the day she dies to sell lumber. Cash can only think of making his mother's coffin. Their father, Anse, can only think of getting his new teeth.

Dragging Addie's coffin containing her decaying body in a wagon, the family treks to the burial ground. They rescue the body from a flood and from a fire to get it there. Finally, after nine days in the hot, humid Mississippi summer, the Bundrens bury their mother.

Before they leave the next day, Anse Bundren introduces his children to the new Mrs. Bundren.

 

Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying completely in stream of conscious, which basically means that the reader experiences the characters thoughts as they have them. Unfortunately, it's not just the thoughts of one character. It's the entire Bundren family, including Addie, and some of their neighbors as well.

Each chapter or section tells the events from a different character's point of view. In a way, having so many narrators gives a more complete view of the story. The problem comes from the execution.

In using stream of conscious, the reader basically sees the characters jumbled half-thoughts put down on paper. At times it was confusing, especially when Faulkner would use a pronoun without an antecedent. He would say he, she, or it and never tell the reader what or who he was referring to.

 

The stream of conscious isn't the only problem. The characters in the book for the most part are unlikable. To begin with, most of them, Addie included are taking the trip for selfish reasons. Addie's lack of connection to her family compels them to bury her far away from home in her family grave; however, it works to many of their advantages. There's an undertone about the book that sounds like the family saying "if we didn't need to go to town, you'd be buried here."

Also, the Bundren's seem to be emotionally and maybe a little mentally stunted. After Addie dies, Vardaman correlates his mother with the fish he caught and killed earlier. He also drills holes in the coffin so she can breathe, inadvertently drilling holes into her face. Darl rationalizes that he "is not" because his mother changed from "is" to "was" leaving him entirely motherless. He also tells Vardaman that Jewel's mother is a horse. Cash doesn't seem to have any emotional involvement and neither do Anse and Dewey Dell.

 

Obviously, I didn't like this book. I can't stand stream of conscious or pointless actions. However, it did win the Pulitzer Prize, so what do I know, right? Now, before you take this review to heart, remember, this is just one person's opinion. Some people like this book.
For me, from a writer's stand point, it's not very well written. The stream of conscious in it reads like actual thoughts, interrupting themselves and making wide, looping circles around to the original thought. It made it hard to read and comprehend.

I will say this though, I blazed through the book, so I could get it over with faster.

In Search of . . . Written Words: Book update

In Search of. . . Written Words
Time for a book update. I hadn't imagined reading this fast, but I have no life.

1. Harry potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling. Pretty much the movie exactly. Although, I did have to read the entire series once I started. Stupid inability to finish things.

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling. Nothing like the movie really. They changed several elements, but it's my favorite book and movie. Also, Rowling does a really good job of retelling events that happened in previous books with in the book you're reading.

3. "Little Match Girl", Hans Christian Andersen. Most of us know the story of the little girl trying to sell matches on Christmas night.

4. "Rapunzel", Brothers Grimm. If you want a detailed story of it, go here.

5. "The Raven", Edgar Allen Poe. This is my favorite poem. I love Poe's use of cadence and rhythm.

6. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare. Tragedy of pre-teens in love, who do stupid things
because they are only 13 and 18.

7. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf. More stream of conscious, and it makes me want to cry. I had no earthly clue what was going on in this stupid essay.


As Always,

In Search Of. . . Written Words: Not your typical Disney story

In Search Of. . . Written Words

"And they live happily ever after."

It's a typical ending to the romanticized fairy tales; especially the Disney sanitized fairy tales we gorge ourselves on.

Before Disney got a hold of them though, some of the fairy tales were ridiculously dark. Not to mention the skewed idea of love, but I will save that rant for another post. For now, I just want to compare/contrast a fairy tale and the Disney version.

For the Reading Challenge, I had to read, or rather re-read, three different fairy tales: "Rapunzel", "Snow White and Rose Red", and "The Little Match Girl". Since Disney, to my knowledge, has not done "Snow White and Rose Red" or the "Little Match Girl", I'll work with "Rapunzel" and Disney's Tangled.

All right, so Tangled. It's a perfect example of a modern Disney movie.

It has beautiful scenery. (I read somewhere that the designers wanted every scene to be picture perfect, and they achieved it.) It has an adorable story line, with a loveable, finally 18 year-old, plucky heroine and her foil anti-hero, who does turn out to be a good guy in the end, a sly villain, and humorous sidekicks.

Yep, typical Disney.

Returning to an original version by the Brothers Grim, we cancel all of that out. And, just so you know, Grimm sanitized their version too. The Italian version isn’t so . . . sweet.

So first major difference. Rapunzel isn’t a princess by birth. She just has a selfish mother who would rather put her family in danger then do without. Her prego mom sees some rampion, or Rapunzel plant, in a witch’s garden, and refuses to live basically, unless her husband gets her the plant.

Not exactly like the loving mother we see in the movie. I would suppose to make a clear villain, Disney had to make her mother a victim of a baby snatching rather than Rapunzel's father bartering her away for his and his wife's life.

So, that's really how Mother Gothel got the baby. It does take the creepiness out of a greedy, baby snatching woman. She was actually probably a better mother than Rapunzel's own mother would have been.

Mother Gothel raises Rapunzel like in the movie, but she only puts Rapunzel in the tower when she notices her daughter hits puberty. Oh, and just as a side note, the only magical thing about Rapunzel's hair is it's length. It doesn't heal.

So we fast forward a few years and Rapunzel's matured, but stuck in a tower. She's bored, lonely, and quite frankly, ready to get out of the tower. Enter a nameless handsome prince, not Flynn Ryder and his comic smolder or his thieving ways. He climbs up into the castle pretending to be Mother Gothel, and immediately asks Rapunzel to marry him. Rapunzel, never having seen a man freaks out, but in a Bella-esque move, reacts to his kind words and immediately agrees.

Personally, I'm all for the frying pan idea.

So that takes out the whole lantern thing, which is a sad element to loose since it adds so beautifully to the cinematography. It's also a lot creepier that she would just agree to marriage to an utter stranger, but it was 1889. Go figure.

Rapunzel opens her big mouth and tells the witch that she's met a Prince. Furious, the witch cuts off her hair, and hides her away in the desert, which eliminates the need for Flynn Ryder to allow himself to die to save Rapunzel. The Prince comes to get Rapunzel but instead finds the witch. Avoiding the witch's fury, he falls out the window and has his eyes put out, and then wanders around for years.

Somehow he finds Rapunzel, and like in the movie, her tears heal him, but just his eyes. Then they skip off to their happily ever after.

Or maybe there's a sequel where Mother Gothel, who doesn't die, comes back to exact revenge.

So that's a short comparison/contrast of The Brothers Grimm "Rapunzel" and Disney's Tangled.

As Always,

In Search Of. . . Written Words

In Search Of. . . Written Words

So, here's another partial update of six, because eleven just seems like a lot to read at once.

1. Julius Cesar, Shakespeare. High school read. And the only thing I remember is "Et Tu Brute?"

2. Macbeth, Shakespeare. Another high school read. I read all the Lady Macbeth parts, which was fun. . . not.

3. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka. This is a morbid little novella and it's really weird, but that's Kafka for you. (Expect a little essay on this later, maybe).

4. Mrs. Dalloway, Virgina Woolf. The entire stories written in stream of conscious, not for the eye, but the ear. Make sure to read this aloud, because half of it doesn't make sense. Actually, the entire book is really sort weird. Beautiful imagery though and faintly Poe-like. The book gives a good look into the emptiness of the early 20's after the war, and the mind of Virgina Woolf, since it's kind of biographical on her own pains with mental health.

5. The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde. Another deep "Gothic Novel." This really explores the debauchery of man. I mean what would you do if you had eternal youth, but could see all the follies you committed on a painting?

6. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen. No reading list is complete with out this this title. It's a book of manners, made to show how manners are more important than money. Or at least they were back then.


More to come, of course.

As Always,

In Search Of. . . Written Words

In Search Of. . . Written Words

As some of you may have noticed, I've taken up the "Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge"

You may ask, "Why?" To which I will reply, "Because I have no life."

Not really. Well kind of, but that's beside the point. I've taken up the challenge because it will keep me from obsessively reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. (Honestly, I read like twelve in the course of three weeks, and they aren't short books, either.)

Besides that, it's such a broad spectrum of books. The list includes nearly everything, from classic to modern literature; fiction to non-fiction; short stories, novellas, and novels. Which I think, as my teachers used to say, will broaden my horizons.

So far, I've already read 21 books from the list. Now I have 378 more to go.

I'll give you a brief idea of the first 11 of them.

1. 1984, George Orwell. Everyone should read this book. Orwell understood the Totalitarian regime and explains it clearly through this story. It is one of the few books that has stayed with me.

2. Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll. It's almost exactly like the Disney cartoon, just in black and white, and a few more scenes.

3. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath. It's actually her autobiography, but she didn't think it was of any literary worth, so she made it into a work of fiction. That was Plath though.

4. Devil in the White City: Murder, Madness, and Magic at the Fair that Change America, Eric Larson. Great book for non-fiction lovers, and fiction lovers. All the research is primary, and it gives so much information about the first World’s Fair and a notorious serial killer.

5. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson. This is a novella. You can read it in a few hours. People say it's about the repression of the Victorian Era, but I think it's about man's struggle with himself.

6. Frankenstein, Marry Shelly. Is not a scary story; it just isn't. And the monster can talk, and Frankenstein’s really just a selfish jerk face. Not a horrible book though. It’s all about pushing boundaries and knowing our limits.

7. Gone With the Wind, Margret Mitchell. I never did like Scarlet, but this is one of the most accurate representations of the Civil War era.

8. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Another personal story turned fiction. There is no real reason to love this story, but I do. The color imagery is amazing

9. Great Expectation, Charles Dickens. If you like superfluity, this is the book for you.

10. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad. I never really could figure what this was about. Editions have a lot to do with. Maybe I'll re-read it one day. It describes exploration into Africa, slavery, and something else. Wasn't my favorite read.

11. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. Jo didn't make any sense to me, but I guess that's because she's a girl. We don't make sense. I read this in high school for a literary analysis, so that might be coloring my opinion.

Those are the first 11 books, and maybe I'll do the next eleven or something like that.

As Always,