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After the reader has marveled at Faulkner\'s experimentations in As I Lay Dying, there is no need to be stricken into critical silence by it. The total effect is disappointing; the inadequacy of the characterizations fails to arouse our sympathies and compassions; the ending makes us feel as though we had been tricked into caring at all; the artistry seems glib when compared with the uses of the same technical procedures in [Faulkner\'s] The Sound and the Fury; and the total idea moves us even less than the total action.... As I Lay Dying has been too highly praised by too many critics.
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