Collection
Description
Joe Christmas does not know whether he is black or white. Faulkner makes of Joe's tragedy a powerful indictment of racism; at the same time Joe's life is a study of the divided self and becomes a symbol of 20th century man. Light in August is the story of Lena Grove's search for the father of her unborn child, and features one of Faulkner's most memorable characters: Joe Christmas, a desperate drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — Classic — 2011)
User reviews
LibraryThing member brenzi
”Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.” (Page 119)
I thought I had a mental block for William Faulkner. I thought I was spoiled for him forty years ago when an over-reaching college professor thought The Sound and the Furyquandaryquantity. But now, after reading this book, the curse has been lifted. I’m a Faulkner fan and almost sure to go on and read some of his other work because this book was, well, magnificent, to say the least.
Let’s start with the characters: naive, determined Lena Grove who is resolutely searching for the father of her unborn child. Faulkner draws her so adroitly that although we all know the father is never going to marry her, we keep hoping that she will somehow come out on top. Can the roll of the dice somehow come out in her favor for once? The inscrutable Joe Christmas, whose miserable childhood is revealed little by little, which enables us to determine much of what is behind his dubious behavior. Hard-working, compassionate Byron Bunch, who falls for Lena, and still helps her to find the man she’s looking for because that’s just the kind of man he is. And the defrocked Rev. Gail Hightower, whose demons are slowly consuming him, wonders why Byron has such faith in him.
Faulkner places these complex characters among the pre-depression-era populace of Jefferson, Mississippi and the story unfolds in layers and flashbacks. The prose is stunning and thoroughly effective in presenting Faulkner’s themes of memory, race, fate and free will, society and class, and religion. And in doing so, he counters the light with the dark. This is quite brilliant, otherwise the dark in the novel would be overwhelming and drag the reader down.
I am so glad to have rediscovered William Faulkner and will happily read more of his work. Very highly recommended.
I thought I had a mental block for William Faulkner. I thought I was spoiled for him forty years ago when an over-reaching college professor thought The Sound and the Fury
Show More
was a good choice for college freshmen who hadn’t read anything else by Faulkner and to whom stream of consciousness was an unknown Let’s start with the characters: naive, determined Lena Grove who is resolutely searching for the father of her unborn child. Faulkner draws her so adroitly that although we all know the father is never going to marry her, we keep hoping that she will somehow come out on top. Can the roll of the dice somehow come out in her favor for once? The inscrutable Joe Christmas, whose miserable childhood is revealed little by little, which enables us to determine much of what is behind his dubious behavior. Hard-working, compassionate Byron Bunch, who falls for Lena, and still helps her to find the man she’s looking for because that’s just the kind of man he is. And the defrocked Rev. Gail Hightower, whose demons are slowly consuming him, wonders why Byron has such faith in him.
Faulkner places these complex characters among the pre-depression-era populace of Jefferson, Mississippi and the story unfolds in layers and flashbacks. The prose is stunning and thoroughly effective in presenting Faulkner’s themes of memory, race, fate and free will, society and class, and religion. And in doing so, he counters the light with the dark. This is quite brilliant, otherwise the dark in the novel would be overwhelming and drag the reader down.
I am so glad to have rediscovered William Faulkner and will happily read more of his work. Very highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member A_musing
A deeply religious, fundamentally anti-Christian exploration of the resounding of the words "n*gg*r" and "bitchery" in the Southern soul, Light in August depicts an antediluvian South where each person is born into the original sin of race, and where redemption is unwittingly sought from false
Characters are both iconic and down to earth and we learn about them from both the outside, through others' eyes and through their rolling dialogue, and from the inside, in their own often irrational mental ramblings. A humble, simple woman takes on an odyssey by foot; a proud orphan is forced, or, as Faulkner says, "cast" on his own life long journey; other characters hardly move, staying in one place and letting the travelers come to them, or travel over generations, with all of them coming together in an ever thicker morass.
This book reaches inside you and twists as only Faulkner can. It does not let go, and its language seeps into you full of ambiguity and corruption. Known as one of the great indictments of Southern racism, this book is also an angry exploration of gender roles and a peerless work of poetry.
I listened to this on on Audiobook, which is an ideal medium and really brings out the melodious, rhythmic prose. The audio format also leaves someone else to sort through the written dialect for the right rendering, taking a bit of the burden and puzzlement of reading Faulkner off the reader. Scott Brick's rendition is sublime.
Light in August is not an easy read, but it is a true experience more than a read. There is no way to prepare a reader for the experience through a review: you must just "cast" yourself into it.
Show More
prophets, fallen gods, and those damned by their fellow man. We find ourselves inside uncomfortable characters, hating and sympathizing at once, understanding but distancing, struggling all the time to free ourselves and these characters from this inescapable original sin. At the beginning of the book, we've come a "fur piece", but at the end, we're reminded we still have a "fur piece to go".Characters are both iconic and down to earth and we learn about them from both the outside, through others' eyes and through their rolling dialogue, and from the inside, in their own often irrational mental ramblings. A humble, simple woman takes on an odyssey by foot; a proud orphan is forced, or, as Faulkner says, "cast" on his own life long journey; other characters hardly move, staying in one place and letting the travelers come to them, or travel over generations, with all of them coming together in an ever thicker morass.
This book reaches inside you and twists as only Faulkner can. It does not let go, and its language seeps into you full of ambiguity and corruption. Known as one of the great indictments of Southern racism, this book is also an angry exploration of gender roles and a peerless work of poetry.
I listened to this on on Audiobook, which is an ideal medium and really brings out the melodious, rhythmic prose. The audio format also leaves someone else to sort through the written dialect for the right rendering, taking a bit of the burden and puzzlement of reading Faulkner off the reader. Scott Brick's rendition is sublime.
Light in August is not an easy read, but it is a true experience more than a read. There is no way to prepare a reader for the experience through a review: you must just "cast" yourself into it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member janemarieprice
I won’t summarize what this book is about because I’m not in a high enough intellectual sphere to be able to do that. Instead, I will talk about three things which I kept thinking about while reading – rhythm, quiet, and salvation.
First, let’s talk about rhythm. Usually when I start a book,
Faulkner uses the word ‘quiet’ a lot – particularly in the first half of the book. I think this is used to show something about social norms. The quite members of a society are the good ones, the ones doing all the socially appropriate things. So it is not so much a volume issue as a comment of conspicuousness. I noticed this particularly with regards to Hightower. “The entire affair had been a lot of people performing a play and that now and at last they had all played out the parts which had been allotted them and now they could live quietly with one another.” I get the impression that his sermons were probably not seen as strange until the problems appeared with his wife – like the interviewed neighbors of someone recently arrested always say ‘there was always something strange about him/her.’
There much too much to be said about the role of religion in the novel. First, there is some phenomenal imagery used to evoke the feeling of religion – particularly the use of variations of monotone. Faulkner is a master at dropping one word into a sentence that instantly brings you back to another part of the story or someplace else entirely. Salvation and fate become major elements in the story. It seems that all of the characters are looking for salvation in some way, either through normalcy (Joe’s adopted parents) or the ‘other’ (Joanna). It also seems that there is no way to escape where each character is going and they know this. “The street which ran for thirty years…It had made a circle and he is still inside of it.” “Already he can feel the two instants about to touch: the one which is the sum of his life, which renews itself between each dark and dusk, and the suspended instant out of which the soon will presently begin.” The only characters which seem outside of the cycle of fate are Joe’s grandparents. I kept thinking of them as the Greek chorus. Each one side of the same coin – one wanting forgiveness for all and one wanting punishment for all, neither being able to rationalize the meaning or consequence of their wishes – “monotonous strophe and antistrophe.”
In summary, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Reading back over my thoughts, they seem really disjointed, but there were a lot of thoughts to keep track of while reading.
First, let’s talk about rhythm. Usually when I start a book,
Show More
I read about 15-50 pages into it and then restart it. It takes me a little while to get into the rhythm or style or pace or whatever you want to call it, and I like to read through the entire book totally immersed in it. I didn’t have to do that with this novel. It made me wonder if there is something about the tone which is familiar to because I’m from the south. Is it rhythm what makes a piece of writing ‘southern.’ There are plenty of books written by southern authors or set in the south which I wouldn’t call ‘southern.’ Thoughts? Faulkner uses the word ‘quiet’ a lot – particularly in the first half of the book. I think this is used to show something about social norms. The quite members of a society are the good ones, the ones doing all the socially appropriate things. So it is not so much a volume issue as a comment of conspicuousness. I noticed this particularly with regards to Hightower. “The entire affair had been a lot of people performing a play and that now and at last they had all played out the parts which had been allotted them and now they could live quietly with one another.” I get the impression that his sermons were probably not seen as strange until the problems appeared with his wife – like the interviewed neighbors of someone recently arrested always say ‘there was always something strange about him/her.’
There much too much to be said about the role of religion in the novel. First, there is some phenomenal imagery used to evoke the feeling of religion – particularly the use of variations of monotone. Faulkner is a master at dropping one word into a sentence that instantly brings you back to another part of the story or someplace else entirely. Salvation and fate become major elements in the story. It seems that all of the characters are looking for salvation in some way, either through normalcy (Joe’s adopted parents) or the ‘other’ (Joanna). It also seems that there is no way to escape where each character is going and they know this. “The street which ran for thirty years…It had made a circle and he is still inside of it.” “Already he can feel the two instants about to touch: the one which is the sum of his life, which renews itself between each dark and dusk, and the suspended instant out of which the soon will presently begin.” The only characters which seem outside of the cycle of fate are Joe’s grandparents. I kept thinking of them as the Greek chorus. Each one side of the same coin – one wanting forgiveness for all and one wanting punishment for all, neither being able to rationalize the meaning or consequence of their wishes – “monotonous strophe and antistrophe.”
In summary, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Reading back over my thoughts, they seem really disjointed, but there were a lot of thoughts to keep track of while reading.
Show Less
LibraryThing member kambrogi
If you want to explore the growth of the literary arts in the 20th century, then read William Faulkner. What Shakespeare was to his age, Dostoevsky was to his, Faulkner was to his own. He reshaped what it meant to create literary fiction, in a way both clear and dense, both mundane and biblical,
At the center of Light in August is a man called Joe Christmas who is lost between worlds in the American post-Civil War South. Although he belongs to no community, he is judged by them all, and invariably found wanting. Christmas commits a brutal crime that grows out of a curse visited upon him by his ancestors and their history.
But Christmas is not alone in his struggle. Other lost souls include a young country girl searching for the man who fathered her child, a minister who is trapped in a loop of family history, a laborer who longs for love and music and Christian goodness, several born-again Christians intent on brutalizing those who fail in the eyes of their God, and several other fascinating misfits searching for peace in a world intent on denying it to them. To a great extent it’s a book about fathers and sons, with fathers as great as God and as lowly as deadbeat dads playing their parts in a journey toward a tragic but not entirely hopeless end.
The book is complex, twisting, multilayered and brilliant, rich with humor, wisdom, tragedy, death and resurrection. It isn’t an easy read, but it is beautiful, powerful and true. It reminded me of what great literature is, and why I love to read it.
Show More
and all the while startlingly beautiful. He gave a new set of tools to writers who wanted to explore the human condition. Others may point to James Joyce or T S Eliot, but it was Faulkner who took their inspirations and gave them humanity, made words live and breathe, made words that could thrill and break your heart. But make it larger in the process.At the center of Light in August is a man called Joe Christmas who is lost between worlds in the American post-Civil War South. Although he belongs to no community, he is judged by them all, and invariably found wanting. Christmas commits a brutal crime that grows out of a curse visited upon him by his ancestors and their history.
But Christmas is not alone in his struggle. Other lost souls include a young country girl searching for the man who fathered her child, a minister who is trapped in a loop of family history, a laborer who longs for love and music and Christian goodness, several born-again Christians intent on brutalizing those who fail in the eyes of their God, and several other fascinating misfits searching for peace in a world intent on denying it to them. To a great extent it’s a book about fathers and sons, with fathers as great as God and as lowly as deadbeat dads playing their parts in a journey toward a tragic but not entirely hopeless end.
The book is complex, twisting, multilayered and brilliant, rich with humor, wisdom, tragedy, death and resurrection. It isn’t an easy read, but it is beautiful, powerful and true. It reminded me of what great literature is, and why I love to read it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member hemlokgang
This is the third novel of Faulkner's that I have read and it is absolutely flawless! The prose begs to be read aloud as poetry throughout the book, the story is fascinating in and of itself and also historically intriguing, and the characters are deeply engaging. Faulkner's deeply Southern story
As is true of many great writers, Faulkner's writing can be challenging, but believe me, it is well worth the effort!
Show More
is thought-provoking and engaging. Just to tease prospective readers, consider a pregnant girl who walks from Alabama to Mississippi to find her lover, the minister who cannot bring himself to overcome his past, the illegitimate boy named Christmas whose destiny seems written in stone, and the heroic Byron Burch.....and that just names a few of the wonderful characters in this novel.As is true of many great writers, Faulkner's writing can be challenging, but believe me, it is well worth the effort!
Show Less
LibraryThing member knittingfreak
The book has so many layers. It deals with some big themes such as religion and racism (which is pretty much a requirement for Southern lit.). But it also deals with isolation, identity, relationships and group mentality.
There are three basic stories that are interconnected, although somewhat
Though there is plenty of misery to go around, for me, the story of Joe Christmas is the saddest. He grows up and lives his entire life without any knowledge of his true identity. The reader finds out as the book progresses that he was taken to an orphanage by his grandfather, who had allowed his only daughter to die in childbirth as punishment for sleeping with someone of a different race. Joe gets his unusual name because he's left at the orphanage on Christmas Eve. He is eventually adopted by a couple, but life doesn't get any better for him. His adopted father beats him on a regular basis. Joe has a problem with relationships with women due to an incident at the orphanage when he was younger. He passes for white for most of his life, but he is ambiguous about his race. He never feels as if he fits in anywhere in the segregated South -- not in white society or black society.
The life of Rev. Gail Hightower is the third story in the book. Gail was born to an older couple and like most everyone else has a less than pleasant childhood. He grows up obsessed by the exploits of his grandfather during the Civil War. He eventually loses his wife and his church because of this strange obsession. He is shunned by the people of Jefferson, and he retreats from life. He looks forward to death as a release from the misery of this life. It's through an encounter with Lena Grove that Hightower decides that maybe he can rejoin life.
That is a very basic synopsis, and I don't want to say much more because I don't want to give too much away. I highly recommend this book especially, if like me, you're one who has tried Faulkner before with less than stellar results. It is not a quick read. It's not the kind of book that you can read while trying to do something else. In fact, I often found myself rereading sentences several times. The writing is complex but absolutely amazing. Though there are three main stories, he weaves them together in such a way that it works beautifully. I love the imagery that Faulkner evokes. He's the type of writer that has that knack of using the exact word necessary to paint a picture for the reader. In fact, he makes up words when nothing else will do -- and it works. I will definitely be reading more Faulkner.
There are three basic stories that are interconnected, although somewhat
Show More
loosely. The story of Lena Grove opens and closes the book. She's young, single, and pregnant. She sets out on foot to find the father of her baby who has deserted her. You'd think she'd be depressed or pessimistic about life in her situation, but she's not. She seems to take everything in life as it comes. She's happy in whatever situation she finds herself. But, she's pretty much the only major character in the book that has found any kind of peace at all.Though there is plenty of misery to go around, for me, the story of Joe Christmas is the saddest. He grows up and lives his entire life without any knowledge of his true identity. The reader finds out as the book progresses that he was taken to an orphanage by his grandfather, who had allowed his only daughter to die in childbirth as punishment for sleeping with someone of a different race. Joe gets his unusual name because he's left at the orphanage on Christmas Eve. He is eventually adopted by a couple, but life doesn't get any better for him. His adopted father beats him on a regular basis. Joe has a problem with relationships with women due to an incident at the orphanage when he was younger. He passes for white for most of his life, but he is ambiguous about his race. He never feels as if he fits in anywhere in the segregated South -- not in white society or black society.
The life of Rev. Gail Hightower is the third story in the book. Gail was born to an older couple and like most everyone else has a less than pleasant childhood. He grows up obsessed by the exploits of his grandfather during the Civil War. He eventually loses his wife and his church because of this strange obsession. He is shunned by the people of Jefferson, and he retreats from life. He looks forward to death as a release from the misery of this life. It's through an encounter with Lena Grove that Hightower decides that maybe he can rejoin life.
That is a very basic synopsis, and I don't want to say much more because I don't want to give too much away. I highly recommend this book especially, if like me, you're one who has tried Faulkner before with less than stellar results. It is not a quick read. It's not the kind of book that you can read while trying to do something else. In fact, I often found myself rereading sentences several times. The writing is complex but absolutely amazing. Though there are three main stories, he weaves them together in such a way that it works beautifully. I love the imagery that Faulkner evokes. He's the type of writer that has that knack of using the exact word necessary to paint a picture for the reader. In fact, he makes up words when nothing else will do -- and it works. I will definitely be reading more Faulkner.
Show Less
LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd
This is less "experimental" than Faulkner's earlier novels, The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, more linear, more "comprehensible", perhaps. The story is told mainly by an omniscient narrator, rather than through the stream of consciousness, internal monologues of his tormented characters.
Show More
Faulkner may have considered himself a "failed poet", but I believe his only failure was in not realizing that his poetry was never meant to be confined to traditional forms. The writing here is often profoundly poetic. The story is grim, being primarily concerned with the fate of an orphan and eventual murderer named Joe Christmas, who believes himself to be carrying the "taint" of Negro blood. As a child, he is abandoned by his family, tormented by other children, harassed by staff members at the orphanage, and eventually brought up under rigid religious constraints by his adoptive parents. None of this can come to good, of course. Although he could "pass" for white (and he may be white for all the factual evidence we are given to the contrary), he chooses to wave his assumed racial identity like a red flag in the face of everyone with whom he becomes close. He hates himself, he hates the rest of the human race, and in his view there is no salvation possible. His violent death is a foregone conclusion. Framing this tragic tale is the almost innocent "love story" of Lena Grove and Byron Bunch, while underlying it all are the back stories and obsessions of Christmas's victim, Joanna Burden, and his would-be savior, the Rev. Gail Hightower. An argument has been made that every principal character in this novel is pathological. There are certainly more archetypical outcasts in this story than you are likely to find in any other single work. It can seem a bit grotesque, in retrospect, but it does not feel like that in the active reading. I would give the book 5 full stars, except that every time I read it (at least 3 times in the last 40-some years) I get mired in Hightower's final chapter, stumbling over pronouns and generations, and never completely grasping the significance of his vision. Show Less
LibraryThing member andreablythe
I am not a fan of Faulkner. I hated The Sound and the Fury and thought As I Lay Dying was just okay, and apparently my records show I've also read The Unvanquished, though I couldn't for the life of me tell you what it was about. His writing style is often so obtuse that it obscures the story, and
Light in August is more accessible, to the point that I was actually able to enjoy the wordplay and flow of language (and which came off as lyrical, especially when read by Will Patton). The story begins with Lena, a pregnant women from Alabama, on the road to track down her wayward lover. She's calm and faithful that she will find the man who abandoned her. The roads lead her to Jackson, Mississippi, where the story weaves through a multitude of characters and lives, and culminating in sex and murder.
This book is infused with racism, saturated with it, which can be hard to read. Generally, I'm not fond of the argument, "consider the time and place," in these matters, because it's often used to shut down the conversation of racism in regards to classic books. In this case, however, the story grows up so much out of it's time and place that it can't be separated from it. Also, I don't get the sense that Faulkner is championing the racism or attempting to demonize his black characters, rather he seems to be telling a story about people that cannot be separated from the racism of the time period. But likewise, he doesn't seem to be damning the racists, either. Instead, he seems to stand outside the scenarios, more as and observer, merely recording actions of his characters (some of which even he doesn't seem to understand), without judging them one way or another.
It's also interesting that one of the main characters, Christmas, who may or may not be part black, is given some of the most significant exploration. He's one of the few characters we see as a child and come of age. Though he looks, if not white, at least like a foreigner, the idea that he might be part black haunts him from childhood, with even the other children in the orphanage calling him the n-word. He absorbs all this as a kind of self hatred, though nothing can be proved one way or another. And it's this idea of what he might be and (white) society's judgment of the black race that shapes much of his life.
I'm just not sure what Faulkner is trying to say with this, if he's trying to say anything at all. His portrayals of other black characters are also problematic by today's standards. What he has done is write a story that's open to multiple interpretations, one that warrants discussion and of which one could argue both for and against the racism of Faulkner.
This is a beautifully written book about the ugliness of people. In fact, by the end the only two characters that were at all sympathetic were Lena and possibly Bunch. Otherwise, there's not much of anyone to like, let alone to champion.
I'm rather torn on to how exactly I feel about it. I love the writing, but am disturbed by the story and despise most of the characters. So, I guess it's a toss up as far as recommendations go.
Show More
his characters are generally unlikeable. Light in August is more accessible, to the point that I was actually able to enjoy the wordplay and flow of language (and which came off as lyrical, especially when read by Will Patton). The story begins with Lena, a pregnant women from Alabama, on the road to track down her wayward lover. She's calm and faithful that she will find the man who abandoned her. The roads lead her to Jackson, Mississippi, where the story weaves through a multitude of characters and lives, and culminating in sex and murder.
This book is infused with racism, saturated with it, which can be hard to read. Generally, I'm not fond of the argument, "consider the time and place," in these matters, because it's often used to shut down the conversation of racism in regards to classic books. In this case, however, the story grows up so much out of it's time and place that it can't be separated from it. Also, I don't get the sense that Faulkner is championing the racism or attempting to demonize his black characters, rather he seems to be telling a story about people that cannot be separated from the racism of the time period. But likewise, he doesn't seem to be damning the racists, either. Instead, he seems to stand outside the scenarios, more as and observer, merely recording actions of his characters (some of which even he doesn't seem to understand), without judging them one way or another.
It's also interesting that one of the main characters, Christmas, who may or may not be part black, is given some of the most significant exploration. He's one of the few characters we see as a child and come of age. Though he looks, if not white, at least like a foreigner, the idea that he might be part black haunts him from childhood, with even the other children in the orphanage calling him the n-word. He absorbs all this as a kind of self hatred, though nothing can be proved one way or another. And it's this idea of what he might be and (white) society's judgment of the black race that shapes much of his life.
I'm just not sure what Faulkner is trying to say with this, if he's trying to say anything at all. His portrayals of other black characters are also problematic by today's standards. What he has done is write a story that's open to multiple interpretations, one that warrants discussion and of which one could argue both for and against the racism of Faulkner.
This is a beautifully written book about the ugliness of people. In fact, by the end the only two characters that were at all sympathetic were Lena and possibly Bunch. Otherwise, there's not much of anyone to like, let alone to champion.
I'm rather torn on to how exactly I feel about it. I love the writing, but am disturbed by the story and despise most of the characters. So, I guess it's a toss up as far as recommendations go.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Castlelass
Published in 1932, this classic American southern gothic novel, set during Prohibition, follows the intersecting lives of five people not following a traditional path in life. They are viewed as outsiders because they do not adhere to social norms. Joe Christmas is an orphan who is abused as a
The book is written in third person omniscient. It focuses on one character, then shifts to another. It is not chronological. The storyline goes forward and backward in time fluidly, catching the reader up on what has been missed after focusing closely on what happens to one specific character. It sounds convoluted but it really works well in keeping the reader’s interest. Faulkner uses unusual pairings of words, running them together to create vivid images.
This novel is mostly dark, violent, tragic, and sad, with only a faint flicker of hope. It requires a certain maturity to assimilate the metaphors, religious allegory, and complexities inherent in this story. I tried reading Faulkner when I was young, but most of it flew over my head. I think it requires a breadth of life experience to appreciate his work. I have not read his entire canon, but this book would be a better starting point than The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom!
Show More
child and believes he is of mixed racial ancestry but has no proof. He is searching for his place in the world. Lena Grove is in an unwed pregnant young woman looking for the father of her unborn child. Gail Hightower is a disgraced reverend who is plagued by his family’s past and his wife’s scandalous death. Joanna Burden, now living alone on a large property, is part of an abolitionist family that has been ostracized for years by their rural southern community. Byron Bunch is a nondescript, poor, hardworking, quiet man whom no one notices. The plot centers around a criminal act of murder and arson. Themes include the search for identity and how individuals are oppressed by racism, patriarchy, and religious zealotry. The book is written in third person omniscient. It focuses on one character, then shifts to another. It is not chronological. The storyline goes forward and backward in time fluidly, catching the reader up on what has been missed after focusing closely on what happens to one specific character. It sounds convoluted but it really works well in keeping the reader’s interest. Faulkner uses unusual pairings of words, running them together to create vivid images.
This novel is mostly dark, violent, tragic, and sad, with only a faint flicker of hope. It requires a certain maturity to assimilate the metaphors, religious allegory, and complexities inherent in this story. I tried reading Faulkner when I was young, but most of it flew over my head. I think it requires a breadth of life experience to appreciate his work. I have not read his entire canon, but this book would be a better starting point than The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom!
Show Less
LibraryThing member stuart10er
I was surprised by how readable this novel was. A dense and sometimes daunting 508 pages, it actually breezed by when I would actually sit down and read it. It was a difficult book to settle into, so I would get distracted. Taking place in the South, not a place I have great affinity for, and set
Show More
in between the wars. The crux of the action takes place nearly in the same day of a young woman arriving in Jefferson, MS pregnant and looking for the father of her child and the brutal murder of a woman and the arson of her home by her clandestine lover. In order to make some sense of this, Faulkner takes the reader back in time with different sets of characters to provide the context and commentary on this tragic day in Jefferson, Missippi. Show Less
LibraryThing member ostrom
This is my favorite novel of Faulkner's. Joe Christmas is a fascinating character.
LibraryThing member nbmars
This rereading of Light in August came some forty years after my first reading. Back then, it took me fifty pages or so to figure out that the opening line “It’s a fur piece” did not refer to a mink stole. As a less naïve adult, I find Faulkner’s sense of dialect to be mesmerizing; he is
Light in August is starkly evil. Not only are there characters who are so evil they barely seem human, but there are also the evils of poverty, religion, ignorance, and group-thinking. And looming over it all are the ugly sides of race and gender relations that are the main foci of the book.
The story, written in 1932, takes place in Jefferson, Mississippi. The major protagonist is Joe Christmas, a former abandoned baby of mixed racial heritage, who appears to be white. Rumors of his black blood follow him around however, and this suspicion determines how people treat him (i.e., not well). He especially infuriates the white townspeople who are outraged that Joe doesn’t act like one race or the other; this makes him, in their eyes, either unacceptably presumptuous or idiotic. But Joe’s divided identity is overshadowed, in my view, by his total sociopathic personality: deep-seated rage, incapacity for love, abusiveness, obliviousness to others, and an overwhelming emptiness – whether of feelings, of identity, of purpose, or of a future. “He traveled a thousand streets,” Faulkner wrote, “that were but one street… that ran fifteen years long… “
There are other characters in the book: Lena Grove serves as a Greek chorus, or, others say, as a symbol of Mary, who is on a journey to bear her son and find his father. Lucas Burch is the actual father of Lena’s baby, but wants nothing to do with responsibility. Byron Bunch is one of the few relatively decent people in the book (not to mention, one of the few characters who is nuanced and complex) who wants to do right by Lena. The Ex-Reverend Gail Hightower is one of several characters who have been made social outcasts for not hating blacks. He also serves the function of allowing Christianity to play a large part in the novel. In many ways, he is just a foil, or mirror, for others in the book. A number of female characters serve to highlight both the sociopathology of Joe Christmas and the misogynistic attitudes of most of the other men. A number of male characters serve to display the continuum of race hatred in the South, from mere intimidation and inhumane treatment to the worst excesses of a rage colored by violence and sexual obsession. And be forewarned: the “N’ word appears a gazillion times in this book.
I concede the writing is brilliant, and the thematic placement and symbolism are a dream for literature courses. But I was repulsed by the hatred and violence of the characters and their sick race-hate that seemed to fill their otherwise empty souls. I would like to think that Faulker was way more twisted than the rural South, and so he painted an exaggerated portrait. It’s hard to figure out how to rate this novel – you can recognize its art, but it kind of makes you sick.
Show More
not only good at it, but once you understand it is indeed dialect, it is sho’ ‘nuf comprehensible. Moreover, his prose style shows occasional echoes of Auden and Joyce, a surprising quality I had forgotten. Take this passage, a stream of consciousness much truncated here, representing childhood memories of an orphanage: “Knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick sootbleakened by more chimneys than its own … where in random erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, ophans in identical and uniform blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant as the bleak walls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneys streaked like black tears.” Yes, there are many passages where you can picture your English teacher saying “What do you think he meant by THAT?” Light in August is starkly evil. Not only are there characters who are so evil they barely seem human, but there are also the evils of poverty, religion, ignorance, and group-thinking. And looming over it all are the ugly sides of race and gender relations that are the main foci of the book.
The story, written in 1932, takes place in Jefferson, Mississippi. The major protagonist is Joe Christmas, a former abandoned baby of mixed racial heritage, who appears to be white. Rumors of his black blood follow him around however, and this suspicion determines how people treat him (i.e., not well). He especially infuriates the white townspeople who are outraged that Joe doesn’t act like one race or the other; this makes him, in their eyes, either unacceptably presumptuous or idiotic. But Joe’s divided identity is overshadowed, in my view, by his total sociopathic personality: deep-seated rage, incapacity for love, abusiveness, obliviousness to others, and an overwhelming emptiness – whether of feelings, of identity, of purpose, or of a future. “He traveled a thousand streets,” Faulkner wrote, “that were but one street… that ran fifteen years long… “
There are other characters in the book: Lena Grove serves as a Greek chorus, or, others say, as a symbol of Mary, who is on a journey to bear her son and find his father. Lucas Burch is the actual father of Lena’s baby, but wants nothing to do with responsibility. Byron Bunch is one of the few relatively decent people in the book (not to mention, one of the few characters who is nuanced and complex) who wants to do right by Lena. The Ex-Reverend Gail Hightower is one of several characters who have been made social outcasts for not hating blacks. He also serves the function of allowing Christianity to play a large part in the novel. In many ways, he is just a foil, or mirror, for others in the book. A number of female characters serve to highlight both the sociopathology of Joe Christmas and the misogynistic attitudes of most of the other men. A number of male characters serve to display the continuum of race hatred in the South, from mere intimidation and inhumane treatment to the worst excesses of a rage colored by violence and sexual obsession. And be forewarned: the “N’ word appears a gazillion times in this book.
I concede the writing is brilliant, and the thematic placement and symbolism are a dream for literature courses. But I was repulsed by the hatred and violence of the characters and their sick race-hate that seemed to fill their otherwise empty souls. I would like to think that Faulker was way more twisted than the rural South, and so he painted an exaggerated portrait. It’s hard to figure out how to rate this novel – you can recognize its art, but it kind of makes you sick.
Show Less
LibraryThing member oldblack
I really wanted to like this book, or at least admire it. My LiveJournal 'friend', Sheriji, nominated it as her favorite book, and I have a lot of respect for her opinions. I have decided, however, that this novel is beyond me in intellectual terms. I found much of it to be really hard work: long
Show More
complicated sentences, philosophical ramblings, obscure references, southern-ised spelling, crazy unexplained behavior, etc. It seems to me to be partly a novel about race and identity but it's hard for me to say much more. Maybe I just don't have enough understanding and knowledge of the issues involved and I haven't ever experienced that southern American society first hand. Show Less
LibraryThing member jamguest
By far, the best I can remember reading. All the reasons I love the storytelling aspects of Faulkner: his characters, long winding, grammatically unhindered passages, darkness and light. There are numerous theological implications that fill the novel, though I missed them because I was so utterly
Show More
engrossed in the characters. It is worth another re-read and a lengthier extrapolation of its themes. Though it seemed long (@ 500 pages it almost is) and I mistakenly lost sight of the goodness of the story by the end – rushing through it a little too fast as I was anxious to finish and begin my next novel. But that’s on me; that’s my fault and my weakness; this book had none. It is sheer brilliance. Lena Grove is a fascinating character, as is her Light in August. Bunch is annoying and sad. Hightower is admirable if heavily faulted and seemingly arrogant and frustrating because he possess the most opportunity to do good in this novel. Birch is just an imbecile and vagabond with no badness or goodness to mention. Christmas is unfortunate and sad, though I root for his salvation as a character. Show Less
LibraryThing member blanderson
Great writing, of course. The only thing that drags it down is the Gail Hightower sections. He is a boring, holier than thou character and easily the weakest part of the book. I readthat Faulkner had initially set out to write a novel about him but ended up focusing on Joe Christmas instead. Thank
Still, there are some amazing sections.
Show More
god he did. Hightower was overly symbolic and whiny---sure, he represented the mixing of races, the white man who accepts blacks, the stain of slavery and confederacy, and the sins of marriage and infidelity, but all of that is portrayed better by other characters.Still, there are some amazing sections.
Show Less
LibraryThing member rosechimera
can't decide between cryptic brilliance or waste of time
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
I found this to be one of the more enjoyable Faulkner stories. There was more plot and less stream-of-consciousness. The characters are fewer and more fully developed. Lena Grove is a pregnant white woman from Alabama looking for her man in Jefferson, Mississippi. Gail Hightower, a former reverend
There are several elements of repetition to Faulkner's work. Most stories take place in Jefferson, Mississippi. There is usually one character that is mixed race and as a result, struggling with identity. A fire usually breaks out somewhere. Someone usually is pregnant. Probably the most typical reoccurring element is style. Faulkner uses flashbacks to either tell a story or fill in the gaps of one. Light in August was one of the more easier ones to follow.
Show More
is forced into retirement and nearly run out of town for his wife's erratic behavior and subsequent suicide. Joe Christmas, one of the strongest main characters, is an orphan who thinks he has "n*gg*r blood" despite his pale skin.There are several elements of repetition to Faulkner's work. Most stories take place in Jefferson, Mississippi. There is usually one character that is mixed race and as a result, struggling with identity. A fire usually breaks out somewhere. Someone usually is pregnant. Probably the most typical reoccurring element is style. Faulkner uses flashbacks to either tell a story or fill in the gaps of one. Light in August was one of the more easier ones to follow.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Luli81
"From that night the thousand streets ran as one street, with imperceptible corners and changes of scene, broken by intervals of begged and stolen rides, on trains and trucks, and on country wagons with he at twenty and twentyfive and thirty sitting on the seat with his still, hard face and the
It is in the most ruthless and brutal fashion that improbable families are woven together, thriving among fanaticism and carnage. A new, redemptive kind of life can emerge from the ashes through the selfless act of empathizing with the murderer, with the liar, with the deluded. In threading paths alongside them, in going down that endless street called life, there is a chance of embracing the ongoing search for self-acceptance and belonging we all yearn for.
Although “Light in August” explores both issues of gender and race, it is this relentless inquiry concerning the nature of identity and how it is influenced by history, religion and moral belief that most struck me.
Faulkner presents his case with isolated figures, outcasts who choose or are forced to inhabit the fringes of society, challenging the reader to try their miserable lives on with his first-person-perspective stream of consciousness narrative which allows full immersion in the characters’ minds, where past and present, regular print and italics, imbued symbolism and events fuse together into visceral knowing and ultimate understanding.
Nothing is fortuitous in this novel, Faulkner’s deliberate selection of names for his characters adds subtle resonance to the rich portrait of intersecting lives that he threads together. Names charged with meaning, names which can be seen as allegories.
Mr. “Hightower”. The old disgraced minister whose surname signals a self-imposed exile inherited from a complex legacy of familial pride, struggle and shame. The reverend is trapped in the past, torn between the romantic image of his grandfather, the heroic cavalryman who fought in the War, and his father, the pacifist doctor. His inner conflicts compromise his effectiveness as a spiritual leader and husband, playing a definite part in the outcome of the story.
Joe Christ- “Christmas”. The orphaned, racially ambiguous boy with no name. He never stammers, he never pleads. A man without a history, whose only memories consist on painful patterns of violence, abuse and neglect of those charged with his care. His wanderings become a symbolic journey to find out his origins, estrangement and isolation growing in his barren quest to solve the riddle of his being. His futile attempt at establishing human connection with Miss Burden ends not in redemption but in murder and distorted rage. Christmas chooses his path without excuses. He doesn’t ask for salvation, his homicidal nature is partially explained when his origins become clear while he patiently waits for his death sentence, for death can be his only release.
Miss “Burden”, the unfertile spinster who carries her past as a personal crucifixion in the self-imposed obligation to honor the memory of her family with her implacable commitment to the abolitionist cause and black equality. It is, ironically, her obsessive charity that will be her undoing.
Lena “Grove” appears as earth-mother, the child of nature. She neither runs nor hides, she bears no shame for her past, Lena’s inviolable mantra “how the Lord will see that what is right will be done” accompanies her cyclical wanderings, first into and then out of town. She carries the future within herself and walks half of the country in search of Lucas Burch, the runaway father of her unborn child, but finds Byron Bunch instead, who turns out to be the man Lena has been unknowingly seeking all along. Burch becomes Bunch and her newborn son remains nameless, free of the identity struggles the act of naming can engender, ripe with possibilities.
These individually framed lives have to resist the pressing influence of a rigid Society, embodied in Faulkner’s collective voice of the townspeople, the implacable jury in the story, who offer no sympathy based on their prejudiced notions of radical moral order, who find ecstasy in crucifixion, who can’t pity because pitying might involve self-doubt.
The burdens of the past, the isolation of the outcast and the struggle to find a stable and identifiable sense of self, assume tragic dimensions in this novel where lives are sacrificed so that an unwritten future might be engendered. The smoke rising from the Burden House serves not as an ill omen for worse times to come but as a sort of ritualistic cleansing which marks the ending of a self-destructive journey. A newfound, Phoenix-like family arises from the dust to start threading fresh paths along unnamed streets, steering towards a renewed life where hope and undefiled memories are possible. An unscripted future full of light can start in August.
Show More
clothes (even when soiled and worn) of a city man and the driver of the wagon not knowing who or what the passenger was and not daring to ask."It is in the most ruthless and brutal fashion that improbable families are woven together, thriving among fanaticism and carnage. A new, redemptive kind of life can emerge from the ashes through the selfless act of empathizing with the murderer, with the liar, with the deluded. In threading paths alongside them, in going down that endless street called life, there is a chance of embracing the ongoing search for self-acceptance and belonging we all yearn for.
Although “Light in August” explores both issues of gender and race, it is this relentless inquiry concerning the nature of identity and how it is influenced by history, religion and moral belief that most struck me.
Faulkner presents his case with isolated figures, outcasts who choose or are forced to inhabit the fringes of society, challenging the reader to try their miserable lives on with his first-person-perspective stream of consciousness narrative which allows full immersion in the characters’ minds, where past and present, regular print and italics, imbued symbolism and events fuse together into visceral knowing and ultimate understanding.
Nothing is fortuitous in this novel, Faulkner’s deliberate selection of names for his characters adds subtle resonance to the rich portrait of intersecting lives that he threads together. Names charged with meaning, names which can be seen as allegories.
Mr. “Hightower”. The old disgraced minister whose surname signals a self-imposed exile inherited from a complex legacy of familial pride, struggle and shame. The reverend is trapped in the past, torn between the romantic image of his grandfather, the heroic cavalryman who fought in the War, and his father, the pacifist doctor. His inner conflicts compromise his effectiveness as a spiritual leader and husband, playing a definite part in the outcome of the story.
Joe Christ- “Christmas”. The orphaned, racially ambiguous boy with no name. He never stammers, he never pleads. A man without a history, whose only memories consist on painful patterns of violence, abuse and neglect of those charged with his care. His wanderings become a symbolic journey to find out his origins, estrangement and isolation growing in his barren quest to solve the riddle of his being. His futile attempt at establishing human connection with Miss Burden ends not in redemption but in murder and distorted rage. Christmas chooses his path without excuses. He doesn’t ask for salvation, his homicidal nature is partially explained when his origins become clear while he patiently waits for his death sentence, for death can be his only release.
Miss “Burden”, the unfertile spinster who carries her past as a personal crucifixion in the self-imposed obligation to honor the memory of her family with her implacable commitment to the abolitionist cause and black equality. It is, ironically, her obsessive charity that will be her undoing.
Lena “Grove” appears as earth-mother, the child of nature. She neither runs nor hides, she bears no shame for her past, Lena’s inviolable mantra “how the Lord will see that what is right will be done” accompanies her cyclical wanderings, first into and then out of town. She carries the future within herself and walks half of the country in search of Lucas Burch, the runaway father of her unborn child, but finds Byron Bunch instead, who turns out to be the man Lena has been unknowingly seeking all along. Burch becomes Bunch and her newborn son remains nameless, free of the identity struggles the act of naming can engender, ripe with possibilities.
These individually framed lives have to resist the pressing influence of a rigid Society, embodied in Faulkner’s collective voice of the townspeople, the implacable jury in the story, who offer no sympathy based on their prejudiced notions of radical moral order, who find ecstasy in crucifixion, who can’t pity because pitying might involve self-doubt.
The burdens of the past, the isolation of the outcast and the struggle to find a stable and identifiable sense of self, assume tragic dimensions in this novel where lives are sacrificed so that an unwritten future might be engendered. The smoke rising from the Burden House serves not as an ill omen for worse times to come but as a sort of ritualistic cleansing which marks the ending of a self-destructive journey. A newfound, Phoenix-like family arises from the dust to start threading fresh paths along unnamed streets, steering towards a renewed life where hope and undefiled memories are possible. An unscripted future full of light can start in August.
Show Less
LibraryThing member strandbooks
It seems like I only hear of people who love or hate Faulkner. I thought Light in August was an okay book. It is well written, and I wanted to know about each character. It is one of those books that I wish I could have read when it was published. I'm sure it really pushed the limit on what people
Show More
accepted. It is dark and some of the characters really disgust me as I'm sure they are meant to. I do like his insight into the South, and I plan to read more of his novels. Show Less
LibraryThing member foof2you
Wow, this book is very, uneventful. Another classic that is dull and lacking excitement. How did this ever become a classic. A tough read hard to get the flow.
LibraryThing member headisdead
My favourite Faulkner. And I like Faulkner.
LibraryThing member JBreedlove
The second to the last chapter almost ruined the book. The summary chapter concluding Hightower's character was confusing. Otherwise this book was well crafted, layered, and dense but still mostly readable. An intimate look at common folk in the pre-depression south. This was the first book by
Show More
Faulkner I ever finished. More dense than Steinbeck and Hemingway but still easy to read. Show Less
LibraryThing member redbudnate
** SLIGHT SPOILERS **
This book is loaded with drama - teen pregnancy, murder, suicide, and it had be sucked in early. I did fade on it a bit towards the end as I struggled to get interested in the Rev. Hightower character. Still, a great book in my opinion. Here's a quote I liked coming from a
"He felt like an eagle: hard, sufficient, potent, remorseless, strong. But that passed, though he did not then know that, like the eagle, his own flesh as well as all space was still a cage."
This book is loaded with drama - teen pregnancy, murder, suicide, and it had be sucked in early. I did fade on it a bit towards the end as I struggled to get interested in the Rev. Hightower character. Still, a great book in my opinion. Here's a quote I liked coming from a
Show More
character that is dealing with his mixed race ancestry:"He felt like an eagle: hard, sufficient, potent, remorseless, strong. But that passed, though he did not then know that, like the eagle, his own flesh as well as all space was still a cage."
Show Less
LibraryThing member Mromano
While the Sound and the Fury is still Faulkner's best, this novel is a close second and it is certainly an easier read. The tale of Joe Christmas, a half black and white man, who is like Camus' Outsider, outside of any culture, accepted by no one, and treated as an outcast, is compared and
Show More
contrasted with the tale of Lena Grove, a pregnant woman who is accepted and helped by everyone. The story of Reverend Hightower once again presents a kind of impotent southern morality, impotent in the face of racism and ignorance to change anything. The last scene with Joe Christmas seems to me to be the place where Marquez got the idea of the trailing blood in 100 Years of Solitude. Show Less
LibraryThing member amelish
The plot c...r...a...w...l...s along but Faulkner's way of illuminating the inner life of his characters is hypnotic, particularly the repetition of turns of phrase and rhythmic effects.
Subjects
Genres
Publication
Modern Library (2002), 496 pages
Original publication date
1932
Pages
496
ISBN
067964248X / 9780679642480
Similar in this library
Language
Original language
English