As I Lay Dying: Stories Out of Stories

Warwick Wadlington not only presents thoughtful insights into an early Faulkner masterpiece, but he provides a good overview of the work of his predecessor critics, with a special tip of the hat to Cleanth Brooks and Olga Vickery. Although Wadlington summarizes the plot in one or two paragraphs, he does so only to show how silly and misguided such an effort is. Unlike the Cliff Notes that students buy to avoid reading the actual books covered, Wadlington assumes the reader has actually read AS I LAY DYING and is eager to engage with the text more deeply. He looks at the collective story of the Bundrens from the perspective of family secrets, individual vs. corporate action, and most interestingly for me, from the perspective of "sacred economics." The novel was written just as the US was going into the Great Depression and Wadlington suggests that the book, among other things, reflects the nation's transition from the unchecked individualism of the roaring twenties to the collective action of the thirties. This is a very stimulating and compact reading of a great American classic. The book includes a chronolgy of Faulkner's life and a selective bibliography.