Reviews (Columbia Critical Guides) by William Faulkner (2000-12-06)

Faulkner is great if somewhat challenging to read. He is a Modernist in the sense that he attempts to observe events/issues from multiple points of view and time-space. The protagonist Joe Christmas is an F1-bybrid mixed-blood fellow who is persecuted viciously by his grandfather, a pathetic, vicious racist who killed his own daughter for spawning 'the devil'. That is, Joe Christmas' father was Black and the grandfather Doc Hines allowed his daughter to die from medical neglect during the birth. He subsequently abducted Joe and left him on the doorstep of an orphanage that allowed him to be adopted by a fanatical religious lunatic who abused and confused Christmas until Joe killed him in a fight and fled to Jefferson City, Mississippi. Christmas has an affair with an ex-Abolitionist activist that ends in suicide, murder and arson which, in turn, leads to an attempt on the part of his own grandfather to have him lynched. He is eventually killed and mutilated by a zealous 'wannabe a Confederate' lunatic. The struggles of Christmas to deal with his mixed-race reality is also phenomenally interesting. As a dissection of the racist-hatred that propelled the slaving South into Jim Crow, it is exceptional. There are a number of other interesting threads and characters in the story that I will not allude to. While the degree of diff in a reading-sense is rather steep, I was amazed by the quality of the craftsmanship and analysis. There are free resources that can help people who struggle with the read.

The first half of the book makes zero sense until you read the second half. Then if you reread the first half, you can understand 80-90% of it.

This is not a casual book read. It's a semester at Harvard, a class that I would undoubtedly enjoy.

The best piece of literature ever written so I was told by an O so educated man. I went for the audio book to help me get through it. I do appreciate the art but as many I needed a little help with the rolling on of the story.

This is a beautiful but difficult, sometimes harsh story line, well written by a old master.
The story line is difficult to piece together as the language is very difficult to interpret.
Faulkner was from this area and had a beautiful way to express the story.
People may differ somewhat in its interpretation.
I read this for a local book club selection which we then discussed.

If you're reading this for English class, have fun. I tried reading it for pleasure, and gave up after 50 pages or so. If you're an English teacher or literary nerd, maybe you'll like it, but for "normal" readers, you'll spend the first ??? pages wondering: "what's the point of this tedious tome?" I later learned that this "stream of consciousness" writing style was considered revolutionary by the literary folks when it first came out. That's wonderful, but to me it's just rambling text with no coherence, no plot, no point.

Wow! This novel is quite morbid, and grim. Probably most analogous with some of Cormac McCarthy's more dark epics. You read on to see how low this family can sink into a depraved, stingy, and heartless abyss. Faulkner was certainly a genius.

One of the most enthralling and experimental books of the twentieth century. It is my favorite book by Faulkner and a cornerstone of modernist literature. It opens up new secrets with each successive reading. A "must-read" for understanding the South!

I chose this rating because it is a remarkable book, but difficult. It is remarkable for its style and language and composite structure which - as reading proceeds - slowly reveals the story of a family, seen first from the viewpoint of a mentally retarded child and grown up. Very original. Also the whole complex of white and black people slowly emerges as reading proceeds. Fascinating.

This review is purely from a personal level but I am not enjoying this book at all. I've heard people say that life is too short to read books you aren't enjoying but I feel the need to finish this book anyway. I wanted to like this book because it's such a classic but I can't find the redeeming factor to it. I'm finding it difficult to read and hard to keep track of; I'll admit that it might just be me and I don't understand it. Unfortunately, not all books are for everyone and I think that this is one of those books that's not for me.

This is a difficult read but well worth the effort. The book is beautifully written with some very compelling characters that are symbolic of their world and times. Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury is a masterpiece of Southern literature that captures the tragic fall of a family and a way of life. Be ready to think deeply.

Light in August is an intensely harrowing exploration of isolation, alienation, and perseverance through the lives of three very different characters who endure parallel plights. Not only is this among Faulkner's finest, but among the finest novels of the 20th century.

It's impossible to stint in praise for this extraordinary novel. What a grand pleasure! What brilliance and originality. I read this book in college, and now, nearly 50 years later, I'm reading it again--and am quite dumbfounded by the richness of its (rather rhetorical) prose. The beginning moves slowly, and the novel doesn't follow a traditional pattern of setting a scene and explicating what happens through dialogue. There is very little dialogue here. And yet...what sonorous prose, what beauty in story-telling, what half-crazy characters, what imaginative passion. And what a delight. Perhaps a strenuous delight -- for the novel is rather long -- but I, for one, was dazzled by Faulkner's brilliance and his willingness to take risks and carry his vision of a novel through. What--in the end--greatness!

I've tried several times but couldn't get through Benjy's chapter. But someone gave me the tip of observing who was in charge of him to get perspective. I'm glad for that tip so I didn't miss out on a wonderful book. The only thing worse than reading Faulkner is not reading Faulkner.

I mean, its one of the classics. I personally didn't care for it a lot. It very much feels like Faulkner was attempting to write a novel knowing what he needed to do so people would talk about it. If you are familiar with who Faulkner was as a person then this type of pretension makes sense. It lacks the wholeness that makes Gatsby so wonderful. It feels like Faulkner is attempting to make the deeply flawed characters of Sun Also Rises, but lack the ability to actually pull it off, instead just making the characters almost pointlessly odd and hard to figure out. But, that's just, like, my opinion man. Still kind of fun.