Once again I find myself leading my intrepid literary troops through William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and once again I am struck by a singular character:
Cash Bundren.
Eldest child, focused carpenter, absolute truth-teller. His first narration in AILD is nothing more than a list, a quick how-to on coffin-making. He even fails to mention that it is for his mother that he toils. Emotion-dodging? Deflection-by-insulation? Or space case? We quickly jump to the latter, feeling (fearing?) something is a little off with the oldest Bundren offspring.
Cash, however, strikes me as having access to some secret that I am not privy to, or if I am, then it is a secret I care not to look at for longer than a moment or two. Like staring at the sun overlong. Or a car crash before the ambulance.
He knows what it means to stay on task. Whether the task is concrete like constructing a coffin or abstract like demonstrating kindness, Cash knows how to see it through, regardless of time frames.
Like Dick in Waterland or Lenny in Of Mice and Men or Forrest Gump himself, it is their vacuous nature which allows them to outstrip, in this one small arena at least, the other great men which surround them.
I must confess, I don't like the hollowness of Cash's devotion. And not because he is "slow" or a "dullard," and not because he is "simple" and "rural;" it is entirely because it is something I cannot do. It is a skill-set which I do not possess. And I am not dull or slow; I am witty and sophisticated. I read and discuss and posit great ideas and challenge the great ideas of others.
In fact, it would seem as if I am so over-burdened by my wit and sophistication that I cannot clutch a single devotion to my chest for longer than a few moments.
Was it Thoreau who claimed "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!"? I feel, gentle reader, that Cash is nodding a slow nod right about now. And he will probably continue to nod until I get it, not a moment before. Not even long after his head hurts.
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