William Faulkner, the Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1949, is one of the great writers who defined the 20th century. His compact, extremely convincing and wonderful prose has left us with great titles such as "The Sound and the Fury", "Absalom, Absalom!", "As I Lay Dying", "Sanctuary", a large number of short stories, essays and plays.

He had a great influence on the early novels of Gabriel García Márquez and other Latin American writers such as Mario Vargas Llosa and even Juan Carlos Onetti, Roa Bastos and Juan Rulfo.

I had only read his masterful and revolutionary novel "The Sound and the Fury" and was able to discover his narrative talent, which defined him as a different and original writer.

In "Light in August", I encounter a novel with a strong story, based on four well-defined characters from which the plot is intertwined and set in the town of Jefferson in the southern United States.

Naturally, a story set in that area and in the first decades of the 20th century will obviously involve a key incentive in all this: racism.

The whole book is full of violent phrases against blacks, but in which the author takes a side (and surely did not share), both in the situations involving the main character, Joe Christmas, in his vicissitudes and life story as in other moments when black characters are involved in something.

Slavery has been abolished in the county, but the mentality of many remains slavish and what happens is precisely an externalization of the way of treating blacks.

Something similar happens with religion, sex and the different views when the topic is addressed in many passages of the book. It is a topic that is still taboo, generating attraction and rejection at the same time, especially considering that Faulkner wrote this book in 1932.

It is natural that in such a动荡 época such situations occurred. What is really remarkable is the way Faulkner handles these issues. At no time does he become racist, beyond the characters in the book. It is clear that as an author he wants to tell how that era was and how difficult it was to live in the southern states of his country, where racial segregation was total.

More particularly, it occurs in Christmas, since he is a white man with black blood in his veins, what we know as a mestizo and who can therefore act as both white and react as black. Christmas is a walking contradiction and never fits into the environment of Jefferson.

Undoubtedly, he is a man in search of an identity that he never finds, that is diffuse and that he cannot assimilate to drive away the ghosts of his iron upbringing during his childhood. He is a man who wrongly seeks a place in the world and who probably will not reach a good port. His life is in suspension and is supported by the violence with which he is constantly treated.

Another really admirable point is the different types of narrative styles used by the author. From the free indirect style, the interpolation in italics of the character's thoughts to the technique of the interior monologue. All possible forms are put into use in the text to tell us the story. They say that Faulkner, for "The Sound and the Fury", even asked the editor to use different colors of ink to identify each narrative style, which was rejected.

It is evident that he was an unconventional writer who put all his technical knowledge into play to elaborate his novels and it was these knowledges that made him famous.

The novel, which begins with what the omniscient narrator tells of Lena Grove and her arrival from Alabama, walking with an advanced pregnancy to Jefferson (which is part of the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha created by Faulkner) in search of a certain Lucas Burch whom we will later know as Joe Brown and where the events are intertwined with the other main characters, from Byron Bunch, who becomes sentimentally involved with her, to the Reverend Hightower, a priest who has left the habits and who is one of the most interesting characters, especially for his psychological introspection until it leads to the story of Joe Christmas and it is from him that the whole novel revolves.

In the case of Joe Brown, we find a character driven by ambition and the instinct to control others. His confrontations with Byron Bunch are real battles that range from the psychological to the physical.

In addition to all this, Faulkner uses the inclusion of temporal twists, going back in time and returning to the present as many times as he deems necessary for the reader to get to know all the characters who surround Joe Christmas, such as Doc Hines and his wife, Joana Burden or Mr. McEachern, just to name a few.

Perhaps, Faulkner has portrayed a counterpoint between good (Lena) and evil (Christmas). The actions of each one govern the story and these characters try in their own way to clean their image or correct their mistakes. What stands out in "Light in August" is that constant sense of vileness that is latent in the human being and in how sometimes we try to impose our principles on others even when we are wrong.

Faulkner maintains the rhythm of the story based on an extremely compact narrative, sometimes a bit baroque and full of endless descriptions but with the right solvency to ensure that nothing in the story is left unfinished.

The character of Joe Christmas is so well achieved, so nuanced with all the contradictions that surround us, that it makes us understand his suffering at times, while at other times we try to condemn him for his actions.

After finishing this book, I am convinced of the greatness of William Faulkner, of his quality to write novels without flaws, clear, at times overwhelmingly poetic and with the addition of putting on the table the treatment of truly controversial human or social situations.

The fact of starting and ending the novel with Lena Grove, with the intermediate of everything that happens to Joe Christmas, gives us the idea of an elliptical, closed and practically perfect novel.

Of those novels that William Faulkner used to write.

Faulkner is of extreme bravura, dazzling, and illegal.

His writing style is so unique and audacious that it seems to break all the traditional rules.

And this book was not written in 1932, indeed.

Perhaps it was created in a later period, when Faulkner's literary skills had reached an even higher level.

The number [82/100] might indicate some sort of rating or evaluation of the book, but it's hard to say exactly what it means without further context.

Overall, Faulkner's works continue to fascinate readers with their complexity, depth, and boldness.

His ability to create vivid characters and tell engaging stories is truly remarkable.

Whether or not this particular book lives up to his reputation remains to be seen, but it's clear that Faulkner is a literary giant whose influence will be felt for generations to come.

Don't pray over no body. I was certain that I would work it out. It was something I already had an inkling of. That's the way to not feel bad about desiring to know someone. Don't expect anything. However, it doesn't eliminate the falling sensation when you think about them. Light in August is, for me, an ultimate societal kangaroo's pouch of claustrophobic guilt. Where does anyone truly belong?

William Faulkner writes to me in my favorite way of being addressed in stories (anything). If I could have this in every book I read, I would be overjoyed. It's like being a real person and being entrusted with something precious, like a soul or a mortal heart. It's really quite simple, but I can't get enough of it. The characters inhabit their world, they look at each other, and I can hear their thoughts about each other and their lives. He says about her what she might say about him. He thinks he's lying, and then you get an idea of what he truly thinks a lie is. It's a brilliant way of doing it, really. What they are saying has vibrations, and I'm not wearing any shoes. If they haven't swept the floor, I can feel that too, whether the author has told me or not. I'm not told everything as the absolute truth. This is this is that is this. Bless you, William Faulkner. I can't express how much this means to me. I don't have a lot of (useful) intelligence, but I have this. It's the constant in my life, my one true love and solace. I can read a book and envision the paths it could take, the threads to the past, the hopes, and all of that. If I could write about this as well as I'd like, I'd be an excellent book reviewer. Characterization is the master(bater) of my heart. King and queen, and off with my head.

I was going to write something about unrequited love.

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Joe Christmas is my character. My living and breathing person. My suffocated person who reflects from space-time years away, too late. There are some other great characters in Light in August, but it is Joe Christmas who spurred my unrequited love (for lack of a better word. You can call it Marsian love, or plutonic love, or like celebrating Christmas for something other than Christ). Will you think me too sick if I confess that I felt a bit of envy in my mouth (it tastes like your own mouth flavor but you aren't used to it for once) when I see someone aloof, mysteriously within themselves even in the middle of the chaos? It's sick because I'm no different. I want to be outside of myself too damned bad, that's it. I know too damned well how Joe Christmas felt between the black and white people. Cold spot, hot spot. Hot and cold don't make warm. Somewhere else to be, and he doesn't make a third triangle point, not ever. He was that to me. Everyone you can make out in the fuzzy color spectrum (are black and white even colors? They don't make warm) is written by a writer you can't read using your own what makes you you. I'll call mine my Mariel intuition for this review. (I probably shouldn't. It's paranoid as fuck.) Listen to their footsteps running from the jail that houses you. Look back at me! They don't. You don't know because the speed of sound travels slower than the speed of your people-reading eyes. Keep watching their faces for that look you could have sworn you felt when you weren't looking. Don't open the letter from your hot and cold like menopausal lover because you might start to pray over your body too. The warmth is like the camp kids putting your hand in a bowl of warm water to make you pee. You could keep getting up in the middle of the night just in case. It's the worst when you expect to pee and it doesn't happen. I couldn't think of anything else. Better stay close just in case. Better stay close in case you could go on being the same and no one is going to pray for anyone else to be anything else. Better get it over with. I felt a little freaked out for talking to him in my head to please don't do that. I had no right.

It was not the hard work which he hated, nor the punishment and injustice. He was used to that before he ever saw either of them. He expected no less, and so he was neither outraged nor surprised. It was the woman: that soft kindness which he believed himself doomed to be forever victim of and which he hated worse than he did the hard and ruthless justice of men. 'She is trying to make me cry,' he thought, lying cold and rigid in his bed, his hands beneath his head and the moonlight falling across his body, hearing the steady murmur of the man's voice as it mounted the stairway on its first heavenward stage; 'She was trying to make me cry. Then she thinks that would have had me.'

Joe Christmas is going to haunt me. I always say that. What can I say? Somewhere between my left and right ear is enough company to keep me grounded. Who else? Who else!

The minister Hightower in his walled-in-from-the-rest-of-the-world house. The faces are never going to hint at passion again. His own big body is enough to weigh him down in his chair by the window to mourn those he won't love. Byron Bunch, the man who never told a lie because he didn't have the letter F to put in lie. Steal it! It's on discount over on Sesame Street. He won't. Hightower would move heaven and earth to stop him. Can I confess that Byron Bunch did not move me? The pregnant Lena, in search of her if you could call him a husband (er) all the way from Alabama, did not move me either. What was interesting about them was that they were monuments for other sounds to bounce off of. Why, you're right kind. I'm doing the right thing at my own expense. Really? And I never asked for nothing. He would ask in the doing. I wasn't moved because there was a little bit of "I already knew that" for me before they were done. I wouldn't want the right.

I didn't think that the mistrust of their niggers or women was what was important. (It COULD be anything.) It was what they were willing to pray over. You know, what you would look at - first glance only - enough to call it yours. They allow Joe Christmas's demise in their peace of mind for the thousand-dollar reward. Next place. Easy peasy lemon squeazy. Hey, it's all the same. Look how far we have come, baby. It's interesting to me what is easy for someone else. Lena's slow response. I could time it in my mind from the corners of the mouth to the crease by the eye. It doesn't move much. It's all right! Sure, a baby. Yeah, that guy fucked me and I'm pregnant, and look, I knew it was going to work out. If Faulkner had a fault, it was her profound sigh over Brown (the fucker). Don't know if I believe that. I think she was just waiting for her cue for the response again. Lena is Lena when she's in a place of her own (that she won't eat unless she is was a perfect touch too). The sigh is withheld, I think. Anyway, who am I to quibble? (I might take characters as too real...) I don't care so much about her state as a loose woman in a world of men who will do for her if she looks like she might ask for them to do so. Those things don't have to be true. It's interesting that they took for granted that it was true. I kind of loved Faulkner for getting that right. People are fucking sexists and fucking racists, and it doesn't have to be that way. The people in Jefferson took it all for granted. Joe took for granted what wouldn't happen in his limbo of that not really a color of black or white. He's no different, and yet he haunted me because he was pining for something else. Hightower too, even if his was dead. Bunch's is a phantom like one of Lena's smiles. Call it my unrequited love. I want to see it the way through and not if I can already see its shadow there. I know I'm more like Joe because I didn't relate to Lena at all. I would never have trusted those people. It isn't a comfortable thing to realize, and then the person you can relate to wouldn't trust you either.

My unrequited love descriptor of all my time on this planet is Lucy in Peanuts sitting by Schroeder's piano bench. I would want a violinist. Put my ear to the wood and listen to its winds going in one ear and finding some place between the two. Linus's blanket is this. Faulkner's sentences hook me, and its worm goes in one ear. My security is knowing this. I can read this. Don't pray over no body. If Joe Christmas was a killer? There was a Joe Christmas that wasn't. There could have been a Joe Christmas after that wasn't. Don't pray for something else. Don't kneel at the sacrificial altar for something else either. It's something I already knew. Something about not writing people off. Write them enough to live. I don't want to be Hightower and never again see on faces anything else but judgment. My unrequited love would be Charlie Brown's sad walk home between the black cabins and the safe white houses that really aren't so safe either. It's not finished. Will I have the right to want it? I'm no different, so okay.

When he went to bed that night his mind was made up to run away. 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 was well as all space was still a cage.

Faulkner is great. He has their cruelty and their bruises and their community of what people want. I don't know why I'm not giving this the full five stars, really, except that what I already knew, like looking out of a window after the sound has already happened thing. It could just be one of those feelings I have that I can't explain very well. (That's also my unrequited love.) There is that thing where I wish I was invincible and no one would know what I was thinking either. You get where you're not sure if you're being laughed at or not to where knowing you're being laughed at is better. Damn you, Joe. Stop reminding me!

The review that I was going to write that was rolling around in my mind yesterday was better than this, as always. Still, I hope this will mean something to someone, anyway. I don't see how it could, but I hope it will.

P.s. Sorry for the repost an hour or so later. Goodreads and Alice in her chair are fucking with me. I know it's a crime against goodreads. I hope you can forgive me.

“«Quando uma coisa entra nos hábitos, também consegue afastar-se rapidamente da verdade dos factos.»”

He didn't seem like a professional vagrant in work clothes, but there was something definitely rootless in him, as if no village or city was his, no street, walls or piece of ground his home; and he carried with him knowledge of everywhere, as if it were a flag, with his kind of pitiless solitude, almost of pride. – It was as if – as the men said later – the tide of misfortune was only passing through and didn't intend to stay like that for much longer, and at the same time, it was absolutely indifferent to him how to get out of it. He was young.

“Byron listened to them in silence, thinking to himself that people are the same everywhere, but in a small town, where it is more difficult to do evil and there are fewer opportunities to have a truly private life, it seemed that people were capable of inventing endless stories in the name of others. Because that's all it took; an idea, a vain word blown from mind to mind.”

“«It's because a person is more afraid of the problems that may arise than of the ones he already has. He prefers to hold on to the problems he already knows rather than risk getting others. That's it. A man is capable of talking about how he would like to escape from the living, but it's the dead who are squeezing him. It's from the dead, who lie inert where they are and don't try to hold him, that he can't escape.»”

“He then saw a man walking up the street. On a weekday night, he would have recognized the silhouette, the contours, the build and the gait. But on a Sunday night, and with the echo of the phantom hooves still reverberating hollowly in the room wrapped in semi-darkness, he silently observed the lean and barefoot figure that moved with the precarious and artificial dexterity of animals when they rely only on their hind legs, that dexterity of which the man-animal is so vainly proud and that constantly betrays him by the forces of nature, such as gravity and ice, and by the strange objects he himself invented, such as cars and furniture in the dark room, and even the remains of his own food left on the floor and on the sidewalks.”

“Memory believes before knowledge remembers. It believes for longer than it remembers, for longer even than knowledge questions.”

“He looked at the man and understood, even before the director told him anything. Perhaps it was the knowledge stored in memory, the knowledge made into a memory; perhaps even desire, for at five years old, one is too new to have learned enough about despair to be able to have hope.”

“Sitting next to her on the sofa in the dark, while the light was out and her voice finally emerged without an accent, cadenced, endless, with a tone almost identical to that of a man's voice, Natal thought: «She is like the others. Whether they are seventeen or forty-seven, when they finally decide to give in completely, it is with words that they do it.»”

“When he convinced himself that he had heard the call, it seemed to him that he could see his future, his life, intact and whole, complete and inviolable, like a classic and serene vase where the spirit could be reborn, protected from the harsh winds of life, and then die in peace, disturbed only by the distant whisper of the wind, leaving only a scant smear of dust to rot, to be thrown away. That was the meaning of the word seminary: silent and safe walls, between which the troubled and overburdened spirit could learn again the serenity of contemplating without fear or horror its own nudity.”

“Probably you are only a little more than half his age, but you have already lived twice as much as he has. He will never be able to surpass, not even equal, because he has already lost a lot of time. And also this, the nothingness of his life is as irremediable as the everything of your life. He can't go back and do what he didn't do, just as you can't go back and undo what you did.”

It is difficult to find new words to describe Faulkner's work. In "Light in August", the author tells about the boy Joe Christmas, who resembles a Spaniard or, at worst, a Mexican (in the terms of the story), but in fact has a drop of black blood in him. And although the story of "Light in August" is not about racism - rather about love and sins - paradoxically, this perspective clearly reveals the nature of American racism, which is especially relevant nowadays.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken, Joe Christmas is almost the first developed black character in Faulkner's works. Later, this theme - being a person who is neither white nor black - is continued in Faulkner's masterpiece "Absalom, Absalom".

Compared with other Faulkner books I have read, "Light in August" does not differ in form, but the structure is unusually loose. I also noticed quite a few metaphors constructed using the artistic movement. For example: "Fear fled through the room in a running and silent panic, as if people had just fled from it". Or: "He got up and plunged into the necessity of hurrying as into a speeding combine".

"Light in August" is distinguished by its tranquility, like a Sunday in the countryside. Although there are brutal and violent passages, the slow pace of the story, the wide landscapes and the unique characters create a tranquility that is hard to explain, and the violence only disturbs it slightly, like the fluttering of a curtain in the wind through an open window.

I feel that I need to start de-Folknerizing, because it is becoming difficult to even think that I can read something else. After finishing "Light in August", I thought that I would like to read "Absalom, Absalom" again, which I read this year.

A few months ago, when I started reading Faulkner's books almost continuously, I would not have called myself a fan of his work - because it requires not only contextual understanding, but also a distance in time. Now, somehow, I feel like a fan of Faulkner.

In my life, there are authors from whom I gain the conviction that the achieved harmony of the work is the result not of excessive rationalization, but of something that belongs to nature itself, something that lurks in the text and belongs to it independently.

In this novel, there is no torrential stream of consciousness, but rather, moving here and there, it suddenly dries up, on its own, for its own sake, as if the thoughts of the characters do not stimulate a further flow, do not branch out into large thickets, but are instead percussive, the sharp July sun that leaves dried-up furrows by noon. Everything is arranged, complex, but calm; everything happens, but you don't have to discover the path, because you already know it's there on the first page; you don't know, you can't understand how you know that, because none of it belongs to you - and you get the impression that it doesn't belong to the author either - but rather the faces move freely, chaotically and if the wheels stop in front of your door now, if it happens that one face steps out - you will submit to some request. You can't explain why, but you know it should be so. You knew that already on the first page. Even in the "preface" there is enough "freedom" that a person doesn't know what to do with it.

I read Light in August about a decade ago (back in 2011) and I've been meaning to reread it ever since. However, I never seem to find the time to do it, so I will have to rely on my memory for this review.

Light in August is a novel that I enjoyed immensely. By that I mean that it is a novel that impressed me a great deal. Faulkner is not the easiest of writers to read so I wouldn't say that I 'enjoy' his novels in the typical sense of the word. Indeed, Faulkner's novels are not exactly enjoyable in the typical sense, but they can be described as rewarding readers as they are the kind of books that make its reader think.

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”

My review won't be long. I really do need to reread Light in August before attempting a more detailed review. To sum up, there are several things that convinced me this book is an accomplished piece of writing. Firstly, the psychological characterization and the detailed portrayal of principal characters was extremely well done. Faulkner really gets into the head of some of the characters. Secondly, the unstructured modern narrative was quite brilliant and the writing simply flowed. Thirdly, the structure of the novel is quite interesting. Fourthly, the themes this novel explores are quite serious and profound. Finally, I liked the way it all comes together in the end.

“It is because so much happens. Too much happens. That's it. Man performs, engenders, so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything. That's it. That's what is so terrible. That he can bear anything, anything.”

Light in August is not an easy read. By that I don't mean the necessarily the modern structure of the novel, but rather the fact that the emotions presented and the subjects explored are pretty dark and grim. The issues this novel explores are not exactly light: abuse, violence, race, gender, identity and religion. There are some quite serious themes explored in this novel and that is often the difficult part. In terms of the structure and the writing, The Light in August feels both simpler and easier to read than The Sound and the Fury. Although, you do have that stream of conscious technique in this novel as well, it is not overbearing. The stream of consciousness writing in this novel is present in a right amount. I don't mean to say that it was out of place in The Sound and the Fury (that is a very unique novel that I cannot imagine being any other way then it is but it did not make it easy to read). Light in August is in that sense more approachable.

What I perhaps loved most about this novel is how it captured that feeling of human loneliness and isolation. By focusing on the outcasts and the marginalized, Light in August portrays the conflict between the individual and the society. Highly recommended!

It happened earlier this week. I lost my Faulkner virginity (a short story not counting).

Since there is no dearth of personal or professional opinions about his oeuvre, what can I add? Nothing really except a check off on my reading bucket list.

I give this one all the stars because at different times,

★I didn’t like it.

★★ It was okay.

★★★ I liked it.

★★★★ I really liked it.

★★★★★ It was awesome.

My overall enthusiasm settled between 3 and 4—round up or down?

If you’ve never read him, this is considered a most reader friendly portal to his genius so a good place to begin. Whatever rating he exacts from the reader will come after some intense brain cross training. I choose to go up out of respect. I have never read anything like this. Surely he’s in a class by himself and has been a huge inspiration to a number of my favorite authors.

I was left feeling like a wad of tobacco that had been chewed up and spit out. Not on the ground mind, into a solid brass spittoon more like.

This experience of reading Faulkner was truly unique. The complexity of his writing and the depth of his ideas made me constantly question and analyze. It was a challenging read, but also a rewarding one. I found myself getting lost in his words, trying to understand the hidden meanings and the emotions he was trying to convey.

Even though my initial reactions varied from not liking it to really liking it, in the end, I was left with a sense of admiration for his talent. His ability to create such vivid characters and tell such engaging stories is truly remarkable.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a challenging and thought-provoking read. It may not be for everyone, but for those who are willing to put in the effort, it will be a journey worth taking.

Illumination in Autobiography is by William Faulkner, a famous American writer.

In this book, in addition to an attractive and engaging story, he has dealt with human themes such as race, gender, class, and religion in a complex and multi-layered style.

The characters in Faulkner's book can be known as Lena Grove, a pregnant woman in search of her father and child, Gail Hightower, a former priest and currently a hopeless and sad man, Byron Bunch, a hardworking but shy lover, and Joe Christmas, a man with an ambiguous identity and a past full of violence and chaos. However, this book can be considered as the story of Joe Christmas. His actions and behaviors have directly or indirectly influenced all the other characters, and in this way, the story takes shape.

The style of the book

Although the omniscient narrator can be considered the teller of the story, the writer, with the twists and turns of the perspective and the expression of the narration of different characters and also numerous flashbacks, has added to the complexity of the story. The result of this work is that his narrations are not very certain, which strengthens the doubt in the reader. These doubts reach their peak in the past of Joe Christmas. The writer's narration and the behavior of Christmas are such that they make the reader highly suspicious of him. Although his past is not very clear and obvious like his present, violence, recklessness, and religious violence can be seen in it. Since his past has few details, Joe is always wandering in doubt and hesitation. He even doubts his own race, and this is the mistake that makes him act.

Lena should be known as another different character in the story. She is a young girl who has become pregnant from an illegal relationship and is now looking for her lover or future husband. She is a brave, attractive, and honest girl who, with only the name and the probable place of residence of her lover, has come to this crazy house on foot. When Lena talks to Byron and then Byron talks to Hightower, the priest alone, the reader also becomes aware of the story and the past of Lena, Byron, and Joe Brown, and at the same time, the writer advances his story.

The content and story of the book

Faulkner has created his story using Joe Christmas and other characters and has enriched his narration with the use of their pasts. Most of the people in his book are in search of something. Lena is in search of the person who made her pregnant, the priest is in mourning for a victory, and Byron may also be in search of finding his love. In the meantime, the story of Christmas is different. He cannot be considered a person in search of his identity or a fugitive from it. His ignorance of the past has cast a shadow on his identity and has given him a kind of special destiny. He is also in search of this destiny. Christmas finally becomes the existence that society has made of him.

Although Faulkner's story has a complex and mysterious situation, the writer's goal should not be only to tell an attractive story. With his skill and expertise, he has taken the reader with him to the southern United States and made him familiar with the crisis of racism, poverty, injustice, and the destructive effects of violence and religious violence.

Faulkner has started his story with negligence. While the book starts with Lena Grove and her hopeless attempt to find her lover, which is not very loyal to her, the writer, using the fire that is taking place and during Lena's questions to Byron, the reader also becomes familiar with the burning house and the people inside it along with Lena. The writer then describes the life of Joe Christmas and tells about his painful childhood and youth.

Illumination in Autobiography should be considered a difficult book to read. The translation by Mr. Saleh Hosseini, as expected from him, is difficult both in terms of the use of unfamiliar words and also as the translator has said in the preface of the book, due to being loyal to Faulkner's style, the translation is difficult. But despite the difficulty of both the story and the translation, the complexity of the book does not much confuse and disturb the reader!

Faulkner's book can only be described with admiration. He has become a narrator of a difficult and not very distant era in American history, an era when race was the determinant of everyone's destiny.

A man is truly a mystery.

He often believes that it is loneliness he is striving to flee from, rather than himself. However, the street persists, catlike, and every place appears the same to him. Yet, in none of them can he achieve tranquility. The street continues in its various moods and phases, always empty. He might envision himself in countless avatars, in silence, condemned to motion, driven by the courage born of flagged and spurred despair, and by the despair of courage whose opportunities must be flagged and spurred. He is thirty-three years old.

Every man desires to discover his own place in the sun and to be free. But a man's freedom is circumscribed by the freedom of other men, and they might impede one from finding the desired place. Then, a man attempts to obtain his freedom through crime. And then, it seems as if God will come to the rescue.

He believes with a calm joy that if there is ever a place of shelter, it will be the Church. He thinks that if truth can ever walk naked and without shame or fear, it will be in the seminary. When he believes he has heard the call, it seems to him that he can envision his future, his life, intact and complete on all sides, inviolable, like a classic and serene vase. Here, the spirit can be reborn, shielded from the harsh gale of living, and die peacefully, with only the distant sound of the circumvented wind and scarcely even a handful of rotting dust to dispose of. That is what the word seminary implies: quiet and safe walls within which the hampered and garment-worried spirit can once again learn serenity to contemplate its own nakedness without horror or alarm.

But God dwells all alone in the absolute emptiness.

Discovering new books, new authors, or a new literary genre is always a wonderful experience for a reader. It might be something that they had previously avoided or even snubbed. This is exactly what happened to me when I read William Faulkner. Influenced by his reputation as a difficult and stubborn author, I had always refrained from reading him. However, in the recent period, it was Faulkner who literally called out to me. His name or some of his titles constantly appeared before my eyes, and so, for me (and finally, I say), the time had come to read him. Among his more or less famous titles, I decided to read "Light in August" which seemed to me the most approachable for a novice of his style, and, to be honest, also because the title fascinated me.

"Light in August" was written in 1932 and is set in the fictional Yoknatawpha County in the state of Mississippi. We are in the first half of the 1920s. The novel begins with the character of Lena, a young girl who is nine months pregnant. She has traveled on foot or by hitchhiking on dusty roads and desolate places, from Alabama to Mississippi, in search of the father of the child she is carrying, the runaway Lucas Burch. The young woman arrives in the town of Jefferson on a hot and sunny August day because along the way some people have told her that the man she was looking for worked in the sawmill of the town. Upon her arrival, Lena discovers that the man in the sawmill is not the one she was looking for, but a certain Byron Bunch, a worker who has been working in the company for many years.

On the very day of Lena's arrival in Jefferson, a column of black smoke rises from the woods around the town. A few hours later, the news spreads in the town that a brutal murder has occurred in the burned house. This news will involve the entire town, plunging its inhabitants into a spiral of hatred, racism, fanaticism, and violence.

At first, I had difficulty getting into the book and Faulkner's style, but once I got used to his dry and rather smooth style (in some parts, while in others it is more stubborn), the author managed to maintain my interest throughout the narration.

In this novel, the author shows us a glimpse of the Deep South of the United States, that part of the nation that depended on cotton plantations and the slave system, which was heavily marked by the Civil War. The Civil War (a period that has always fascinated me) left those states in a deep economic and social crisis, the consequences of which would be felt and continue to influence the lives of people even decades after its end. Faulkner spares nothing for the reader, and what he portrays is a bigoted, violent, warlike, hypocritical rural society, marked by the link between religious fanaticism and homicidal brutality; where even the mere thought of having black blood in one's veins is the most terrible thing there can be. A society that has never fully digested the defeat in the war (which has left a deep scar that has never fully healed); a land where after slavery, racial segregation has taken its place, which will remain very present until the 1960s of the 20th century.

In this society, the characters who populate the novel move. Faulkner is very good at delineating unforgettable and complex characters; some are more interesting than others, and he presents them as they are, without moralizing. They are numerous, all well characterized in their virtues and defects, and so human that they stand out before the reader's eyes; each one is oppressed by a sense of guilt and is often linked to the others in an unpredictable way. Each one carries with them and within them their baggage of personal experiences, family stories, ghosts, traumas, feelings of guilt, sometimes told in the first person or through the mouths of other characters or by the narrator himself; rejected, failed, marginalized characters, with a miserable life, fleeing (in vain) from themselves or from a predetermined destiny; obsessed, tormented by incurable passions and the past, family and personal, with which they cannot come to terms.

The emblem of this kaleidoscope of characters is surely the main male character of the novel, Joe Christmas, a man with a strange name. His entrance on the scene immediately strikes the reader; he appears at the sawmill fully dressed: ironed pants with a crease, an immaculate white shirt, a tie around his neck, and a hat brazenly placed crookedly on his head. He is a silent, solitary, detached, shadowy, restless, elusive man, with an impassive and somewhat malevolent face. Despite his apparent coldness, Joe hides a tormented soul since childhood. He is a so-called son of nobody; having become an orphan, he was abandoned in diapers at the orphanage on Christmas Day. He knows nothing about his family of origin and has come to Jefferson in search of work. Despite his white skin, Joe has always believed that he is a mulatto and has black blood in his veins (this is what he is made to believe from an early age), although he is not certain of it. He is thirty years old when he arrives in Jefferson, and his life is one of suffering, full of anger and resentment for the violence and wrongs he has suffered since childhood. Faulkner makes us relive his life: the terrible childhood and adolescence spent first in the orphanage where he was mistreated, ridiculed, and derided by the other children, then the chilling adoption by a bigoted and violent father, who does not hesitate to beat him to educate him in his iron principles, and finally his flight until his arrival in Jefferson. His is a life lived in flight from everything and everyone, but above all, spent trying to flee from himself, from his ghosts, from his torments; a life spent feeling guilty for the ambiguity of his origins and influenced by the exasperating bigotry of men who have inculcated in him since childhood that he was the rotten fruit of sin or a wrong law of nature.

Joe is a man without identity, marginalized, self-destructive, unable to put down roots. A man on the verge between two worlds - the white and the black - who does not feel he belongs to either, hating himself for this and feeling that he carries evil with and within him.

Joe tells his whole life in the first person, without revealing any emotion, but as if he were himself an impassive spectator of everything that happens to him. Faulkner does not express any word aimed at absolving or incriminating his behavior but leaves the reader the possibility of forming their own opinion on the guilt or innocence of Joe Christmas, a fascinating, powerful, complex, disturbing, unforgettable, and deeply authentic character who enters the reader's heart from the very beginning and is capable of arousing the most diverse feelings in him.

Among the other notable characters, we find Byron Bunch (one of the most successful characters), a good, altruistic, humble, diligent, and tireless worker who works every day at the sawmill, including Saturday afternoon, because he believes that this keeps him out of trouble. On Sunday, instead, he goes to visit his friend Hightower, with whom he discusses an infinite number of topics, both social and religious. Hightower, in fact, is a former Presbyterian minister, rejected by the ecclesiastical community after the scandal of his wife who betrayed him, left him, and finally committed suicide. Growing up among ghosts, renounced, avoided, and shunned by everyone except Byron, he lives isolated and marginalized in his house but helps and shows charity to the black community that lives in the woods around Jefferson.

Then we find Lucas Burch, the lowest character in the novel. Lucas seduced and abandoned the young Lena,欺骗 her that he would come back to her and the baby after finding a job and a house. He is a loafer and a slacker, who lives by expedients. He is the living incarnation of cowardice, greed, and meanness.

Then we also find the hallucinated and hallucinating maternal grandparents of Joe, the true culprits and responsible for Joe's destiny.

Faulkner, then, is very good at delineating the female figures, highlighting their strength and determination: they are women hardened by life, stupid, obtuse, mercenary, who suffer mistreatment, but also strong and courageous. Among these latter, we find Lena Grove, a positive character in the novel. At the beginning, she seems a fragile and defenseless country girl, and at the same time also naive and ignorant of the skeptical looks of those to whom she tells her story; but, instead, she will prove to be a strong, determined, and courageous girl.

And finally, worthy of note is also Joanna Burden, who lives alone in the large family house in the middle of the forest. Daughter and last descendant of a Yankee abolitionist family who moved to the South after the war, she has a painful past behind her. She is disliked and avoided by everyone because of her origins and her tolerance and philanthropy towards blacks.

"Light in August" is a collective novel, dark, sometimes tragic, hard, and at times also terrible, but at the same time, it is also enchanting and suggestive, and at the end, also full of hope. It is not an easy read and requires all the reader's attention, patience, and commitment; it is capable of arousing anguish, pity, repugnance, and emotion in the heart of the reader.

It has a plot that unfolds like an oral story told around the fire; a story made up of digressions, flashbacks, anticipations, hesitations, digressions, mental elucubrations. The narration is articulated, the plot rich in metaphors, the prose intense and spare, the writing is dense, corpulent, vigorous, dry, essential, and enchanting; sometimes difficult to follow because of the sudden and unpredictable change or交织 or pursuit of different points of view. Many facts remain unanswered, but it doesn't matter because everyone can form a fairly well-defined idea of what happened.

A book in which you are literally sucked in because for Faulkner, a few words, a few sentences, a few strokes are enough to delineate a character, a landscape, an environment, a scene; it is easy to imagine it before our eyes: to see the described movements, to hear the sounds and noises of what is happening as if we were also there in person. All this makes reading a profound experience that involves all the senses and from which, sometimes, it is difficult to detach oneself.

In the novel, Faulkner deals with themes such as blood, family heredity, moral corruption, social and racial prejudices, the racial issue, sexual taboos, the role that a woman should have in society, addressed in a clear, courageous, and unconventional way, especially for the time in which it was published.

An opera in which the events narrated follow one another dizzily thanks to a sometimes tumultuous and enigmatic plot that is revealed little by little, in which there is no shortage of Christian symbols and biblical references.

Thinking about it a few days after the end of the reading (because this is one of those novels that you have to let settle before writing something), the novel seemed to me a distorted version of the Gospel; in fact, the story and the fate of Joe Christmas is a sort of "dishonorable" similitude of the life of Jesus (uncertain origins, betrayed by a friend for money, condemned, captured).

This is the first book by Faulkner that I have read, but surely not the last.

"The man does, contrives, more than he can bear or should bear. That's how he discovers that he can bear anything. That's why. That's what's terrible. That he can bear anything, anything."

Memory records images before knowledge begins to remember. It believes things for times that it cannot recall, for times that go further back than knowledge can reach even to search.

Knowledge, and not any kind of bitter, remembers a thousand wild and solitary paths.

Beloved, greatest Faulkner in this book places us in a timeless dimension in his beloved South where poverty, wretchedness, racism, and moral decline prevail.

Once again, his heroes, tragic characters like heroes of ancient tragedies, fight with their destiny, tortured by fate.

Lena, a poor pregnant girl who starts to find the father of her child, Joe Christmas, a white man with Negro blood in him, a tragic victim of his origin and racism in the end (or of himself?), the outcast Hightower, and all the heroes of the book fight with their demons, with their inner world, with the abyss. Here lies the magic of Faulkner. It is not given to you, it does not give you ready food even when you think you know how the heroes think. The information comes drip by drip and again you cannot say that you have reached the summit of understanding. It leaves you alone to fight, alone to understand and finally to draw whatever conclusions you can. So we remain new in front of the abyss of the characters, of the plot that unfolds slowly like the myth of Ariadne, trying to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle.

Joe, around whom the story unfolds, could never accept the Negro blood that runs in his veins. Too white for the blacks and Arab for the whites. At the end of the book, one would say that he provokes his fate and is betrayed by the Player (a character who here has the feeling that he is the Dread of God). Yet there is no catharsis.

"This man seemed to soar high and enter their memory forever. They would never lose him again, in whatever quiet valleys they might find, beside whatever gentle and soothing brooks of old age, to read in whatever transparent faces of children old misfortunes and new hopes."

And yet, generally, it did not give me the feeling of tragedy as in Absalom, Absalom! or As I Lay Dying. In the midst of all this inevitable, the heroes of the book act, resist, fall, bleed, but also continue. You are brave and the August sun tries to warm their souls.

"It seems that man can endure almost anything. Even things he has not tried. He can endure even the thought that some things exceed what he is able to endure."

UG Highly recommended!