Rating: 
Summary: A Vivid Painful Story that Alas Goes on Too Long
Review: Overall I liked this book but I thought it began to drag towards the end. It became really repetitive and just wanted Peyton to throw herself out that window just to make the novel stop. Ugh. Styron's talent for vivid description is amazing and he gets all the characters right. But it just begins to plod along and I had to force myself through the last third of the book. Still, definitely worth the time to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Another time's classic
Review: Reading Lie Down in Darkness fifty years after its publication, it still resonates with narrative power and graceful prose. But now with such distance one sees so clearly how much it owes to, among others, The Sound and the Fury and Ulysses--and by that comparison, how it has fails to renew itself with time, unlike those two books. Styron's book, while beautiful and wonderful, has not made the short-list of immortality, because it belongs to a fixed time. It is a work of amazing grace, fluidity, and power; it is a classic of a time when the bomb had just dropped, and when humanity was emerging from two wars with a great hope of solving its woes. The narrative struggles to make sense of all the madness and nihilism, the faith and sanity of that time, and as such Lie Down in Darkness's ambition and grace make it worthwhile reading for those dedicated to literature and beauty and understanding--understanding, that is, where we come from and, perhaps, where we are going. Will this work endure forever? No; it has its limits and its bounds, and already perhaps there are books that better capture the pervasive spiritus mundi, sorrow. But what does endure forever, after all? Daddy Faith might say belief. The example of Peyton Loftis seems to disagree.
Rating:
Summary: Great book. Somewhat depressing, but captivating.
Review: Styron captures the reader with superb characterization of flawed, damaged people confronting life as they want it to be contrasted with life as it is. An engrossing yet sad story. Despite its depressing nature, I couldn't put it down. Truly captures the essence of an Southern gentility from an earlier time.
Rating: 
Summary: It was very boring and hard to understand
Review: What is the deal with this new modernist style of writing. Everything is so ambiguous, and the plotline is very vague. I like real classics, not this modernist trash. This book was awful.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for everyone
Review: William Styron creates some impressively tragic and melancholic situations for his fatally flawed characters. Their lives have a way of permeating your dreams after you enter Styron's world. A fine example of this is Sophie's Choice.The problem I had with Lie Down in Darkness is that the situation is overly dramatic. While I can understand Sophie, I cannot accept Peyton's insanity. Styron attempts to attribute Peyton's descent into madness to her childhood, and her experiences with her mother, which albeit unhappy, cannot plausibly be used as an explanation for the tragedy that ensues. The style is sophisticated, and the imagery and symbolism of birds as death omens create a forbodding presence throughout the novel. While the style is sophisticated, I didn't find the journey enjoyable because there were parts that felt tedious and long-winded. Mostly, it is just a depressing novel, with every familial milestone that should be joyous - such as a wedding, or Christmas celebrations - marred by a doomsday feel. You know that Helen will find some way to quarrel with her husband or Peyton and that the repercussions will resound throughout the entire novel, which feels like a lifetime. Novels about sorrow and lost can be enlightening and enjoyable. However, this novel requires stamina because it is very long. You sink into a stiffling world for the duration of the novel and you won't necessarily come out of it feeling rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: Not for everyone
Review: William Styron creates some impressively tragic and melancholic situations for his fatally flawed characters. Their lives have a way of permeating your dreams after you enter Styron's world. A fine example of this is Sophie's Choice. The problem I had with Lie Down in Darkness is that the situation is overly dramatic. While I can understand Sophie, I cannot accept Peyton's insanity. Styron attempts to attribute Peyton's descent into madness to her childhood, and her experiences with her mother, which albeit unhappy, cannot plausibly be used as an explanation for the tragedy that ensues. The style is sophisticated, and the imagery and symbolism of birds as death omens create a forbodding presence throughout the novel. While the style is sophisticated, I didn't find the journey enjoyable because there were parts that felt tedious and long-winded. Mostly, it is just a depressing novel, with every familial milestone that should be joyous - such as a wedding, or Christmas celebrations - marred by a doomsday feel. You know that Helen will find some way to quarrel with her husband or Peyton and that the repercussions will resound throughout the entire novel, which feels like a lifetime. Novels about sorrow and lost can be enlightening and enjoyable. However, this novel requires stamina because it is very long. You sink into a stiffling world for the duration of the novel and you won't necessarily come out of it feeling rewarded.
Rating: 
Summary: A sad but affecting book
Review: William Styron is likely the greatest novelist no one has ever heard of. His name is even less recognizable than Faulkner's, or other great American writers: Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc. And yet, in my opinion, his works are far superior. With only four novels to choose from out of his career he has made it very difficult for himself to be regarded in those terms, but he has still achieved a wide amount of critical acclaim, with a Pulitzer Prize and an American Book Award to his credit. His novels are not light novels. They are not coffee table books, but a rather serious discussions on moral issues written with an eloquence that is unmatched in modern writing. Lie Down in Darkness is his first novel, and is much like what I have just said. As a first novel it is necessarily experimental, although the effect of this experimentation is at times hard to tell. Following through flashback the trials of one Virginia family on the day of their daughter's funeral, Lie Down in Darkness leads up to the present, describing in tragic terms how the family has come apart and where it is now. This is great writing, some of the best writing I have ever read, as realistic as any Dickens novel, and as engaging as anything by Baldwin. It is not a happy book, but it is the best book I have read about the American family, far greater and relevant than anything I have read by Morrison.
Rating:
Summary: A sad but affecting book
Review: William Styron is likely the greatest novelist no one has ever heard of. His name is even less recognizable than Faulkner's, or other great American writers: Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc. And yet, in my opinion, his works are far superior. With only four novels to choose from out of his career he has made it very difficult for himself to be regarded in those terms, but he has still achieved a wide amount of critical acclaim, with a Pulitzer Prize and an American Book Award to his credit. His novels are not light novels. They are not coffee table books, but a rather serious discussions on moral issues written with an eloquence that is unmatched in modern writing. Lie Down in Darkness is his first novel, and is much like what I have just said. As a first novel it is necessarily experimental, although the effect of this experimentation is at times hard to tell. Following through flashback the trials of one Virginia family on the day of their daughter's funeral, Lie Down in Darkness leads up to the present, describing in tragic terms how the family has come apart and where it is now. This is great writing, some of the best writing I have ever read, as realistic as any Dickens novel, and as engaging as anything by Baldwin. It is not a happy book, but it is the best book I have read about the American family, far greater and relevant than anything I have read by Morrison.
Rating:
Summary: masterful depiction of downward spiral
Review: William Styron, in Lie Down in Darkness, tells the story of Peyton Loftis, the beautiful daughter of Helen and Milton Loftis, her ultimate suicide, and her family's contribution to her fate. Sad, yet compelling. As I read, my revulsion for the characters grew line by line, for they are wasted, empty, and they drown themselves in a swamp of despair and impotency. Helen is a vindictive, jealous mother who takes painful jabs at anyone in her path; Milton is an incestuous alcoholic who can't own up to his failures and who is stuck in a sort of paralyzed stupor; and Peyton, well, she is a genetic carryover of her parents-from her mother she learns revenge, and from her father, alcoholism. The story is one of severe despondency, a portrait of lives that have lost their savor and are headed toward destruction. Of all the characters in the story, the Negro house servants come forth as the strongest. They have a spiritual strength that contrasts strongly with that of the Loftis.' The overwhelmingly best quality of the book, I believe, is the beauty of the prose. It's like an epic poem, lyrical and dramatic and sweepingly colorful. And, believe it or not, I actually enjoyed Peyton's stream-of-consciousness marathon just before she killed herself. Styron made it enjoyable and I will always remember the flightless birds and how they follow Peyton all over New York and also the $39.95 clock that Peyton perceives as her refuge from the evil world. Is this what mental illness is really like? This book is certainly one to be read again.
Rating:
Summary: Darkness and despondency, all in one story
Review: William Styron, in Lie Down in Darkness, tells the story of Peyton Loftis, the beautiful daughter of Helen and Milton Loftis, her ultimate suicide, and her family's contribution to her fate. Sad, yet compelling. As I read, my revulsion for the characters grew line by line, for they are wasted, empty, and they drown themselves in a swamp of despair and impotency. Helen is a vindictive, jealous mother who takes painful jabs at anyone in her path; Milton is an incestuous alcoholic who can't own up to his failures and who is stuck in a sort of paralyzed stupor; and Peyton, well, she is a genetic carryover of her parents-from her mother she learns revenge, and from her father, alcoholism. The story is one of severe despondency, a portrait of lives that have lost their savor and are headed toward destruction. Of all the characters in the story, the Negro house servants come forth as the strongest. They have a spiritual strength that contrasts strongly with that of the Loftis.' The overwhelmingly best quality of the book, I believe, is the beauty of the prose. It's like an epic poem, lyrical and dramatic and sweepingly colorful. And, believe it or not, I actually enjoyed Peyton's stream-of-consciousness marathon just before she killed herself. Styron made it enjoyable and I will always remember the flightless birds and how they follow Peyton all over New York and also the $39.95 clock that Peyton perceives as her refuge from the evil world. Is this what mental illness is really like? This book is certainly one to be read again.
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