everywhereattheendoftime’s Reviews > As I Lay Dying > Status Update

My thoughts from around the halfway point: this is a good book, defintely ahead of it’s time, thst utilizes a lot of interesting literary tricks and tools that you don’t see in a lot of classics. But it’s also a really disorienting read, and the characters aren’t exactly introduced. The just kind of show up

The prose is so interesting, especially how it changes from POV to POV. I tried to read a recent run-on sentence all at once and it was kind of a lot, but that’s the point.
It is a little hard to follow, that’s my biggest critique. I’m not always sure what’s happening when a new chapter starts.

Okay, maybe Vardaman is the best character, too. Maybe im picking favorites and the favorites are whoever tug my heartstrings.

It feels fitting to read this book while it’s raining

For an older book, I wasn’t expecting this stylization, but it’s neat! I wonder if it was experimental at the time, or other authors had also tried it?

I see why this is a classic, this sticks in your brain and makes you think about what life was like back then

This poor kid…

This does make me think about what it must be like, to become the woman of the house so suddenly in a time where it meant there was always so much work to be done, the whole family’s survival is in your hands and you don’t even get time to grieve. It must’ve driven people mad

Maybe the repetition is a stylistic choice, but I don’t like how every single cow noise is described as a moaning, where are the synonyms? The cow lows, the cow whines, etc. why is it always moaning