2004-10-26 - 09:35

Chapter Twenty

So, I've been going to the Rec Center to use their eliptical trainer a couple of times a week. Its a nice break from lifting weights. At first, I would take my GRE Flash cards and set them up on the display, flipping through them as I did my thirty minutes. But, now that I've taken the test, I don't have to continue learning words, (although, to prepare I bought a word smart book and made some vocabulary building suggestions I like.) so I decided to get a book on tape to listen to while I was working out.

I have this thing about books on tape. I think if you're going to listen to something, you should listen to something that you are relatively sure you'd never make it to the end of if you were actually to pick up the book. For example, anything by Thomas Hardy. Now, I love his work. The characters are well developed, you get an excellent look into the world of his time time, the stories are usually compelling, they're interesting. Well, once they finally get started they are interesting. If Thomas Hardy were to write today, he'd have to take a running leap into his stories for anyone to pick them up. Far From the Madding Crowd was a beautiful, bucolic novel that has a happy ending! Where else do you get that in 19th century literature? However, I don't think many people make it past Oak losing his flock. Now, if more people listened to it, I think more people would know it ended well.

In following with this line of reasoning, I picked up As I Lay Dying By William Faulkner. I've never read anything by Faulkner and I figured why not start here. As its a book on tape it requires little or no effort on my part and as far as books on tape go its not very long. Only eight cassettes as a matter of fact.

This morning I got up early so I could make bread pudding so I could take it to have for lunch. (A savory bread pudding made with turkey sausage. It smells really good.) While I was chopping the vegetables, I popped in tape three. Chapter Twenty of As I lay Dying is quite possibly the most accurate description of the intimacy of a shared sorrow, like a death, that I've ever heard. Chapter Twenty contains Addie Bundren's Funeral. It discusses how the men and women seperate themselves and all seem to hover in groups and how they all paid their respects to the family. But, I think the best parts was the description of the singing at the funeral and the description of Minister. You get this feeling of detached sorrow, like its all too much to take in from the narrator of the chapter who is one of Addy's sons. It was fantastic. Faulkner was a genius.

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Artificial Sound for the Artificial World:

Still more noir than you are.