Lie Down in Darkness

Rating:
Summary: Human fallibility, pain, and loss
Review: Early in William Styron's novel Lie Down in Darkness the reader is introduced to a man, Milton Loftis, at the train station. Milton is a good allusion; whatever paradise this man has hoped for in life, it has been lost. How?

There, I think, is the essential question that drives this novel. How do we bring ourselves to lose things we charish? How does this happen?

It's a deep and heartbreaking question, and it may leave many people unable to read this book. This is understandable, but reading this novel, though the author's first novel and somewhat experimental, allows one to view the depths of human suffering, and perhaps provides ways to avoid it.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully-written but not flawless
Review: It should come as no surprise that Lie Down in Darkness is beautifully written, given who wrote it. It's a slow read at the beginning, gradually picking up steam as the story progresses. At its best, Styron manages to capture the electrical emotions of his deeply-troubled family. Yet for some reason he does not provide us with a reason, or some explanation for the parents' many flaws: why did Helen Loftis grow up hating men so much?; why did Milton Loftis feel the need to drown his sorrows in alcohol? Answers, or at least, a casual addressing of these questions would have improved the readers understanding of these complex individuals. The novel builds to a lyrical and almost dream-like conclusion ... but I could have done without the fifty-page interlude into Peyton's stream of conscious.

Rating:
Summary: Dark and beautiful
Review: Lie Down in Darkness is not a great book. But it is a very good one, and shows how William Styron, even in his youth was a talented and perceptive writer. This novel begins with the death of Peyton Loftis, and goes back in time to follow her childhood and coming of age, as well as her eventual marriage, until her death. We see these pictures through the alternating points of view mostly of her father and mother, but also of some other characters, and learn how her death was inextricably related to the slow attrition caused by stubborness, jealousy, and hate that tears apart her family. Darkness is everywhere in the novel, taking the form of guilt and personal failures that corrode the hearts of each character and make inevitable Peyton's tragic end. Indeed the predetermination is all the more evident, since we know from the very beginning that she has died.

Although Sophie's Choice shows how much more polished (and more thoughtful too, perhaps) he has become as a writer, Styron's writing is beautiful, as are the characters and the story. This may not be a necessary read, and the beginning may be slow, but it was well worth my time.

Rating:
Summary: Dark and beautiful
Review: Lie Down in Darkness is not a great book. But it is a very good one, and shows how William Styron, even in his youth was a talented and perceptive writer. This novel begins with the death of Peyton Loftis, and goes back in time to follow her childhood and coming of age, as well as her eventual marriage, until her death. We see these pictures through the alternating points of view mostly of her father and mother, but also of some other characters, and learn how her death was inextricably related to the slow attrition caused by stubborness, jealousy, and hate that tears apart her family. Darkness is everywhere in the novel, taking the form of guilt and personal failures that corrode the hearts of each character and make inevitable Peyton's tragic end. Indeed the predetermination is all the more evident, since we know from the very beginning that she has died.

Although Sophie's Choice shows how much more polished (and more thoughtful too, perhaps) he has become as a writer, Styron's writing is beautiful, as are the characters and the story. This may not be a necessary read, and the beginning may be slow, but it was well worth my time.

Rating:
Summary: Lie Down In Darkness perfects Southern Gothic
Review: Lie Down In Darkness, Styron's first novel, published when he was just 22, is a masterpiece of psychological realism and storytelling in the Southern Gothic tradition of Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O'Conner. That it was created by such a young mind is testament to the author's genius; that it has yet to be rivaled as a stirring, oftentimes painful and disturbing portrait of a doomed family, is testament to the writing. Composed with thick, purposeful prose, heavy on similie, metaphor and description, the novel charts the rise and fall of the Loftis Family, an archetypal rendering of the Soutnern Gentry. We follow the tragic downfall of Milton, the drunken patriarch, Ellen, the frigid mother, and the two Loftis daughters, one born perfect, one born crippled. It is a novel of abundant ontological truth, which will reach in and strangle the unconscious sensibilities of almost any reader, regardless of background or predispotition. The novel's beauty ranks with the prose of Lawrence, the passion of Rimbaud and Kundera, the depth and spiritual metaphysics of Doestoyevsky; It is both story and case study. And ultimately we are shepherded through tragedy after tragedy into the climax--the suicide of the immeasurably beautiful and desired Peyton Loftis--as we walk moment to moment with her, peering inside the poisoned stream of consciousness that overwhelms and eventually claims her. Lie Down In Darkness belongs in the canon of Great American Masterpieces. It's significance has only begun to be understood.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, wrenching, impossible to put down.
Review: Never have I wanted to pound some sense into fictional characters as when I read William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness. The Loftiss family saga is sometimes hard to read because they hurt each other so easily and so often. But Styron's language is beautiful, and his understanding of the characters is deep. The account of Peyton's last day is especially heartbreaking and revealing. In short, this novel is one of my favorites simply because of its account of human frailty and the amazing way in which the story is told. Styron is one of the best.

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: 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.