Customer Reviews

Light In August (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Nothing is ever simple in a Faulkner book. However plainly the people talk, however straightforward that the situations seem, there are layers and layers of things to dig through to find the ultimate truth, if indeed there is any. I've already read Sound and the Fury and as glorious as that book was, this novel absolutely captivated me. It's Faulkner's way with words, he's not flashy like some contemporary authors, preferring to slowly wind his way into your consciousness with his gift of writing. It's only as you read, maybe as you peruse a passage for the second time do you see the little details that you missed the first time out, the choice of a word here, the flow of a paragraph. And his characters, all beautifully drawn, with flaws and cracks and everything, but even the farthest gone of his lowlives has some pearl of wisdom to impart, his pillars all have dark secrets. In short they're just like his, if we lived in the South at the turn of the century. Faulkner captures it all, weaving his characters together with the skill of a master, no seams showing, everything seeming to happen naturally. Even when the story detours to tell someone's backstory, it seems to come at the perfect moment. If I sound a bit fawning, that's because this book deserves it, nothing puts together the picture of a time better than this, and as an aspiring writer I am in sincere awe of Faulkner's ability to reflect even the more complex of emotions with a word or a sentence. He has to be read to be believed and it definitely must be experienced. Just immerse yourself in a time and place thought long gone, that still lurks in the corners of people's thoughts and the traditions that never die.

This was my second experience with Faulkner, I read 'The Bear' in college some 25 years ago. 'The Bear' was written when Faulkner decided that he would no longer take it easy on the reader and stopped punctuating.

Reading 'Light in August' is not quite as frustrating; more like driving over a mountain, everyime you hit a straightaway you see another switchback on the horizon.

The story is not complicated but the characters are and Faulkner interweaves his passionate story by taking you as far back as three generations to make the reader understand from whom some characters evolved.

The best and most important character is Joe Christmas, the abused mulatto with no sense of heritage whose atrocious act is central to the goings on.

The passion with which Faulkner writes was simply unmatched by his contemporaries.

Faulkner writes in rainbow color. Full of feeling, mortification, and injustice. The character of Joe Christmas is a shockingly tragic figure that seems almost Christlike, and the character of the oversexed Miss Burden is equally sad. There are so many themes you could pull out of this story. It just fascinates me. I think it touches on race relations in a way that's really pretty intuitive for the time period and part of the country Faulkner was coming from. He plays with both fear of black people and fear of female sexuality, all in the same weave. Worth it.

Just when I thought the only Faulkner book I would ever remotely understand was his Sanctuary---along comes the serendipitous discovery of Light in August. It is a relatively straightforward journey into the lives of yet another cast of tragic Southern characters; a dark, mythic voyage into the subterannean caverns of their souls...or something like that. Faulkner truly does an impressive job of mining the psychological depths of his characters, often through the technique for which he's famous---Stream of Consciousness. If you've stumbled over Faulkner's difficult style in novels like As I Lay Dying and Intruders in the dust then this book, along with Sanctuary, is an excellent starting point. Grab a strong cup of coffee, make sure your reading light is bright, and good luck.

Having read "As I Lay Dying" and "The Sound and the Fury," this is my favorite Faulkner novel. The writing is exceptional, but the "craft" that Faulkner practices is not as much an onstacle to be overcome as in the other two I have read. For that reason I found this a more accessible novel, and once inside, I was touched by the beauty and scope of this story. For those intimidated by Faulkner's reputation, then, I would recommend beginning with this challenging, yet ultimately rewarding, read.

The Book Light in August is definitely a complex book to read. This is the first novel I have read by William Faulkner. Light in August ranks among the very finest of novels of world literature. The book incorporates great moral themes relating to the ruins of the Deep South in the post-Civil war era. The characters in the book are all unique and complex in there own way. One main character in the book, Joe Christmas, still sticks in my head after I read it. He is a contemptuous man who looks white, but whose father is black. He ends up being the murderer of a woman. People who have a lot of time on their hands and want a good book to read should read this book. The story is filled with great themes, is extaordinarily complex, and is almost always laced with trauma and misery!

Wonderfully written. But then again, saying that about a Faulkner's book is almost redundant. Amazingly entertaining, painfully alive, this portrait reads more as a puzzle. Pieces here, emotions there, everything weaving with the vibrant life in the South. Although it took time for me to construct the final picture, the wait is worthwhile. Being born in another country, this book brings to me valuable information about the history of the US. Definitely, I would recommned it.

This is the first Faulkner book I have read, and I enjoyed it. The whole book takes place in the course of a week or so, in the town of Jefferson, Mississippi (there are two Jeffersons in MS, one near where the story seems to take place, but I suspect Faulkner's Jefferson is highly fictionalized). The main character is Joe Christmas, who we don't meet until some way into the book. Other main characters include Lena, a pregnant woman looking for the father of her baby; Joe Brown, a co-worker of Christmas' at the mill; Byron, their supervisor; and Hightower, a disgraced minister and friend to Byron. All their lives interwine in a way that moves the story along, and delightfully. I live near where the story took place, and I think Faulkner has captured the flavor of the people and place pretty well. It was very realistic and I can imagine people behaving exactly like the characters in the book.

What is out of the ordinary about this book is how it is told. Much of it is told via flashback, or of two characters discussing events that the reader doesn't directly observe in the reading. Faulkner experiments freely with narrative style, sometimes brilliantly, but sometimes it's confusing. I sometimes had trouble following who was talking, or where they were, etc. I was let down by the ending (the climax of the story is told to us by two people we hadn't met up that point - "Did you hear what happened uptown?"). But if you follow Faulkner's lead and enjoy the ride, you are in for a treat. I'm sure this is a book I will get more out of the more I study it. I'm sure I missed a lot.

A great read and I recommend it.

Faulkner again proved himself a master of American literature with his tragic story of Joe Christmas, a truly unlucky and unloved fellow whose life of rejection has led him to make some truly unwise choices. Crafted in Faulkner's signature intellectual, sometimes verbose, style, this novel is an important examination of some major flaws in the typical American character. We all identify with the characters in this book.

One of the best novels of certainly the best American writer in solid, reliable hardcover. I wish it was a critical edition, and that it is not, I consider the only disadvantage. The novel demands a great deal of attention, it forces reader to keep returning, and rewards with most beautiful, poetic language, and intellectual depth far beyond a style of any other writer. As always with Faulkner, it is also a lot of fun to read, and understanding of the whole work is an entertaining challenge. Therefore I advise on buying long-lasting hardcover rather than any f a l l a p a r t paperback.