/lit/ - Literature

>Because women so delicate so mysterious Father said. Delicate equilibrium of periodical filth between two moons balanced. Moons he said full and yellow as harvest moons her hips thighs. Outside outside of them always but. Yellow. Feet soles with walking like. Then know that some man that all those mysterious and imperious concealed. With all that inside of them shapes an outward suavity waiting for a touch to. Liquid putrefaction like drowned things floating like pale rubber flabbily filled getting the odour of honeysuckle all mixed up.

What did he mean by that? Can anybody explain every word and what it means? I want to understand...

Faulkner (and many other modernist writers) is trying to express levels of consciousness more subtle than verbal thought. It's easy enough to convey what someone thinks, the words they have in their heads and the stories they tell themselves about themselves, but a lot harder to show their subjective experience, which is what Faulkner does with his experimental techniques.

You're not dumb, or may be but not because you find Faulkner difficult, he is actually very hard and can be appreciated on many levels. You should read the whole thing through at least three times before you decide what you think of it. You'll notice the same ideas and images being handled by different characters in different ways and things will somewhat come together. The passage you quote is about boundaries and the nesting of things within each other. Where does one thing end and another begin and how might things be related in ways that are not obvious? This is a very important theme in As I Lay Dying and really in all Faulkner. Look at how Darl (Dahl) sees the world, look how Cash sees the world, how different it is and how different (but horrible) their ends are.

There are many passages whose actual meaning is still unclear and debated. Some of them are sort of like zen koans that don't "mean" anything but trying to unravel them can point you in a certain direction.

You compare him to Shakespeare. It's like you're used to Mozart and now you're listening to Ornette Coleman. It's not supposed to be easy and it won't all ever make sense.

With Faulkner you want to read him slow and reread him over and over. But you will "get" much of it right away. Like when Darl describes the wagon going into the river you don't need much of brains to appreciate how beautiful that writing is.

You're not supposed to read Faulkner like you rad Dickens. Reading him is more like reading poetry than prose.