As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Ere a one oughten to red hit. Sho.

A new favorite of mine. Some criticize this book for its various narrators and difficulty, but I think it is very engaging and enthralling. It didn't bother me none noways, in fact. Now, sometimes I couldn't tell every detail of what was going on, and, in reading about the book since finishing it, I found some things that I missed, but I was swept up by Faulkner's writing style. Nothing much happens with the plot: Addie dies, her family takes her to Jefferson to be buried, they have to get a new team after theirs drowns in a river, Darl one night sets fire to the barn where the coffin is, and they bury her. Yet, what makes it is the beautiful language.

Usually, when I read any book, I want to establish some sense of what it means, what it's about. With this book, however, I was so into the writing style that it didn't much matter to me. Indeed, I feel like I wish I could live in Yoknapatawpha County with these characters, if I could stand the farm living life. I don't think I've felt that way about a book before. I'm sure Darl and I could be good friends.

I like how you come to understand the characters more deeply throughout the book, how their different perceptions combine to a rich whole, and how they can easily go from speaking with "durnt" and "beholden" and "paw" to keen intellectual soliloquies that equally take your breath away.