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As I Lay Dying
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman, Robertson Dean, Lina Patel, Lorna Raver
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
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As I Lay Dying
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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.
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mr RS FFOULKES
- 05-11-18
Brilliant but brought on depression in more ways than one
Far be it from me to judge so unquestionably accomplished and gifted an author but this is a novel characterised by an unrelenting misery that is at times very difficult to endure. Nevertheless, it’s an arresting and highly innovative work rich in quite astonishing imagery.
From a performance perspective, I’m afraid there are too many actors performing the parts. If one actor is sufficient to voice a multitude of characters in a titanic 18th or 19th century novel (see Juliet Stevenson reading Middlemarch or even the audacious early-20th century Mrs Dalloway, with its flowing from one stream or consciousness to another), then just the one should do for a relatively short novel like this. As it is, the jumping between actors interrupts the rhythm, and becomes rather irritating.
I certainly don’t regret having chosen this novel but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it hadn’t brought on my own depression somewhat.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Welsh Mafia
- 13-09-08
A stream of voices in the dry wilderness?.
The key to this book is the disparate voices of the same family that find their way to us across the divide of time, location, culture and context. A book that is a struggle from the start - 15 different narrators in 59 chapters - but a journey that becomes easier as we are helped with the burden of unfamiliar language and strange circumstances by a great narration team. The Stream of consciousness technique was refined from its European source by Faulkner and we see its full glory here - on the trail to Jefferson, Mississippi. Not Agamemnon to Odysseus as the title suggests, but a dirt poor family in the throes of their own sad Odyssey.
Great stuff ? a really difficult book well delivered ? it?s what makes Audible so valuable.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Andreas Grueter
- 27-03-21
Easier to read
Struggled to finish it - I think it would have been easier to read it. Maybe if there were different voices for different characters
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- EM
- 10-10-19
beautiful
This is an excellent performance of one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 05-07-23
A must listen
A Faulkner classic brought to life and made all the more accessible by a brilliant perforane
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