LIGHT IN AUGUST - Group Read Discussion Thread

Welcome, gentle readers. I don't think this will be a heavily populated thread, but I hope we have some good discussion. I feel like I will need some low-grade tutoring along the way.

Starred!

And starred. I have been visiting your threads, Ellen, and will never ever catch up. But I'm thrilled to see you embarking on your first Faulkner. I'm terrible at group reads, and I'm already committed to a chunkster in August, but I will follow the discussion here, as Light in August is an old favorite, and if the conversations on your thread are any indication, this should be an interesting place to be!

I'm here, too!

Beth and Mamie, I'm glad you're here.

Deborah, I'm actually not usually very good at group reads, although I got into the lively discussion of The Wasp Factory.
I am looking forward to sharing our reactions and I'm hoping folks can help me understand what I'm reading.
I believe Kerri said she would also drop by now and then, also not reading it now but having read and admired it in the past, so we should have some good -- and low pressure!! -- discussion.

Okay, I'm digging in.

Yay!

Me, too - starting today.

We did a group read of Light in August several years ago now in the Faulkner and his Literary Kin Group, so if anyone wants to take a look at any of the discussions there, I'll post some links below.

General Discussion Thread

Some thoughts on the character of Hightower

Some thoughts on the character of Joe Christmas

The question of race

The question of fate

Naturally, these topics bleed into one another to some extent.

Thanks for the links and heads up, Linda! I will probably wait until I've gotten a bit further into it to read others' thoughts too much.

It might be a little frustrating not to be able to engage the people who posted in that one, too, Ellen, but there are some good observations there. I agree, it would be best to wait until you are well into the book before being influenced by other readers' conclusions.

How interesting that Faulkner's original title was to be Dark House!

I am loving Faulkner's use of language. I'm seeing his odd use of gerunds (mentioned by the Yale professor in that free course) and am trying to just go with it. In a lot of places, I'm trying to just go with the narrator. I mean, chapter 6 starts thus:

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

Right.

But then there is the occasional passage like this in chapter 7:

He stood there for a while, leaning on the fence. The grass was aloud, alive with crickets. Against the dewgray earth and the dark bands of trees fireflies drifted and faded, erratic and random.

Beautiful.

Hi Ellen - I just started, but even on the second page when he is describing the machinery left after the mill chosed -- it's breathtaking language. And there's often a tiny bit of humor in those descriptions, too.

I agree, you just have to go with it. He doesn't lend himself to a few minutes here and there -- at least I have to sit and concentrate. But it is so worth it.

Keep your mind open for the humor...it's something a lot of readers seem to miss, especially when trying Faulkner for the first time.

Okay, this is good. I haven't been listening for humor, per se. Now I will do so.
Thanks, Beth and Linda.

May I just say I think Chapter 7 is one of the finest pieces of writing in American literature? It could easily stand alone, and parts of it prove that Faulkner was not a complete failure in poetry, whatever he thought about that.

I just finished Chapter 14, which is a beautiful description of a man on the lam. And the transition to chapter 15.... I mean, it's nothing new for an author to use the first sentence of a new chapter to let the reader in on what happened after the prior chapter, but this particular transition: it's perfection.

Even though I KNOW I love him, he keeps surprising me on third and fourth reads.

Completed it. Loved it. I will definitely keep my copy so I can do a reread in a year or two.

And I'll participate in Faulkner February (in six months), thinking I'll read Absalom, Absalom! at that time.