I’m so angry.
I hate Addie. I hate her son Jewel. The only person she ever cared for. The only child she ever cared for because she blamed the children for being Anse’s. I hate what they did to Darl. How was he so strange? Did I not read his character correctly, or was he really not all that strange? I hate Dewey Dell’s betrayal. I hate Anse.
The above is what I had to get out after reading this. I don’t know how I had such an emotional response when I found the writing to be a bit too odd and creative for my taste. And I didn’t think I had really connected with any of the characters. But I couldn’t put the novel down after the river scene. I cannot explain my investment in this novel.
I actually do admire the concept and plot. A large hillbilly family sets off to bury the matriarch of the family, Addie, who requested before she died that she be buried where her folks are from, and the family has to figure out a way to carry out this request. So they load her up in the wagon and set off, but they can’t get across the flooded river, and all the while Addie is decomposing and putting up a stink. It’s ridiculous, but also heartbreaking, especially when you learn the underlying motivations of each of them. There is something so realistically naked and depressing about the way the story is told.
There are so many parts of this book that tugged at me: Vardamam gouging holes into his mother’s coffin so she could breathe. Jewel sacrificing his most priced possession for the family. Darl keeping all of his family’s secrets, especially Dewey Dell’s. The children feeling the dearth of their mother’s love. The brothers ill-advisedly binding Cash’s broken leg with concrete to give him some relief. Even Anse being so utterly pathetic. Everyone in the novel seemed to pity Addie for being married to someone like Anse, but holy mother of fatherless arachnids, they were both the absolute worst. It’s hard to blame the children for their flaws given the inadequacy of the care from their parents. But still, they stuck together in the family bond until the end…the ending which we won’t talk about or we’ll loop around to where we started the review…I’m still angry.
Faulkner’s writing doesn’t abide by any rules. He goes back and forth chronologically, he abandons punctuation, he withholds narrative exposition, he inconsistently uses different styles of voice, he writes nonsensically. He intentionally tries to disorient the reader, and I could probably read this book 5 times and still not understand every sentence, but the effect apparently worked on me anyways. He creates an atmosphere that’s quietly haunting.
I think I’ll have to reread this book to give a more comprehensive review. I already need to reread The Sound and the Fury that I read in high school, and apparently that is more difficult than this one so that’s slightly alarming, but hopefully prior experience will help.
