Light in August: What happened to teaching Faulkner?

As I sit eating ice cream (chocolate chip cookie dough) in too big of a bowl, I ponder the creation or rather the steps of creation that were followed in producing a text such as Light in August. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the text, I am not judging. If you are an English person, well, then maybe I’m judging a little. Seriously no worries, it isn’t taught in school. Not at the school, I attended anyway. In fact, the novel’s author was rarely if ever mentioned which is surprising since William Faulkner most certainly left a literary footprint. Perhaps now that I have mentioned the author some of you are familiar with his more famous works such as The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying, either of which I have yet to read but perhaps should have read first.

Why then, did I pick to read Light in August? Plain and simple, my father. As many of you can probably relate, your parents only have a handful of stories which they circulate through the entirety of your life. One of my father’s stories is how his high school English teacher tried to make him and his classmates commit suicide by assigning them the most morbid and depressing texts ever written (hello naturalism!). These texts included Ethan Frome (terrific, and one of my favorites), McTeague, and you guessed it, Light in August. If you’ve read or are familiar with any of these classic texts, then you see how my father’s claim might have some validity.

When he was telling me this I was a college student pursuing an English degree with a concentration in literature so I had read both Wharton and Norris. I was, however, a stranger to Faulkner even though I had three or four of his books that I had picked up at worn down bookstores here and there in order to cultivate and expand my own personal classic library. That said, as soon as I graduated I found that I had some time on my hands. . . a lot of time actually and the quickest way I knew to pass time was to read, which is essentially how I began reading Faulkner.

If you’ve never read the book let me try to explain what it’s about. It’s about a pregnant girl in search of her low-life baby daddy who wants nothing to do with her or the baby. It’s about an orphan struggling with racial identity and trying to get away with murder. It’s about a preacher isolated and outcasted from society, it’s about a crazy old man and his wife, it’s about a man that’s desperate for love. Yes, this is all in one book. Somehow, someway, Faulkner was able to combine and intertwine each and every story to form one slightly confusing yet comprehensive novel. While I certainly wouldn’t recommend this book over a number of others, I do believe it to be an important and insightful work of literature. That being said, there is just something compelling about the book. Whether it’s the disorganized style or the captivating and luring individual stories, I am not sure. Regardless, I will admit that I am inclined to reread this novel again in the future, because I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve missed something.