The past ceases to be a simple founding myth of identity and becomes the black force that incessantly and inevitably shakes the protagonists. It's as if living is just the number of steps that the chain of origin allows humans before bringing them, soul and body, back to the primeval chaos where no God has yet arrived to distinguish light from darkness, good from evil, itself from the demon.

However, once again, salvation will come from the quiet and tireless path of a girl dressed in blue, a simple and in love carpenter, and a new child of no one.

This is a dark, extremely powerful novel, full of dust and slime, blood and sweat. But, finally, it is full of hope. It takes the readers on a journey through the turmoil of the past and the struggle for salvation, showing that even in the darkest of times, there is always a glimmer of hope that can lead to a better future.

Dall'Alabama al Tennessee

I think of a circular domino where, in the end, the only one left standing is the last piece, which is also the first. This is not possible in reality, but as in an Escher painting, where the impossible becomes possible and traversable, it is in Luce d'Agosto. Here, Lena is left with a baby in her arms, and along with that baby remain the astonishment and the charm, the naivety and the determination with which she faces life. Despite everything that happens to her, in her and around her.

It is my first Faulkner novel (before I had only read the story Una Rosa per Emily), and to describe it I use for the second time for a novel the same adjective: swampy. A story in which one immerses oneself up to the knees, in which one often falls and gets one's arms, face, and thoughts dirty. But also dense, suffocating, at times delirious, and then again linear and dusty, clear, complex, to the point that there remains the doubt of not having understood everything, and the desire to pick up all the pieces to put them in order, the words to observe them again from another angle.

Perhaps it was also August in Jefferson, and the blinding light - as many comment - but in many points I felt cold, I desired a blanket to defend myself from the meanness and the cruelty of the actions of men, from envy and judgment, from the absence of justice. The United States only in name, Alabama from where Lena Grove sets off in search of the father (a brute and a scoundrel my grandmother would have said) of the baby she carries in her womb, and Mississippi where she arrives bright and sunny; states still divided by gossip and race, where blacks are still blacks, and women can still create scandal with their behavior. And men... Well, men, each man is a chapter in himself, a different specimen of the human race.

The United States where one still breathes the smell of Secession, of slavery, of divine punishment ready to strike down on men and their sins invoked and inflicted by other men: by means of a whipping, or a gunshot, or the blade of a knife, or a noose around the neck. There is Lena at the extremes of everything, from Alabama to Tennessee, and there is Joe Christmas, at the center of everything, a silent and enigmatic character, white but also black, who fascinates and repels, whose story becomes an epiphany for all the other stories that revolve around his and because of his, of life and death, of birth and of rebirth.

A straight line that closes like a circle, and in the middle, between Alabama and Tennessee, the Mississippi of Faulkner. A place to get lost and move forward among the swampy marshes of living. A place to leave quickly.

Under the calm lowering afternoon, the red road goes on gently, uphill. 'Well', she thinks, 'I can stand an uphill. One can stand an uphill'. Everything is immobile, quiet, familiar after seven years. 'It would seem that one can stand almost everything. One can stand even what one has not done. One can stand even the thought that certain things are more than what one can stand. One can stand even if one could let oneself go and start crying, one would not do it. One can stand not turning around to look, even if one knows that turning around to look or not turning around to look would not help one at all.

- No to the Elio Vittorini edition, rewritten, censored and rather dubious. I had to interrupt the reading and wait for the arrival of the Adelphi in the library to start again and compare the chapters already read: the comparison was even worse than I had intuited.

A obese man with no will to live has been shut up in his own house for years, on the outskirts of Jefferson, Mississippi.

Meanwhile, a woman on the verge of giving birth arrives in Jefferson from Alabama to find the father of the child, and a man of unknown origin flees the city after committing a murder and setting a fire.

The first is called Hightower, the second Lena Grove, and the third Joe Christmas.

Apparently, the three have nothing in common.

Yet, they are precisely the protagonists of "Light in August": three very different characters who give life to a polyphonic novel with a thousand voices.

Faulkner is an intimidating writer: he is associated with highly symbolic and enigmatic novels that require very careful reading and leave many questions unanswered. This is true, as I have understood, for works such as "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying", but certainly not for "Light in August" - a novel that, despite the constant changes in perspective and time jumps, is perfectly accessible. For me, it was the first approach to the author, and the impact was electrifying.

But let's be orderly: what is "Light in August" about?

The novel wants to be a critique of American society in the southern states in the 1930s - a judgmental, racist society, characterized by religious fanaticism and total intolerance for every form of sin. It is a society constantly looking for a scapegoat, a poor victim on which to vent anger and frustration for past events - first and foremost the defeat of the Civil War.

In the novel, there are three main scapegoats of society.

The first is Hightower, a former pastor expelled from the Church because of his wife's extramarital affairs and accustomed to living, as the name suggests, in complete isolation, as if perched on a tower. The second is Lena, a young woman who, despite her goodness, is judged and despised for the fact of having become pregnant out of wedlock. And the third is Joe Christmas, a man without a family - he was abandoned as a child and knows nothing about his parents -, without a race - he has light skin, but is convinced of having black blood - and without a home - for years he has wandered through the southern states looking for a place where he feels comfortable, in vain. Hightower, Lena, and Christmas have in common the diversity, the fact of not belonging to any of the predefined models of society: Hightower is not the typical pastor who gives humble sermons on Sundays, Lena is not the devoted wife and angel of the home, and Christmas is not the typical white man who works honestly to support the family. Persecuted in various ways, the three follow three different trajectories, succumbing to society or managing to find a way out.

Faulkner's is a novel steeped in symbolism - there are countless symbolic elements such as proper names, which预告 the destiny of the characters, and biblical references -, of fatalism - a general fatalism, due to the condition of the southern states, and personal, linked to the ancestors of the individual characters - and of ambiguity - there are many points that remain open at the end of the reading: is Christmas white or black? Did he really commit the murder he is accused of? And what will become of Lena?

Compared to many classics, it is a complex novel - like all those that belong to modernism, starting from "Mrs. Dalloway", which has many affinities with this book, at a structural level.

But, as I wrote above, it is a completely accessible novel and therefore ideal for approaching the author. Faulkner's prose is unique - at times lyrical and at times a mirror of the language of the era: a magnetic prose that pushes one to go on even in the most difficult passages.

I plan to recover "As I Lay Dying" as soon as possible and then immerse myself in "The Sound and the Fury".

It is Faulkner's first book, which I read long ago. The memories it left me with are truly dazzling. Thanks to this novel, I developed a passionate love for this author and at the same time, I feared disappointment.

Undoubtedly, it is Faulkner's most精心constructed novel, coming closest to a great classic. The book begins and ends with Lena, a young pregnant woman at the start of the story. She has crossed several states in search of the father of her child. Lena represents absolute and serene femininity. She reminds me of those prehistoric fertility goddesses. Nothing seems to be able to disturb her deep tranquility.

And between this beginning and this end, which radiates the light present in the title, there is violence, injustice, stupidity, and the suffering of beings who cannot find their place. At the center is Joe Christmas, whose terrible story we gradually uncover, highlighting all the flaws and violence of this southern society. It is puritanical, racist, not accepting otherness neither between races nor sexes, based on hatred of the other and ultimately contempt of oneself.

For me, it is one of the most beautiful books ever written, leaving a lasting mark on us forever.

In this novel, there are two storylines. The more in-depth one is the life of Joe Christmas from birth to death. He didn't know who he was, whether he was white or had a "drop of black blood," and carried this curse throughout his life. The shorter one is the journey of Lena Grove, who is pregnant and in search of Lucas Burch, who promised to marry her once he settled in a new place. She travels on foot from Alabama to the town of Jefferson where the novel takes place, that "small patch" of land on which the genius Faulkner could show all the complexity and contradictions of the American South. And in the context of the regional tragic history, burdened by the slave-owning past and the terrifying worldview of its inhabitants, he shows all the complexity of human nature and the tragedy of existence in irresolvable contradictions. These two storylines converge on the despicable Lucas Burch, also known as Joe Brown, who sells and betrays both, and as a result, the plot structure of the novel resembles a cross. In general, there are many allusions and parallels with the Christian myth - the name Christmas, his age at death, the betrayal in exchange for monetary reward, and much more. The storylines of Lena Grove and Joe Christmas form an antithesis, like peace and anger, birth and death, light and darkness.

Faulkner constantly returns to the tragic history of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, which corresponds to the history of the entire American South. For example, to the killing of the Sartorises, whites who were tolerant of blacks, showing the roots of prejudice, what made and makes this society so cruel and intolerant. The Civil War has ended, but the stereotypes of racism and the infringement of the rights of African Americans, even those with the slightest drop of black blood, remain. The storylines of the novels in the saga, like loops in circles, tightly connect the narratives into a single epic canvas. Surprisingly, in this corner of the world, it seems that they have not even heard of rights or the law. So, Millie's father kills a wandering circus artist in a fit of rage and his own daughter, not calling a doctor or a midwife to help with childbirth. Christmas kills his adopted father, McEachern, and all without the slightest consequences. If not from the side of the institutions tasked with ensuring legality, then at least from moral pangs.

The image of Christmas is tragic. It is not only his inability to self-identify and, as a result, be an outcast among both whites and blacks, but also his tragic childhood, full of violence, pain, loneliness, and in the complete, absolute absence of love. He is both a murderer and a victim in one person. He commits passive suicide by not going far from Jefferson and allowing himself to be found.
In general, there are many outcasts in the book - Christmas, Joanna, Hightower, and even Lena Grove (she goes in search of her husband not so much out of great love for the worthless Burch/Brown as to avoid being ostracized as a sinful woman who gave birth out of wedlock). This speaks of an intolerant society that requires conformity to a certain group or certain norms. Those who do not fit into the canons of a social group are immediately rejected. There are also many religious fanatics in the novel - McEachern, Hines, and Joanna, who interpret religious dogmas in an extremely harsh way in the opposition of God and the devil. The pinnacle of fanaticism is the executioner Percy Grimm, who is not satisfied with just killing but needs to humiliate human dignity and perform a ritual act. The fanatical white population of Jefferson is ready to lynch for a drop of black blood and persecute like an animal. It is precisely fanaticism (religious, social, racial) and the accompanying intolerance that are the objects of Faulkner's closer attention and analysis.
"Light in August" is undoubtedly a tragic novel, but Faulkner did not want to end it on a tragic note. To the murderous and fanatical Jefferson, he constructs an antithesis in the image of the young mother, who radiates peace and reliability with all her being for her newborn child, knowing what she wants from life - a full family life, realizing that she will no longer have to travel due to family responsibilities and the traditional way of life, and joyfully accepting the world around her.

Hands down, this is the best Faulkner work I've read so far. Faulkner skillfully touches on a plethora of themes, making this book an intense and captivating read that is extremely hard to put down. I would consider myself a plot junkie, and Faulkner truly delivered in this regard. Not only did he present a compelling plot, but he also crafted some fascinating and diverse characters. Each character has their own unique personality and story, adding depth and complexity to the overall narrative. To date, this is the easiest Faulkner book I've read, which is a great bonus. It starts out strong, maintaining a high level of interest throughout, never lags, and ends with a powerful conclusion. Without a doubt, I give this book 5 stars and it has rightfully been added to my favorite shelf. It's a must-read for any Faulkner fan or anyone who enjoys a thought-provoking and engaging novel.

Reading Faulkner is truly an experience. You may like it more or less, but it will definitely have an impact on you, that's for sure. It is the deep South in all its splendor and misery, full of landscapes, sounds, and scents, all described with a magnificent and powerful prose like a torrential rain that soaks you. And what can be said about the characters? There are very many of them, but each one is memorable in its own way, an army that seems immersed in a great battle between good and evil.

They say that this work is a good entry point to Faulkner's oeuvre, and it's true that the beginning is 'easy', with a conventional narrative and an understandable story: the pregnant girl who travels the roads in search of the father of her child - helped by the kindness of strangers. But soon we lose sight of her and a much darker character appears, Joe Christmas, marked by the lack of love and his racial problem. And here, a more fragmented way of narrating emerges immediately, with temporal leaps and full of a passion that makes the reading more difficult. The third character is the Reverend Hightower, expelled from his congregation and abandoned by his wife, another loser who doesn't find a place in this society. The plot unfolds in such a way that the three stories converge through many other characters. Everything is related, our actions - good or bad - have consequences and form a whole. Therefore, it is not an easy work, but there is a lot of complexity both in form and in substance, although perhaps it is not the most experimental Faulkner.

Racism, the latent wounds of the Civil War, religious fanaticism... are the ghosts of the South, which are there, and which somehow are incarnated in the failed characters that Faulkner presents to us, like specters of a nation that never came to be.

I'm not going to dwell on this book because I think everything has already been said, but I recognize that it has impressed me and that I want to read more from the author, enter his turbid universe where kindness somehow seems to float to the surface among so much injustice and so much pain.

First piece of writing by Faulkner that I actually somewhat enjoyed! This day should indeed be marked down. 2.75 / 5

My senior seminar professor assigned Light in August. While I wasn't entirely fond of the whole story, there were definitely chapters I liked, specifically the first few. The book started to slow down around the midway point when we returned to the house being burned down. Basically, after learning about Christmas and his backstory, the story became dull.

The writing is very characteristic of Faulkner, with every name, event, and saying having some sort of meaning. It's a meaning that either you'll understand or never figure out (or will be revealed later). I enjoyed this challenging style of writing - on days when I wasn't tired. On days when I had work, tutoring, and classes, Faulkner's writing exhausted me.

On a side note, I'm glad Lena and Byron were "together" by the end of the novel. Byron is a good guy and Lena needs someone to keep her from constantly wandering.

Overall, Faulkner will never be a favorite author of mine. That being said, this was probably the best novel I've read by him. And even though the characters are quite developed, I didn't find them overly interesting. Well, they lost their appeal after the beginning.

‘What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been’
~ Grateful Dead, circa 1977

I’ve just completed a ten-day journey that felt like scarce breathing, a mere two months in the plot's timeline. I was immersed in 1920’s Jefferson, Mississippi, in the company of Mr. William Faulkner and his diverse cast of characters. There was Joe Christmas, Rev. Gail Hightower, Lena Grove, Byron Bunch, the McEacherns, Lucas Burch (aka Joe Brown), Uncle Doc Hines and his wife, and Joanna Burden, among others. It was a whirlwind experience. I encountered people who seemed damned from birth and a few who gave me hope. I witnessed alienation, abuse, racism, loneliness, religious fanaticism, and death. The rich dialogue crackled like a steak in a cast-iron skillet, and the vocabulary was like nothing else in fiction: “pinewiney,” “swolebellied,” “fecundmellow,” “sootbleakened,” “cinderstrewnpacked,” “thwartfacecurled,” and “Augusttremulous.” Somehow, after all that transpired in this town over these two months, I ended up almost where I began, a little dustier but infinitely more enriched. “My, my. A body does get around.” The way Faulkner brings this long, strange, complex novel full circle is truly genius.

There’s no need for me to rehash the plot since most every Faulkner fan has already read this book - Joe Christmas is practically a household word. Instead, I’ll express my gratitude to the members of ‘On The Southern Literary Trail’ for this month’s pre-1980 selection and for their encouraging comments to us Faulkner strugglers in the group. I can now lay down my burden of shame at never finishing a Faulkner. Four attempts. Four different novels. Abject failure. But ‘Light In August’ was finally THE ONE. It earns 5 damn fine, better-late-than-never stars, and here are a few of my favorite non-spoiler excerpts from this 1932 Southern classic, written by one of the most revered authors in literature:

“In the lambent suspension of August into which night is about to fully come, it seems to engender and surround itself with a faint glow like a halo. The halo is full of faces. The faces are not shaped with suffering, not shaped with anything; not horror, pain, not even reproach. They are peaceful, as though they have escaped into an apotheosis; his own is among them.”
~ Rev. Gail Hightower

“He thought that it was loneliness which he was trying to escape and not himself. But the street ran on: catlike, one place was the same as another to him. But in none of them could he be quiet...” ~ Joe Christmas

“His face was gaunt, the flesh a level dead parchment color. Not the skin: the flesh itself, as though the skull had been molded in a still and deadly regularity and then baked in a fierce oven.” ~ Byron Bunch describing Joe Christmas

“It seems like a man can just about bear anything. He can even bear what he never done. He can even bear the thinking how some things is just more than he can bear. He can even bear it that if he could just give down and cry, he wouldn’t do it. He can even bear not to look back, even when he knows that looking back or not looking back wont do him any good.”
~ Byron Bunch

“It seems to him that he has seen it all the while: that that which is destroying the Church is not the outward groping of those within it nor the inward groping of those without, but the professionals who control it and who have removed the bells from its steeples... He seems to see the churches of the world like a rampart, like one of those barricades of the middleages planted with dead and sharpened stakes, against truth and against that peace in which to sin and be forgiven which is the life of man.”
~ Rev. Gail Hightower

I've read several of Faulkner's works by now, and this particular one left the least impact on me. However, it was still far superior to many other novels.

William Faulkner manipulates words with great skill. He toys with them, dresses them up, and makes them look beautiful. It would be extremely difficult to find a writer with a wider range.

Nevertheless, when compared to his other masterpieces, such as The Sound and The Fury and Absalom, Absalom, this one seemed like a rather ordinary story. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't have the same intense passion as the others. Still, he had the remarkable ability to make even his simplest ideas a joy to read.

Even so, I read it and then promptly forgot it. In fact, sitting here a few years later, I can't recall the plot in much detail. I'd probably get a lot of it wrong. While preparing for this review, I considered reading a synopsis of Light in August, but then I thought, no, let this hazy, forgettable impression speak for itself. Faulkner simply didn't make a lasting impression on me with this work. I should just let it be.

"Ma pensa un po'. Se ne fa, di strada. Neanche due mesi fa era ancora Alabama, e ora siamo già in Tennessee."

What a journey this has been! Just a short while ago, they were in Alabama, and now they find themselves in Tennessee.

The thought crosses her mind as she looks out the window, taking in the passing scenery. The miles seem to have flown by, and yet, there is still so much more to explore.

She wonders what adventures await them in this new state. Will they discover hidden gems, meet interesting people, or have experiences that will change their lives forever?

As the car continues to move forward, she feels a sense of excitement and anticipation. This journey is far from over, and she can't wait to see where the road will lead them next.

"Che viaggio!!" indeed.

It was May 2019, and several of my GoodReads friends had just finished reading Light In August by William Faulkner. Each of them gave the book a high rating, praising the writing while also commenting on its difficulty. I, having never read any Faulkner but being aware of his Nobel Prize for Literature, was intrigued and slightly intimidated. However, I decided to take on the challenge.

As it happened, I didn't read the book but listened to it. There were both pros and cons to this. On the downside, with writing of this caliber, I often like to see the words in their written form, to go back, re-read, and simply savor passages. This was definitely the case with this novel. So, although I've now finished the audio book, I've just bought a copy of the eBook to go back and feast my eyes. On the upside, Faulkner showed an amazing ability to bring the Southern dialect to the page, and it was a treat to listen to Will Patton narrate and bring the characters to life, even if I often didn't like the characters.

Looking back on the novel, I realize that the action and events only covered a six-week period, yet through the inner dialogue and stream-of-consciousness of the characters, readers were taken back multiple generations. These personal histories provided context for the characters' thought processes and explained their behaviors. But, at the same time, this way of telling the story could easily confuse, perhaps explaining some of the difficulty people had with it. This was a book that required patience. Faulkner changed perspective often, and I didn't always know how a particular section fit into the whole story. That said, I never doubted that the author would bring it all together. My trust was well-placed, and indeed the major puzzle pieces fell into place, although there were still a number of unresolved plot lines by the end of the book.

Although I felt it ended on at least one note of hope, Light In August was not at all light in content. In fact, it was dark, at times violent, and many of the characters were not likable at all. If Faulkner's portrayal of the 1930s South is even remotely accurate, it gives readers a lot to think about. Attitudes towards race, sex, class, and religion in the American South were major themes explored through the inner struggles of his characters, and he doesn't paint a pretty picture.

After accepting the challenge of reading a Faulkner, I'm definitely not sorry. I'm confident that this reading experience expanded my mind. It also had me Googling to learn more about the author, his writing style, and his books (not just this one). Although my review isn't a thorough analysis of the book and doesn't even hint at the plot (lots of others will do that for you), I enjoyed the experience and definitely feel like trying another.