Light in August (Vintage International) [Kindle Edition]

William Faulkner (Author), Noel Polk (Editor), Joseph Blotner (Collaborator)

Book Description

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.” —William Faulkner
 
Light in August, a novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“No man ever put more of his heart and soul into the written word than did William Faulkner. If you want to know all you can about that heart and soul, the fiction where he put it is still right there.” —Eudora Welty
 
“Faulkner’s greatness resided primarily in his power to transpose the American scene as it exists in the Southern states, filter it through his sensibilities and finally define it with words.” —Richard Wright

From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

William Faulkner (1897-1962) was an American novelist and short-story writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1949. He is recognized as one of the greatest American writers. His masterpieces include The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, The Hamlet, and The Reivers.

Product Details

• File Size: 618 KB
• Print Length: 530 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0679732268
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage International edition (May 18, 2011)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004JHYRTK
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,695 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars William Faulkner at his finest! January 29, 2012

By Linda Linguvic HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the first William Faulkner book I've ever read. It won't bet the last. This man was a genius. He creates word pictures that depict a time and a place and a people with excruciating and artistic realness and paints pictures with his words that will long resonate after the book is finished.

Set in a rural Mississippi town in the early 1930s and peopled with a variety of characters who will live in my memory forever, the story follows a young and pregnant teenager who is looking for her lover with the hope of marriage. Instead she meets a hardworking and unattractive man who falls in love with her helps her to find a place to stay. In the meantime her actual lover and father of her unborn child is selling bootleg whisky and sharing a cabin with a man named Christmas who is part negro and is bedding a wealthy woman who dies when her house is set on fire. There's also a defrocked pastor with problems of his own and the pathetic grandparents of the man named Christmas who is in danger of being lynched.

The book, however, is more than the sum of its parts. It is the worldview that typifies William Faulkner at his finest and even though there are parts of the book that a bit overwritten and confusing, I still give it my highest recommendation and advise readers to not miss the experience of reading this fine author.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Faulkner: a bright light in any month September 11, 2012

By Donny

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Still the child didn't answer. He had never seen a home, so there was nothing for him to say about it. And he was not old enough to talk and say nothing at the same time." Light in August, page 144

Faulkner weaves his keen observations, penetrating character development, provocative phrasing, and fascinating plot development together with his singular familiarity with southern culture into a masterpiece of a book. If you are thinking about reading Faulkner for the first time, or re-reading Light in August for the umpteenth time, let this book transport you back to the rural south of a hundred years ago. If the inexcusable racism and ugly epithets are difficult for today's reader, imagine living in that time period where it was generally tolerated and appreciate how far we have come. My high school English teacher gave me a copy of this book when I graduated and I have spent a lifetime appreciating her choice. It's one of my favorite books.

3.0 out of 5 stars A challenging read May 1, 2013

By Diana Reamer

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Burroughs has got to be one of the most depressing writers I have read recently, only seconded by Lamb. Keeping the flow going within the story was a struggle.
The complexities of the plot required dedication to completion. Several friends (book club) simply gave up. Having finished it, I can honestly say I will more than likely
not read his work again. For what it is worth, I was content to see the antagonists suffer. But there were very few good feelings for those supporting characters to share.

More About the Author

Born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, William Faulkner was the son of a family proud of their prominent role in the history of the south. He grew up in Oxford, Mississippi, and left high school at fifteen to work in his grandfather's bank.

Rejected by the US military in 1915, he joined the Canadian flyers with the RAF, but was still in training when the war ended. Returning home, he studied at the University of Mississippi and visited Europe briefly in 1925.

His first poem was published in The New Republic in 1919. His first book of verse and early novels followed, but his major work began with the publication of The Sound and the Fury in 1929. As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936) and The Wild Palms (1939) are the key works of his great creative period leading up to Intruder in the Dust (1948). During the 1930s, he worked in Hollywood on film scripts, notably The Blue Lamp, co-written with Raymond Chandler.

William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize for The Reivers just before his death in July 1962.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#40 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

#40 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics