Rating: 
Summary: Three times?
Review: I cannot tell you why I have read this book three times. I can tell you that I will read it again, however. This is astonishing for me because I am not a Faulkner fanatic, and I have a hard time reading about some of the subjects that are included here. These are things like racial violence, violence, violence against children and betrayal of innocent trust. And yet, somehow, it is indeed the light I see when I think of this book. I can feel the burning of the fields, the hasty washing away of sin and shame at the tiny stream, a stream that could not ultimately rescue the characters who hid on this southern land that seemed as full of ghosts and secrets as real living people. One clue may be that the reading itself is less ponderous than many of Faulkner's works, although the themes are unfathomably deep, the language and pace with the merciful humorous inserts makes it not only compelling but for me at least, emotionally manageable. I am hardly an expert on this author, who for the sheer pleasure of it, I hold at a distance and savour bit by bit. These characters are brilliant and luminous like the hot intense light and fire of the southern landscape.
I hope you too, enjoy this complicated and complex experience that has been for me, remarkably sublime.
Rating: 
Summary: good writing, bad ideas
Review: I had to read this book for English class, and I have to say it was not my favorite novel for this semester. I love the style this book is written in, Faulkner's writing never disappoints in terms of vividness and the use of beautiful metaphors. Some parts, like the description of Lena's journey and of Joe Christmas' relationship with Joanna, were very captivating. However, I object to the whole premise of the novel; Faulkner tries to play psychologist in his writing, and it simply does not work.
Basically, it is a story of "victimization." Joe Christmas is the product of racism and of a bad childhood, and everything he does is rooted in his past problems. This book suggests that a human has no conscience of their own and cannot rise above their upbringing. "Light in August" seems to insinuatine that we should excuse murderes and rapists because they were mistreated at some point in their lives. Maybe for someone who is sympathetic to that sort of view the book would be a good read, but the fact that I strongly disagree with Faulkner kind of ruined this one for me.
Rating:
Summary: Inspiring..
Review: I hear quite a few people complain that Faulkner is too wordy and that they can't get through his books. While this may be true in some aspects, there are a few books that are somewhat easier to read while keeping intact all that is William Faulkner. Light in August is one of those novels. Light in August is a long read, over five hundred pages, but it is worthwhile. Faulkner ties together a group of unforgettable characters into a story that shows the range of human emotions. Lena Grove, a pregnant girl from Alabama, who has come to Jefferson looking for her soon to be husband. Byron Bunch, a hard working man at a planing mill, who ends up falling for Lena. Gail Hightower, a former minister, who seems to have forsaken religion to sit in the study of his house, gazing from the window. And Joe Christmas, a man who is caught between two races (black and white), and struggles to find his identity. A large portion of the novel centers on Joe Christmas and while reading the story I ran through a range of emotions regarding him. He can be both kind and sinister. I liked Bunch most of all. He is a simple man, shallow on the exterior but deep in understanding and compassion, who is just trying to do the right thing. Aren't most of us? So what befalls these characters? How does their story end? It's rather easy to find out. Give Light in August a try and you'll be swept away into one of those stories that William Faulkner seems to do best....Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Light in August not one of Faulkner's triumphs
Review: I just finished reading Light in August, and as a huge fan of Faulkner's, I would have to say that it was not one of his best. The characters are amazingly drawn out, but at times too drawn out. Faulkner goes on and on about Joe Christmas--we never get to feel what Lena Grove is going through as she searches for her baby's father. Although the book is written technically well, it lacks the passion and drive that is so inherent in other Faulkner works like "The Sound and the Fury" and "Sanctuary." Definately an important read, but I would not necessarily say a great one.
Rating: 
Summary: In-depth
Review: I love how Faulkner took his time to let each character's personality unfold. It is important to be able to predict how each character will respond and Faulkner was successful at allowing us inside each character's head. I empathized with Christmas.
Rating:
Summary: A Twentieth Century Poe
Review: I once heard an English teacher describe William Faulkner as "Our Shakespeare". He said that the southern culture provides so much for a novelist to work with and Faulkner works it to the limit. I saw much of Shakespeare in "Light In August" as Faulkner transports us into the minds and culture of the depression era South. Lena Horne, traipsing from Alabama to Mississippi in search of the father of her unborn child, Joe Christmas, the self-proclaimed mulatto outcast, Gail Hightower, the minister whose obsession with the past cost him his wife and pulpit and Joanna Burden the heiress of the Carpetbag family who never became a part of the community in which she lived her life all provide us with an insight into this world. More than Shakespeare, "Light In August" reveals Faulkner, in my opinion, as a Twentieth Century Poe. In Poe's work it is often the sounds that make the work. In "Light In August", I was entranced by the dialogue and the streams of consciousness which revealed the characters and their world to the reader. I cared little for the story line, but the sights, sounds and the smells of "Light In August" make it a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: A Twentieth Century Poe
Review: I once heard an English teacher describe William Faulkner as "Our Shakespeare". He said that the southern culture provides so much for a novelist to work with and Faulkner works it to the limit. I saw much of Shakespeare in "Light In August" as Faulkner transports us into the minds and culture of the depression era South. Lena Horne, traipsing from Alabama to Mississippi in search of the father of her unborn child, Joe Christmas, the self-proclaimed mulatto outcast, Gail Hightower, the minister whose obsession with the past cost him his wife and pulpit and Joanna Burden the heiress of the Carpetbag family who never became a part of the community in which she lived her life all provide us with an insight into this world. More than Shakespeare, "Light In August" reveals Faulkner, in my opinion, as a Twentieth Century Poe. In Poe's work it is often the sounds that make the work. In "Light In August", I was entranced by the dialogue and the streams of consciousness which revealed the characters and their world to the reader. I cared little for the story line, but the sights, sounds and the smells of "Light In August" make it a worthwhile read.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read-But Not Faulkner's Best
Review: I only gave this book four stars because I don't believe it measures up to his two best works:Absalom, Absalom! and As I Lay Dying.-It is well worth remembering that Faulkner began his literary career with visions of being a poet. His first published work was a collection of verse entitled The Marble Faun. His failure as a poet outright may help explain why his prose is so turgid, convoluted but also profound and insightful beyond MERE prose. It's as if he's trying to correct his initial failure as intensely as posible. In the process of doing so, he became one of the gratest novelists in 20th Century American Literature. (Second only to Thomas Wolfe in my opinion.)-I guess the reason I like this book less than the aforementioned Faulkner works is the same reason most of the other reviewers like it more: It doesn't have enough of that turgid, mystical omniscient kaleidoscopic introspective prose that make the other novels so brilliant; But also, I admit, harder to plough through for a beginner.-Here's an example of what I'm talking about: Joe Christmas is observing his mistress in the daylight, "Meanwhile he could see her from a distance now and then in the daytime, about the rear premises, where moved articulate beneath the clean, austere garments that she wore that rotten richness ready to flow into putrefaction at a touch,like something growing in a swamp, not once looking toward the cabin or toward him. And when he thought of that other personality that seemed to exist somewhere in the darkness itself, it seemed to him that what he saw now by daylight was a phantom of someone whom the night sister had murdered and which now moved purposeless about the scenes of old peace, robbed even of the power of lamenting."-It's this eerie poetic perspctive that make Faulkner not just any writer, but a great one. It captures how fleeting identity and, indeed, life is. His language can make the characters vacillate between flesh-and-blood and psychopathic visions at the stroke of a pen. If you're new to Faulkner, read As I Lay Dying next and his perturbing magic will continue to grow on you. Perhaps, "like something growing in a swamp."-rare, foreboding, and to be approached circuitously, lest you slip into murky depths!
Rating:
Summary: I remember and I don't remember
Review: I remember as best of all the opening description of Lena Grove's search for the husband of her child. " A body does get around" I don't remember very well the whole story of Joe Christmas but I do remember somehow not liking him, and the shifting reality he presented. As with Faulkner always there is the ongoing romance with the neverstopping prose which keeps the reader moving on and on as if the reading itself were one great adventure story and Faulkner had himself invented a technique so powerful as to be the rightful legacy of all writers who wished to enrapture their readers with a poetic philosophical or pseudo- philosophical prose which never stops entertaining us with new descriptions and feelings, as if too then the others, the preacher and the do- gooder and the whole book itself were telling us that this literature is redeemed only as itself and not as any social message it gives but in the life of its characters and in its language which in Faulkner is always great. And I here must apologize and say that there are a few very good reviews on this book on Amazon written before this one which tell far more about the work than this one and might be better read in helping to understand it.
Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to Faulker
Review: I write as one who has never understood why Faulker is so highly praised, as I found my previous forays into his work to be frustrating and not worth the effort. With Light in August, I finally have some idea why critics rate him so highly. I expected to take at least a week plowing through it, yet it was so gripping and well written that I was done in 2 days. A good book for someone who has not previously read Faulker or for those, like me, who had all but given up trying to do so.
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