Faulkner's: Light in August

[Sancho]

Hi guys, I just finished Faulkner’s Light in August and I’m still sort of mulling it over - trying to unlock some of the ideas. Would anyone care to discuss it?

It seems to me that one of the subtexts is one of the oldest stories in the world: A traveling woman, in the family way, with no ring on her finger. Is Lena Grove of Alabama a 1930s Southern version of Mary of Nazareth?

I’m on the road a lot nowadays so I may not respond to postings quickly, but I will respond. I’d really like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this book.

[Virgil]

The incidents of Light in August on one level parallel those of the Christian Holy week leading to the cuxifiction. In a way it is an inverted version. Howver it does not reduce to that simple equation. It is a very complex novel. One of my favorite novels of all time.

[Idril]

I just finished this book myself. I've never been a big fan of Faulkner and I'm still not crazy about his writing style but I did enjoy the book once I got used to the language and structure.

I hadn't thought about Lena as Mary, mostly because I can't think of anyone else in the book that fits into the Nativity story. I can see a few parallels to Holy Week and the crucifixion, as Virgil pointed out but I think you can find religious parallels in almost anything if you look hard enough and you want it bad enough.

[Virgil]

I just finished this book myself. I've never been a big fan of Faulkner and I'm still not crazy about his writing style but I did enjoy the book once I got used to the language and structure.

I hadn't thought about Lena as Mary, mostly because I can't think of anyone else in the book that fits into the Nativity story. I can see a few parallels to Holy Week and the crucifixion, as Virgil pointed out but I think you can find religious parallels in almost anything if you look hard enough and you want it bad enough.
Joe Christmas (JC) = Jesus Christ

[Idril]

Joe Christmas (JC) = Jesus Christ

I know, I know, and an argument can be made that while Joe had one foot in the white world and one foot in the black world, that he was at the same time, both races and nothing, Jesus too, had that double nature, godly and human, that he too struggled with where he belonged but I just have some serious problems putting Joe into the Christ role because of who he was and what he did. Of course his childhood and rearing had a lot to do with that, that he was certainly a product of his environment, but regardless of how he got that way, he was a violent man, incapable of any kind of sympathy or remorse or any kind of emotional connection and in that way, is very far removed from being a Christ-like figure for me. That doesn't mean he wasn't intended for that role, it just means that I choose not to see it that way. ;)

[Virgil]

I know, I know, and an argument can be made that while Joe had one foot in the white world and one foot in the black world, that he was at the same time, both races and nothing, Jesus too, had that double nature, godly and human, that he too struggled with where he belonged but I just have some serious problems putting Joe into the Christ role because of who he was and what he did. ;)
Yes, but it all is the inverse; Joe is the opposite of Christ.


Of course his childhood and rearing had a lot to do with that, that he was certainly a product of his environment, but regardless of how he got that way, he was a violent man, incapable of any kind of sympathy or remorse or any kind of emotional connection and in that way, is very far removed from being a Christ-like figure for me. That doesn't mean he wasn't intended for that role, it just means that I choose not to see it that way.

Like I said, it's more complex than a simple substitution.

[Idril]

Yes, but it all is the inverse; Joe is the opposite of Christ.

That I can certainly agree with. In that case then yes, I will accept the comparison. ;) :lol: And you have the Judas in Lucas Burch, you have the angry masses, the "priests" calling for his death, even a variation of the Pilate character calling for calm in the form of the Policemen who, like Pilate while not exactly on his side, are trying their best to protect him from the mob.



Like I said, it's more complex than a simple substitution.

That too, I can certainly agree with. It is a very complex book with characters that aren't easy to clarify or judge. I think the one that left me the most...conflicted was Hightower. I was so convinced he was going to be connected to Joe somehow because the conversations he had with Byron about him were so odd, so emotional like he had some kind of personal stake in it but in the end, it was all about his dead grandpa. I don't know if I missed something there or what but he seemed like such an odd duck in that story.

[Virgil]

That too, I can certainly agree with. It is a very complex book with characters that aren't easy to clarify or judge. I think the one that left me the most...conflicted was Hightower. I was so convinced he was going to be connected to Joe somehow because the conversations he had with Byron about him were so odd, so emotional like he had some kind of personal stake in it but in the end, it was all about his dead grandpa. I don't know if I missed something there or what but he seemed like such an odd duck in that story.
Unfortunately it's been a few years since I read it and while Hightower is a very important character, his significance escapes me. You might want to check Spark Notes on the internet.

[Ryduce]

I haven't read it in awhile either,but I believe that Hightower represents the only person in the novel who is able to overcome his past.The other characters history ultimately facilitates thier own destruction while Hightower is able to come to grips with his.

[Virgil]

Here's the Spark Notes web site.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lightinaugust/

[Sancho]

I like the idea of an inverted version of the Christian holy week. Along those lines, when Joe is “crucified” by the oddly Nazi-like state militia boys, I imagine that he is also resurrected as follows:

“…upon that black blast the man seemed to rise soaring into their memories forever. They were not to lose it, in whatever peaceful valleys, beside whatever placid and reassuring streams of old age, in the mirroring faces of whatever children they will contemplate old disasters and newer hopes. It will be there, musing, quiet, steadfast, not fading and not particularly threatful, but of itself alone serene, of itself alone triumphant.”

Whoee!, I just got trill typing out the great man’s words.

Ryduce, I think you’ve hit upon something with your Hightower comment. In some sense, to me he seemed like the only real character in the novel. As you said – the only person able to overcome his past. Everyone else seemed to be trapped in a weird sort of deterministic universe. Joe kept saying, “I’m going to do something.” Or at the orphanage with the dietitian’s toothpaste, “Well, here I am.” Or in the car with the young couple, he can’t figure out why they are so terrified until he later realizes that he has a gun in his hand.

[Idril]

Here's the Spark Notes web site.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lightinaugust/

That is a great site! I don't really think of Hightower as overcoming his past but apparently I'm wrong because even the site says he does. :lol: I suppose there are signs towards the end that look promising for him but my main impression of him is still as a man completely immersed in the past. He does have a strength in that he stays in Jefferson and he's able to withstand the gossip and social isolation that comes as a result of his 'shame' but that strength is there simply because of his obsession with his grandfather not because of any moral strength. I'll have to reread those last few pages and see if I can find where he overcomes his past because from my memory, he just kind of shuts down towards the end there, although maybe that is his way of overcoming.


As you said – the only person able to overcome his past.

I think Byron certainly is able to overcome his past, he completely changes his life and follows his heart, experiences a freedom from who he is and what is expected of him. In many ways, he's my favorite character. Joe is fascinating, Hightower is tragic, Lena is...I don't know, she didn't really grab me as much of anything, I mostly just wanted to slap her and tell her, "He's not going to marry you, deal with it" :lol: but Byron was the heart of the novel for me, someone you could genuinely root for and invest in.

[Sancho]

Hey Idril,

Lena, I would think, is a character that modern women readers may choke on. She’s not very three-dimensional, in fact, she seems to be a bit of a simpleton. “My, my. A body does get around.”

[Virgil]

Hey Idril,

Lena, I would think, is a character that modern women readers may choke on. She’s not very three-dimensional, in fact, she seems to be a bit of a simpleton. “My, my. A body does get around.”
Well, she is a simple country girl. And by that standard, Byron is simple country man.

[Virgil]

I think Byron certainly is able to overcome his past, he completely changes his life and follows his heart, experiences a freedom from who he is and what is expected of him. In many ways, he's my favorite character. Joe is fascinating, Hightower is tragic, Lena is...I don't know, she didn't really grab me as much of anything, I mostly just wanted to slap her and tell her, "He's not going to marry you, deal with it" :lol: but Byron was the heart of the novel for me, someone you could genuinely root for and invest in.
I didn't remember Hightower as overcoming his past either. Or I guess he over came it heroically at the end, but so much of his life was a prison as a result of his past.

As to Byron, if you check the descriptions of him, a short country farmer, I think they describe Faulkner himself, who was short and considered himself a country bumbkin. At least this is my perception.

[Sancho]

Hey Virgil,

I don’t think that Country is necessarily an automatic formula for Simple, especially in Faulkner. I suppose simpleton is a poor description of the Lena character. I was thinking of Lena as a simpleton not so much in the sense of the word as a simple country girl but rather in the sense that she didn’t seem to have an original thought in her head. I’m still trying to sort out this book but I think that Faulkner may have designed Lena to represent Mother Nature or the basic life force and in doing so she came off as a sort of breeder; a beautiful breeder, but a simple breeder none the less. I know that Faulkner is capable of creating women characters with depth and for my money, Caddy is the most interesting character in The Sound and the Fury.

[Sancho]

BTW, what did you think of the Hind's confusion over the father of the baby? Unless I missed something, I don't think that Lena and Joe ever actually met each other.

[Virgil]

Hey Virgil,

I don’t think that Country is necessarily an automatic formula for Simple, especially in Faulkner. I suppose simpleton is a poor description of the Lena character. I was thinking of Lena as a simpleton not so much in the sense of the word as a simple country girl but rather in the sense that she didn’t seem to have an original thought in her head.
You're right about simple not being simpleton in Faulkner. Since I haven't read the book in a few years, I can't comment on whether Lena has any original thoughts.


I’m still trying to sort out this book but I think that Faulkner may have designed Lena to represent Mother Nature or the basic life force and in doing so she came off as a sort of breeder; a beautiful breeder, but a simple breeder none the less.
For sure she's a nature goddess type and does represent a life force. Yes, I agree with that. She is a positive character. Applying today's feminists values to a work wrtitten in 1930-ish is unfair to the book.


I know that Faulkner is capable of creating women characters with depth and for my money, Caddy is the most interesting character in The Sound and the Fury
I remember reading somewhere that Faulkner felt like he was very poor at creating women characters. I tend to disagree with him. I do find many of his women interesting; they may not be up to Feminist's standards. I find Caddy fairly interesting, but if you notice in that book Faulkner never enters her mind, but we see her from the brothers' perspectives.

[Virgil]

BTW, what did you think of the Hind's confusion over the father of the baby? Unless I missed something, I don't think that Lena and Joe ever actually met each other.
I'm sorry, I can't remember. I think you're right, Jowe and Lena never meet during the course of the novel's events.

[Sancho]

A kind of cool thing about a book like this is: once I’ve turned the final page and set the book aside, I continue to think about it for days, weeks, and beyond. Make no doubt about it, I enjoy a good mass-produced, trashy, pulp-novel as well, but that kind of stuff is forgotten practically before I’ve abandoned it on a seat in the subway.

Yes, well, so anyway, there I was - pondering my hotel room ceiling these past couple of nights - and somehow trying to force this perceived connection between Joe and Lena and the baby. It wasn’t working out, so I went out and read some of the criticism. So let me float this idea - it’s a mash of some other folk’s ideas as well as my own:

William Faulkner has created this wonderfully complex piece of literature in which the two main characters never actually meet, yet somehow they seem connected. Mrs. Hind (Joe’s natural Grandmother) clues us into this when she keeps referring to Lena’s new baby as, “Little Joey.”

Lena, in many ways I think, is a sort of photographic negative of Joe. Lena is a woman; Joe is a man. Lena is white; Joe’s is black (actually Joe’s race is ambiguous; he’s probably of mixed ancestry yet he looks white, and back in them-thar days, a drop of black blood placed you squarely in the black camp as far as white southerners were concerned). Joe’s race works well with my photo-negative analogy. Things that are purely natural to Lena are hugely problematic for Joe. Sex is usually a violent affair for Joe but for Lena it has evidently been quite natural and produced a natural, healthy baby. There’s a beautiful little vignette of Lena delicately eating a can of sardines (sourdeens), yet food for Joe is a problem: he’ll go days without eating and at one point in the narrative he vindictively upturns a plate of food that his adoptive mother has lovingly prepared for him. Lena has effortlessly walked, “a fur piece,” from Alabama to Mississippi while eight months pregnant, all the time knowing exactly what she was searching for; Joe, on the other hand, spent fifteen years wildly zigzagging across the country and not really knowing what he was looking for. Lena can get along with anybody; but Joe can get along with nobody. Lena is at peace with herself and her environment; but Joe fights everyone and everything. I don’t think that Joe really achieves peace with himself until he dies - violently, of course. Lena knows exactly who she is; but Joe spends his entire life trying to figure out who he is.

So here’s the rub: the baby, in a sense, becomes a sort of spiritual child of Lena and Joe or possibly a supernatural continuation of Joe. I think that the child is the physical embodiment of a natural healing force to counteract the trauma of Joe’s life. Possibly, in a larger sense, the baby is representative of a healing force for, or a reconciliation of, a backwards looking New South. I suppose much of Faulkner can be read by looking through the lens of a post-reconstruction South that is still trying to come to grips with its trauma of black slavery and the Civil War.

[Virgil]

Lena, in many ways I think, is a sort of photographic negative of Joe. Lena is a woman; Joe is a man. Lena is white; Joe’s is black (actually Joe’s race is ambiguous; he’s probably of mixed ancestry yet he looks white, and back in them-thar days, a drop of black blood placed you squarely in the black camp as far as white southerners were concerned). Joe’s race works well with my photo-negative analogy. Things that are purely natural to Lena are hugely problematic for Joe. Sex is usually a violent affair for Joe but for Lena it has evidently been quite natural and produced a natural, healthy baby. There’s a beautiful little vignette of Lena delicately eating a can of sardines (sourdeens), yet food for Joe is a problem: he’ll go days without eating and at one point in the narrative he vindictively upturns a plate of food that his adoptive mother has lovingly prepared for him. Lena has effortlessly walked, “a fur piece,” from Alabama to Mississippi while eight months pregnant, all the time knowing exactly what she was searching for; Joe, on the other hand, spent fifteen years wildly zigzagging across the country and not really knowing what he was looking for. Lena can get along with anybody; but Joe can get along with nobody. Lena is at peace with herself and her environment; but Joe fights everyone and everything. I don’t think that Joe really achieves peace with himself until he dies - violently, of course. Lena knows exactly who she is; but Joe spends his entire life trying to figure out who he is.

You make some great observations here. I had never considered them as polar opposites, but I think you're right.


So here’s the rub: the baby, in a sense, becomes a sort of spiritual child of Lena and Joe or possibly a supernatural continuation of Joe. I think that the child is the physical embodiment of a natural healing force to counteract the trauma of Joe’s life. Possibly, in a larger sense, the baby is representative of a healing force for, or a reconciliation of, a backwards looking New South. I suppose much of Faulkner can be read by looking through the lens of a post-reconstruction South that is still trying to come to grips with its trauma of black slavery and the Civil War
I would like to agree with this, but I seem to have qualms. You might be right but I'm hesitant. Byron becomes the father, so will the baby doesn't even know he has black bood? The baby does represent a new beginning but new South may be too strong a vision. Plus was that concept even around in the 1930's? Seems like that was a later in the century development.

[Sancho]

Thanks for the response Virgil. Correct you are sir, by extending my interpretation of the theme of rebirth and redemption from the book’s characters to the region at large, I am reaching a bit. But I think that that is the beauty of interpretive literature: it can work on many different levels and have many different meanings to many different people – I suppose, even meanings that the author never intended.

Speaking of different and changing meanings, the expression “New South” is an expression that has evolved much over the years. I may be mistaken but I think that Honest Abe himself referred to the “New South” even prior to the cessation of hostilities in the war of northern aggression. Back then, the “New South” was simply an imagined or hoped for correction of the “Old South,” – a place where plantations are replaced by yeoman farms, aristocracy is replaced by democracy, and free slave labor is replaced by free market labor. I’m not exactly sure of the sense of meaning the expression had in the thirties but, as you pointed out, its current usage seems to hinge on the history of the civil rights movement of the sixties.

[Virgil]

Speaking of different and changing meanings, the expression “New South” is an expression that has evolved much over the years. I may be mistaken but I think that Honest Abe himself referred to the “New South” even prior to the cessation of hostilities in the war of northern aggression. Back then, the “New South” was simply an imagined or hoped for correction of the “Old South,” – a place where plantations are replaced by yeoman farms, aristocracy is replaced by democracy, and free slave labor is replaced by free market labor. I’m not exactly sure of the sense of meaning the expression had in the thirties but, as you pointed out, its current usage seems to hinge on the history of the civil rights movement of the sixties.
Very interesting. I didn't know this. I see you're from Atlanta, so I suspect you're closer the the evolving notion of "new south."

[Sancho]

Ah yes, Atlanta; it’s not really the south but we’re near there. I like to warn northerners who move here to be careful when they stray outside of the perimeter (that’s Interstate Loop-285) - once you’re forty miles from Atlanta, you’re in Georgia. Heh heh heh… “Squeal like a piggy”

I’m not from here. I grew up in South Carolina (only around 3 miles from James Dickey’s house, in fact) and my folks were from the Northern Midwest, so I reckon we’re carpet baggers.

The race question with Joe Christmas in Light in August had resonance for me and I base this on a childhood experience of mine: During the late sixties and early seventies my Mom had a summer job with the US Census Bureau and it involved her interviewing people from some of the more remote rural areas of South Carolina. I used to go along with her sometimes and I can distinctly remember people who looked white, whiter than white, whiter than a Canadian even, claim themselves to be Black on their census form. Evidently they knew that they had at least a drop of black blood and they considered themselves to be black. In particular I remember an older couple who both looked white to me yet spoke in the vernacular of a rural black southerner. I said, “Momma, they look white to me.” - She said, “Shut-up boy.”

[Virgil]

Wow, great story Sancho. I've been through Atlanta and it seems like the south to me. Geographically it's south enough.

[Basil]

Ah yes, Atlanta; it’s not really the south but we’re near there. I like to warn northerners who move here to be careful when they stray outside of the perimeter (that’s Interstate Loop-285)
For heaven's sakes, Sancho, don't warn them!

[Sancho]

Baaaaasil….What up? I was hoping you’d weigh in on this discussion and I think you’re right about Yankee warning – some things you just really ought to learn the hard way.

In keeping with the Deliverance reference of my last post, I remember a quip by Jeff Foxworthy before the ’96 Atlanta Olympics. Apparently they were thinking of running the Mountain Bike competition up in North Eastern Georgia near the Chattahoochee River:

Foxworthy: “Up on the Chattahoochee!?... Hell, Burt Reynolds couldn’t even make up there, how do you expect a Frenchman in tights to do?”

[kelby_lake]

Byron becomes the father, so will the baby doesn't even know he has black bood? The baby does represent a new beginning but new South may be too strong a vision. Plus was that concept even around in the 1930's? Seems like that was a later in the century development.

The baby doesn't have black blood- Joe Brown (real name Lucas Burch) is the father, not Joe Christmas.

The New South was basically post-slavery, so it would have been around in the 30's.

As for Hightower, he acknowledges his past and the mistakes he has made, but it is too late for him to overcome them. Acknowledging is not the same as defeating.