Light in August by William Faulkner
Faulkner just amazes me. Even when I don’t have the least idea what he’s saying. Actually, despite a warning that Light in August could be a difficult read, it was one of his more straightforward books and I think I got all of it. There are two plots – the main one of Joe Christmas’s life and death – and the plot that surrounds it of a woman left to bear her child out of wedlock searching for its father. First you get a few chapters of the woman, then tons of chapters about Christmas, and finally the woman comes back. What I don’t get, I guess, is the significance of that – how the two even relate to each other besides taking place in the same town.
But Faulkner could break every rule, write a book without a plot at all, do whatever he pleases, and I’d still be soaking it up. Because his language is so evocative. Because there are so many “yes” moments when reading his work where you know that it couldn’t have been put any better. There’s a reason why there’s a lot of Faulkner on the 100 Best list. This is the last of three of them, but I’ll read his other works as well.