As I Lay Dying

October 2004 and 2008

Have you ever read the book As I lay Dying by William Faulkner? Yeah, Faulkner, the great literary giant. Get it sometime from the library to peruse, if to do nothing more than open your eyes about the books that college bound high schoolers are required to read.

It's written in the vernacular of 1930's back woodsese. I think it was such a literary success because persons who wrote literature back then could not imagine a literarri, literariarian, literachi (a writer) who was educated could create such an indiscipherable dialogue in four differing voices of hick.

I wrote like that long before anyone thought it was cool and I did it without even trying! This book is even more backwoods hick than I am, and it's written without commas, periods or even subject and predicates in sentences. I thought the lingo was character driven, (total and complete idiot) but in his next book I reviewed, (The Bear) Faulkner wrote the same--and it's a bear.

The back cover gives the clue that it's about the trek of a family who wants their beloved mother to be buried in another county, but they have to wait... first for her to die and then to ride across country with the ever-ripening corpse. It's all about their comedic antics.

Maybe? But, I couldn't understand even one page. It's sad and I'm heartbroken that it's so apparent that I am so obviously not a college bound individual.

----------------------the real meat of the story-------------------------------

I'm not feeling well, so that book came to mind.. (but, not that sick) and it's time to go to Utah for our annual marathon. I traditionally put in a marathon right before we go, cleaning, cooking, packing, and arranging, etc... I try to make it easier by keeping a record (jottings) of what I did last year so I can just make revisions, reprint, then reprimand and reprove the children for what happened last year in my absence.

I looked back to my 2004 blog and I was sick that night before too and here is the will I wrote in Faulkner note format:

"the real reazn I'm ritin, 'ncase thes is ma laest pistle... keep'n treazur dalways... it'd be albout potties but it seems that rottin' corpses are beder subjecs...

aaneeyway,

If us two, (Dave and I) perish, (Oun't think I'm at sick, but Aidan is and last minute I'm a trian to arrange alternate rangemnts for im.) (Dia's insulted ta think she'd stay to tend... (“In't it illegal fer yer kid to do that,” she asks?) I swear, I didn't birth that one.

aaneeyway,

If we perish, not by illness, but by plane crash, (“ats not a bad way to go overall”...said Grandma Hansen),

aaneeyway,

...thays a will in ma drawrer here in OK. It's a holographic... at maens riten n signed by hand (complete b.s., but these are legal in OK., because so many of us are kicking off and being hauled cross country to be buried by total inane idiots who can't speak or write legibly...)

aaneeyway, just sos ya know.


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And you thought I wasn't a great writer. After this epistle, judging purely by the inane writing style, doesn't it make you think Faulkner?

It's midnight and seminary starts at 5 at my house, so I'll be going now.

By the way, does anyone know where my black bag is with the brown stripe that I take everywhere on every vacation with me? It's lost. I can't begin to pack without it.