Light In August

A review of Light In August by William Faulkner:

In "Light in August," Faulkner achieves the highest standard of prose I have read in an American novel. There were passages I read over and over again, and I marveled at the sheer visionary concentration of the writing - at the author's ability to focus on a specific scene so clearly, so intently, that he brought me completely into his vision. The below description of nothing more than a wagon rolling down a country road, is a fine example:

"The sharp and brittle crack and clatter of its weathered and ungreased wood and metal is slow and terrific: a series of dry sluggish reports carrying for a half mile across the hot still pinewiney silence of the August afternoon. Though the mules plod in a steady and unflagging hypnosis, the vehicle does not seem to progress. It seems to hang suspended in the middle distance forever and forever, so infinitesimal is its progress, like a shabby bead upon the mild red string of road. So much is this so that in the watching of it the eye loses it as sight and sense drowsily merge and blend, like the road itself, with all the peaceful and monotonous changes between darkness and day, like already measured thread being rewound onto a spool. So that at last, as though out of some trivial and unimportant region beyond even distance, the sound of it seems to come slow and terrific and without meaning, as though it were a ghost travelling a half mile ahead of its own shape. . ."

It takes tremendous focus and commitment to create such evocative prose, and I have to admit that it took me many years to become patient enough, and reflective enough, to fully appreciate Faulkner for his descriptive brilliance. An equally great, or greater achievement of this novel, was in his commitment to portray human existence exactly as he saw it. There was really no social or political "agenda" in Faulkner's work at all, in my opinion, although some have made that claim. Instead, what I see, is a courageous and unflinching determination to portray his world with absolute fidelity, to hold a mirror up to life and human society, so that we might look at that image and draw our own conclusions about where society has succeeded and where it has failed.

This, in my estimation is a heroic and monumentally difficult thing to attempt, and not only does Faulkner attempt it in "Light In August," he achieves it admirably. As in the passage excerpted above, what I see in Faulkner's work is courage: the courage of a writer willing to face himself and to portray both his inner-impressions, and his external reality unflinchingly, with the deepest exertion towards absolute honesty. I can think of no higher praise for any writer, or any novel.

Brent Hightower
Copyright 2013 by Brent Hightower
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