As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner
read: circa 2001
Modern Library #35, Guardian 1000 Novels

Another book I read for my college English class.  One of factors we were encouraged to analyze for that class was the "voice" of each novel: who is the narrator?  First-person or third-person?  Omniscient or limited?  Does the narrator change?  Why did the author decide to tell the story this way?

As I Lay Dying is an interesting book to read through this lens, as Faulkner tells the story through the eyes of several characters.  Moreover, the prose style changes to reflect the voice of the narrator and we are led into each character's thoughts, in a "stream-of-consciousness" style.  So there are different perspectives, and that's interesting, in theory.  In practice, however, I've almost never enjoyed stream-of-consciousness writing, and Faulkner taking me into the mind of people in varying degrees of craziness wasn't the sort of story I respond to.