As I Lay Dying

By: William Faulkner

Narrated by: Marc Cashman, Robertson Dean, Lina Patel, Lorna Raver

Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by William Faulkner—also available are Snopes, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and Selected Short Stories

One of William Faulkner’s finest novels, As I Lay Dying, originally published in 1930, remains a captivating and stylistically innovative work. The story revolves around a grim yet darkly humorous pilgrimage, as Addie Bundren’s family sets out to fulfill her last wish: to be buried in her native Jefferson, Mississippi, far from the miserable backwater surroundings of her married life. Told through multiple voices, As I Lay Dying vividly brings to life Faulkner’s imaginary South, one of literature’s great invented landscapes, and is replete with the poignant, impoverished, violent, and hypnotically fascinating characters that were his trademark.

Along with a new Foreword by E. L. Doctorow, this edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Faulkner expert Noel Polk.

Check out more selections from Oprah's Book Club.

(P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"For range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner's works] are without equal in our time and country."--Robert Penn Warren

One of Faulkner’s finest novels

This was a pleasant way to reread this novel. I read along in my book as I listened to this performance. It captures the feeling that the reader moves from mind to mind as the story is revealed. It moves like a train, slowly picking up speed, then steadily driving to the foregone conclusion. This would be a good place to start, if one wants to get into one the greatest writers in the 20th Century.

Faulkner's As I Lay Dying review

As a Faulknerian scholar, I was pleasantly surprised by this audio rendition of one of Faulkner's complex works. I used this recording to assist a blind peer who was studying the novel, and I read my copy along with the recorded reading to help establish and clarify the characters' points of view, especially with regards to the sections involving stream of consciousness.

Together, we found the use of multiple readers helped distinguish the different narrators of this work. We thoroughly approved of the readers' Southern accents and (being from the South)found very few flaws in that regard. A few artistic interpretations of the stream of consciousness sections were distracting, as the readers chose to add punctuation rather than flow rapidly from one thought to the next without breaks. This did not take away from the story as a whole, but I did need to clarify this for the academic purposes of my peer.

All in all, this was an excellent rendition of Faulkner's novel. I am pleased to have this recording in my permanent library.

Classic

Always a great one. William Faulkner has a way of capturing the feel of an act without spoon feeding the reader, yet guiding them to the same conclusion he desires. Masterful

Everyone needs to read this

I have read this 4 times (once in Audio form) . if you can -you should read a paper or Kindle copy first. it is written in the perspective of 15 characters. it has typographical features. Once you have read it in print - you will better appreciate the audible version.

Better Read

Though the performance was exceptional, the way the story is set up makes me think that a slow, analyzing read would be better.

Fantastic work of genius

Loved this so much. Faulkner's command of prose is unparalleled. His grasp of the philisophical muse here is truly something to behold, a novel about what it means to live and die. Humanity laid bare.

Narrators' Accent Struggles Distract, but Good

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of the narrators?

Will Patton's Light in August narration is wonderful. Someone who can do an authentic Southern accent would have been better here.

Any additional comments?

The Southern accents adopted by the narrators were rather awful and quite distracting at times as the actors struggled and missed. The actor who reads Vardaman, the little boy, does catch these sections well, however, and rendered them in a very moving way.

The novel itself is a classic of the twentieth century, and a tragicomic masterpiece.

Wonderful narration

The reader of Daryl is one of the best audio book performances I've experienced to date.

Great story Great reading

If you are a fan of William Faulkner you will enjoy this…

The reading captures the southern way of speaking in such a way that makes the surface of the Faulkner story somehow even more rich…

What an ending...

I can't comprehend how I feel emotionally about this book. I do concede it is a masterpiece. I just read The Sound And The Fury which pales in comparison to As I Lay Dying. I could probably read the former 10 times and still not have the best grasp on what is going on with the story. As for the latter, I could probably reread the story and understand it (just as I have now) but feel completely differently about it, and that is how a Southern Gothic novel should maintain its mysterious aura. It's difficult for me to say whether the ending was: a happier way to end a depressing book, an ridiculous way to end an angering book, or the other two permutations. Some gem quotes I thought were: "It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That's how the world is going to end." Cash on being crazy and Armstid on Anse's demeanor. Also, Faulkner is the undisputed champion of stream-of-consciousness, and I've read Joyce and enough Woolf to make that assertion.