Light in August, William Faulkner
Light in August, William Faulkner
6 Rating(s)
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Light in August

Author: William Faulkner

Narrator: Scott Brick

Unabridged: 16 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/18/2006

Synopsis

A shocking act of murder and arson in Prohibition-era Mississippi entangles an assortment of memorable misfits in this novel from Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. With a new introduction by Jay Parini.

Sweet, hopeful Lena Grove has trekked miles on foot in search of the runaway bootlegger who fathered her unborn child. In the town of Jefferson, she finds instead shy and honorable Byron Bunch, who assists Lena in her quest while quietly adoring her. The town’s history-haunted outcasts include disgraced Reverend Gail Hightower, plagued by visions of his Confederate grandfather; Joanna Burden, a despised descendant of abolitionist carpetbaggers; and Joe Christmas, a desperate drifter tormented by his suspected mixed-race ancestry. As these characters converge, Faulkner vividly depicts a world in which no one can escape the weight of the past.

About The Author

William Faulkner, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. He published his first book, The Marble Faun, in 1924, but it is as a literary chronicler of life in the Deep South—particularly in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the setting for several of his novels—that he is most highly regarded. In such novels as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! he explored the full range of post–Civil War Southern life, focusing both on the personal histories of his characters and on the moral uncertainties of an increasingly dissolute society. In combining the use of symbolism with a stream-of-consciousness technique, he created a new approach to fiction writing. In 1949 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. William Faulkner died in Byhalia, Mississippi, on July 6, 1962.

Reviews

Goodreads review by William2 on March 05, 2023

It occurs to me on reading Light in August for the third time, that if America were ever to try to come to terms with its legacy of slavery--unlikely now at this late date--but if it ever were to empanel some kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, like the one South Africa had after apartheid,......more

Goodreads review by Lawyer on May 16, 2019

Light in August, William Faulkner's Portraits of Loneliness and Isolation A Note Regarding This Review Today marks the Anniversary of the Death of William Faulkner, July 6, 1962. In remembrance of him and in gratitude his works making me a man better capable of understanding others, I repost this revi......more

Goodreads review by Candi on May 27, 2019

I’m not going to attempt to write an erudite review of this book, because then I would simply be revealing the glaring holes in my Faulkner education. A scholarly write-up of this brilliant man’s work is best left to students of college literature classes or perhaps a well-taught AP English course o......more

Goodreads review by Paul on June 11, 2020

I can’t figure out if reading Faulkner – particularly THIS one – at the very time of the massive George Floyd protests is hideously inappropriate or exactly the right thing to do. All I knew when I started was that I wanted to give Faulkner another shot. Many years ago I laboured heroically through......more

Goodreads review by s.penkevich on December 05, 2024

Faulkner writes prose that pauses to pour itself a drink and gets sidetracked telling you about the bottle and I think that is beautiful.......more

Quotes

“For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics.” —Ralph Ellison

Awards

  • Nobel Prize in Literature
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