About this title: William Faulkner's 1932 novel, LIGHT IN AUGUST, takes place in the first two decades of the 20th century. Its characters are mostly marginal outcasts, but most of the story concerns Joe Christmas, an orphaned man with a mysterious past who believes himself to be part black and is, accordingly, shunned--until he meets a tragic and gruesome end at ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Minor shelf and edgewear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 528 p. Vintage International (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Acceptable. Former Library book. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Good. No Jacket as Issued. Some wear and creasing to the covers. Hint of page toning. Otherwise a clean, tight copy with an uncreased spine. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage International/Random House
Date Published: 1990-10-01
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Very Good. Beautiful copy in clean and nearly like new condition. Minor wear to cover. Slight shop wear; pages have NO writing, folds or tears. Possibly unread. Tight binding; NO spine creases. read more
Description: FINE/Trade pb. Often regarded as Faulkner's best novel, the corrected edition. In fine, unmarked, clean, bright condition. 1990s, Vintage trade pb, 512 pp read more
Edition: 4th printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books; Vintage International Ser., New York
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Fine. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 512 pp.; 21 cm. First published, 1932. Tight, clean copy. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. "William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. Faulkner had begun writing poems when he was a schoolboy and published a poetry collection in 1924 at his own expense. In 1950, Faulkner traveled to Sweden to accept the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature. He died of a heart attack on July 6, 1962. "-Publisher. read more
Binding: Trade Paper
Publisher: Vintage International/Random House
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Good with no dust jacket. 0679732268. Sharp copy of author's acclaimed novel. Copy rippled from improper storage; otherwise clean and tight, unmarked inside.; The Corrected Text; 0.94 x 8.11 x 5.35 Inches; 528 pages. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage / Random House, New York
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Very Good. Fiction: Light in August: the corrected text. 512pp + 2. Trade Size Paperback. ISBN 0679732268. Clean interior. Very Good. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 528 p. Vintage International (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. Like new, pristine copy. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 528 p. Vintage International (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. Like new, faint crease on back cover, all else excellent. Appears unread. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Vintage International
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780679732266ISBN:0679732268
Description: Good. This book is in good to very good condition. The binding is tight and pages are clean. There is writing on the inside of the front cover relating to the study of Faulkner. The writing takes up about 1/2 of the page. The cover has some bumps, scuffs and small creases. read more
I originally didn't write a review for this book because I was so overwhelmed by it. I didn't even know where to start.
But I also didn't want to start. This book was so incredibly sad to me because all of the characters were so alone. There were constantly looking for the ones who had gone, ignoring the ones who were present, mourning the ones they had lost, and spurning the ones who could possibly bring change to this sordid world that Faulkner created. I received no vision of how we should try to live together, and that is what I'm more interested in. No one in this book knew how not to wallow, and that frustrated me. Faulkner's worlds are always dim, but this constant wandering with no glimmer of connection really got me down.
There were certain passages that are still haunting me, and my favorite was when Faulkner describes the mingling of white and black blood in Christmas. His depiction of racism and miscegenation in the book is horrifying."
"I had Jesse's copy from home and he had bought another copy while in Cambridge. We read this together and managed to have several cool conversations both during and after our reading. What to say? Such gorgeous language. I think I'd been intimidated by this book, might have started it years ago and set it down. It was gripping from the first page. Stories within stories; endless twists and turns in the storyline. Noted frequent use of portmanteau words such as: his head backflung; while the slowspitting and squatting men watch her covertly; in a room lighted by a bugswirled kerosence lamp. Interesting use of repetition of specific words; intricate character development. Need to read more Faulkner!
Connection of beginning to end. First paragraph: Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena thinks, 'I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama a-walking. A fur piece.' Thinking although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been before. I am now further from Doane's Mill than I have been since I was twelve years old.
The ending: "'Saulsbury, Tennessee' and I looked back and saw her face. And it was like it was already fixed and waiting to be surprised, and that she knew that when the surprise come, she was going to enjoy it. And it did come and it did suit her. Because she said, "'My, my. A body does get around. Here we aint been coming from Alabama but two months, and now it's already Tennessee.'""
"A couple of thoughts I'll tie together: 1) I read a BBC article that suggests a large percentage of people keep books on their shelf to impress others rather than to read them. 2) As young students, teachers take us to the library and allow us to pick out whatever book we like (as long as we're not just trying to avoid reading by picking out a pamphlet), but by the time we reach high school and college, it's assigned. Though I believe an educator's recommendation to be valuable, I believe taking away a person's choice can rob them of finding the book that will spark excitement and turn them into readers for life. I believe far too many people are forced to read classics, when quite frankly, some of them will never be appealing. For me, I usually have strong reactions, good or bad, to the classics, but I found my spark long ago. For most people though, they know that reading is an intelligent practice, but they're bored by what they've been forced to read, so books are used for the perception they create rather than the pleasure of their contents. While some of it is taste and a blatant unwillingness to participate in any medium straying from the instant gratification culture, there are certainly a good number of masturbatory authors who are more concerned with coming off as intelligent rather than relatable.
I believe William Faulkner is one of those writers who lets his writing get in the way of a good story.
Published in 1932, Light in August is written in the Southern Gothic tradition-set in Faulkner's fictional Mississippi county, Yoknapatawpha county-where the grotesque is often perpetrated by horror/romance archetypes without moral judgment from the author. The plot consists of three connected strands: 1) A pregnant woman, Lena Grove, in search of the father of her baby; 2) An enigmatic alcohol smuggler, Joe Christmas, struggling with his mixed ancestry; and 3) A disgraced Priest, Reverend Gail Hightower, who lives in near-isolation after annoying the town with his sermons about his dead grandfather. Much of the novel deals with the racism of the South, pulling in violence and observing Judeo-Christian values if they were smashed into a funhouse mirror. It takes a little while to find Faulkner's rhythm, but it's not a tough search and it's enjoyable until you realize he won't just tell the story. The reader gets dragged through lengthy flashbacks even though the compelling plot line just found its adrenaline. Then you'll get to the part you've been waiting for and Faulkner will skip ahead, spoiling his own story then slowly backing through the incident without any of the tension.
There are obscure punctuation choices, too, and while it's not a major point of contention, it illustrates my frustration with his style: He uses six ellipses (. . . . . .) when the standard three (...) will do. The second quarter of this book, about 150 pages, could have easily been trimmed back to a lean 30, and even though I liked the last chapter, at least 40 of the pages before that could have been cut out, too, but that's not Faulkner's style. He believes in stream of consciousness, where thoughts expand and ideas ramble so that you understand the deepest recesses of a character. While this has certain strengths-as each character gets presented in differing ways, depending on who's viewing them-I still find the style obese and much of the information superfluous. I lean minimalistic by default (though even I like a little meat on the bone), so I'm not a fan of reading what I think a visceral editor should have cut. Nothing seems to be minor in Faulkner's eyes. As a result, none of the characters feel all that major either. They're unique, distinguished, but with everything else, there's just too much to appreciate it. It's like mixing all the beautiful colors. After a while, you just end up with brown. Sometimes you need to make choices and Faulkner doesn't make enough for my liking. As a result, any other book of his will not come onto my shelf. I don't care who thinks I look smart. Two stars. Barely."
"Lena Grove travels, on foot and with the aid of strangers, through the South in search of the father of her unborn child. Her journey introduces the reader to a variety of characters, including the child's father, a man who falls in love with Lena, and a biracial man named Christmas. Like Lena, all of these characters have stories to tell, and Faulkner interweaves a number of back stories and histories in the body of this book. One of his more accessable texts, Light in August is easy to get in to and builds up gradually to its complexities and confusing narrative traits. The result is a readable text that still manages to capture the character depth and human study that Faulkner does so well. While I prefer his more difficult/complex work, I definitely enjoyed this text and I highly recommend it.
For the first couple chapters, this book doesn't feel like Faulkner. I was surprised by just how approachable and linear the text was. By the last few chapters, Faulkner is intertwining disparate narratives and times and using more streams of consciousnesses. The book definitely becomes more complex as it progresses. This gradual build up in style and complexity allows the reader to adapt to Faulkner's writing style and techniques, making the end of the book more rewarding because the reader has a better grasp of how to understand and interpret it. I highly recommend this text for readers new to Faulkner, and I think high schools would do well to use it in place to As I Lay Dying in schools.
That said, I enjoyed both As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury more than this book. Because both books delve immediately into the complex end of Faulkner's writing style, they reach their full potential from the onset rather than building in to it. Characters have more stories, more thoughts, more key events; information is tightly packed, emotional, and raw, less filtered through the writer's lens. I don't feel like I found as much depth or character interest in Light in August, with the possible exception of Christmas, whose life story receives the most attention and time. I have no doubt that this was a good book: characters are real and descriptions detailed, almost physical; Faulkner attacks his greater issues of humanity, personal history, and fault and action from multiple angles both narrative and character-based. The book is compelling, both depressing and uplifting and certainly enlightening. Nonetheless, I believe that Faulkner sacrificed some depth by limiting the writing style at the beginning of the book.
I do recommend this book, as well as any other book by Faulkner. He is an extraordinary author and conveys fascination with and insights on humanity: what makes a man, what insights him to action, and when, despite all justification, man is still at fault. This book is a good start for those new to Faulkner. While it may be disappointing, in terms of style and depth, to those that have already read him, Light in August nonetheless contains one of Faulkner's most complex and compelling character and is a rewarding read."
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