Product Description

Joe Christmas does not know whether he is black or white. Faulkner makes of Joe's tragedy a powerful indictment of racism; at the same time Joe's life is a study of the divided self and becomes a symbol of 20th century man.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18876 in Books
• Published on: 1990-10-01
• Released on: 1991-01-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780679732266
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
?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


From the Hardcover edition. -- Review

Review
“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


From the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap
Joe Christmas does not know whether he is black or white. Faulkner makes of Joe's tragedy a powerful indictment of racism; at the same time Joe's life is a study of the divided self and becomes a symbol of 20th century man.

Customer Reviews

Readable and Riveting.
I always recommend Light in August to people who say that Faulkner is impenetrable. Here the pages flow effortlessly by and the story line is easy to follow. There's none of the interior monologues that so confuse and derail those picking up the southern master for the first time. This plot is more traditional and will be readily appreciated by the average person.

His Most Likeable Masterpiece
After reading Faulkner's four major masterpieces -- The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom!; As I Lay Dying; and Light in August -- I've come to the conclusion that Light in August is far and away the easiest to read, has the most dramatic plot, the most intriguing primary characters in Joe Christmas, Gail Hightower and Joanna Burden, and even some of his most intriguing minor characters in Uncle Doc Hines and Mr. McEachern. Overall, it is his most readable and likeable masterpiece. And it leaves you wanting so much more.

The complex and ambiguous character of Joe Christmas alone could have been the source of three or four novels detailing different times in his life. While Christmas is hardly a likeable person, he is fascinating, hypnotic, a train wreck; you can't keep your eyes off him. His actions are morally ambiguous and inconsistent and yet fully understandable within his nature. As a creation he deserves to rank with Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Captain Ahab and Jay Gatsby in the pantheon of American literary characters.

Faulkner has a big mission here. The novel exposes the evils of racism both in the South and among white, northern abolitionists. It traffics in religious symbolism while savaging religious fanatacism. And it leaves one with a great deal of memorable violent and sexual imagery. And that's just for starters. This book is deep, and while it's storytelling is largely non-linear, it is far more palatable than the other three, which tend to be confusing and obscure. Enjoy this one. If you've never read Faulkner, it's a great starter.

A Good Read-But Not Faulkner's Best
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!