As We Lay Dying

It was senior year of high school and many of things we've waited our entire secondary education for seemed to be quickly approaching. Senior spring break. Prom. Graduation. College. With spring break arriving in less than two weeks, the last thing any of us wanted to do was read, what initially seemed to be, a bland novel by the American author William Faulkner. When my AP English Literature teacher told us we were going to read As I Lay Dying, we all groaned as senioritis had already gotten the best of most, if not all, of us.

When we first began the book, I absolutely despised Faulkner's writing. I hated everything about it: the style, the tone, the setting--everything. He wrote the book in alternating perspectives. So, instead of just one consistent narrator, he voiced the story from fifteen different viewpoints. Mind you, I didn't start reading the novel with a narrow perspective, one with hatred and disgust; I actually kept an open mind. However, it was more so the tone that sparked my disinterest--these Southern narrators were extremely ungrammatical, to the point where it became difficult for me to learn to appreciate his new writing tactic. I've been told, more than often, that I can be a bit of a Grammar Nazi, so you could only imagine how long it took me to correct every page. I would mentally correct it to the point where it wasn't perfectly grammatical, but to the point where it was, at least, understandable to the modern reader.

As we delved further in the book, however, I slowly began to appreciate the novel, bit by bit. I began to admire the differing standpoints, as they added complexity to the novel. Having more than one narrator was something atypical in the world of writing: it broke the stream of consciousness, and instead, dived into multiple streams. The Southern grammar slowly, but surely, grew on me, as I realized, someone, somewhere, actually spoke the way in which he wrote. Next thing you know, I stopped trying to correct the writing and took it the way it was presented. Even though some of the characters' stupidity really did piss me off, I ended up somewhat liking the book. It aroused strong senses of emotion, which, in my opinion, is what every great story does.