As I Lay Dying

Hay libros que te cautivan por su singular estilo, otros por su prosa, mientras otros, por la universalidad de su historia. "As I Lay Dying" me cautivó en todos los sentidos. No sólo es el hecho de que es una historia narrada desde la perspectiva de más de 20 personajes, sino que cada personaje te la cuenta a través de su flujo de conciencia. Además, la prosa de Faulkner es ridículamente espectacular. Cada párrafo es una aventura donde el narrador no sólo te describe lo que sucede literalmente, pero la tragedia o belleza involucrada en lo que fue, en lo que es o en lo que representará para los personajes.

"She looks at Vardaman; her eyes, the life in them, rushing suddenly upon them; the two flames glare up for a steady instant. Then they go out as though someone had leaned down and blown upon them."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p48

"In the sand the wheels whisper, as though the very earth would hush our entry. We descend as the hill commences to rise."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p229

Es así que Faulkner no sólo nos presta sus ojos y oídos para contemplar la historia, pero nos adentra a través de todo ser vivo para prestarnos su sexto sentido por algunos momentos.

"The mules stand, their fore quarters already sloped a little, their rumps high. They too are breathing now with a deep groaning sound; looking back once, their gaze sweeps across us with in their eyes a wild, sad, profound and despairing quality as though they had already seen in the thick water the shape of the disaster which they could not speak and we could not see."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p147

Dentro de esta historia, hay pasajes llenos de honestidad y vulnerabilidad;

"I am not crying now. I am not anything. Dewey Dell comes to the hill and calls me. Vardaman. I am not anything. I am quiet. You, Vardaman. I can cry quiet now, feeling and hearing my tears."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p56

mientras que están aquellos de reclamo a la sociedad y a sus costumbres;

"It was as though, so long as the deceit ran along quiet and monotonous, all of us let ourselves be deceived, abetting it unawares or maybe through cowardice, since all people are cowards and naturally prefer any kind of treachery because it has a bland outside."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p134

"When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had the children didn't care whether there was a word for it or not."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p171

"He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear. Cash did not need to say it to me nor I to him, and I would say, Let Anse use it, if he wants to. So that it was Anse or love; love or Anse; it didn't matter."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p172

o los que simplemente acusan a sus semejantes por sus actitudes o acciones.

"I knew that nobody but a luckless man could ever need a doctor in the face of a cyclone. And I knew that if it had finally occurred to Anse himself that he needed one, it was already too late."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p42

"I notice how it takes a lazy man, a man that hates moving, to get set on moving once he does get started off, the same as he was set on staying still, like it aint the moving he hates so much as the starting and the stopping."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p114

"I would think of a sin as I would think of the clothes we both wore in the world's face, of the circumspection neccesary because he was he and I was I; the sin themore utter and terrible since he was the instrument ordained by God who created the sin, to sanctify that sin He had created."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p174

No obstante, nunca se pierde este sentido de reflexión durante toda la historia. Reflexión sobre quiénes somos y en dónde estamos.

"'Why aint I a town boy, pa?' I said. God made me. I did not said to God to made me in the country."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p66

"I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, becuase he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p80

"It is as though the space between us were time: an irrevocable quality. It is as though time, no longer running straight before us in a diminishing line, now runs parallel between us like a looping string, the distance being the doubling accretion of the thread and not the inverval between."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p146

Y es gracias a estas continuas reflexiones de sus personajes y su evolución durante la historia, que "As I Lay Dying" se convierte en más allá que en la odisea de una familia en duelo; pero en una poderosa instrospección del comportamiento humano; de sus luces y sus sombras, y el constante cambio de reflectores.

"Sometimes I aint so sho who's got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint. Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It's like it aint to much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it."

Faulkner, William. "As I lay dying". p233