Light in August

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Licht im August (English original title Light in August ) is a 1932 novel by the American author and Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner .

action

Like most of Faulkner's novels, Licht im August is set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County , Mississippi , in and around the small town of Jefferson. The action climaxes in August, around the year the novel was written.

The novel describes the fates of several people who are partly interwoven and form different storylines in the novel. Lena Grove, single and pregnant, sets off from Alabama in search of the father of her unborn child, Lucas Burch. Because of the similarity of names, she meets Byron Bunch, who knows that Burch is now called Joe Brown. But he hides this because he fell in love with Lena Grove. Another main character is former pastor Gail Hightower, who was forced to resign after his wife was dubiously killed. He lives secluded in Jefferson, but is often visited by Bunch. Bunch seeks understanding for his actions, but Hightower disapproves.

The portrayal of the life of Joe Christmas occupies the broadest space in the novel. Like Burch and Bunch, he works in the local sawmill. Incidentally earn he and Burch money as bootleggers of whiskey . As a child, Christmas was found on the door of an orphanage on Christmas Eve. At the age of five he unwillingly witnessed two employees of the orphanage having sexual intercourse. So that he does not divulge this and because his origin is unclear, it is arranged that he is adopted. His adoptive father is a fanatical, bigoted Christian. Christmas is pursued by the idea of ​​having black ancestors and does not feel part of any community. He loves the much older prostitute Bobbie. At the age of 18 he knocks down his adoptive father, is not taken in by Bobbie and travels through the United States for twelve years. Eventually, he settles two miles from Jefferson with Joanna Burden, who is single and about to enter menopause . He lives in a hut by the house and has a sexual relationship with the woman for around three years, which cools off. She tries to win him over as a successor to her work, in which she advises blacks and supports their schools, as is her family tradition. Finally Lucas Burch moves into the hut for Christmas. When Burden tries to persuade Christmas to pray, it is presumably he who stabs her and almost decapitates her. The house is set on fire and burns in the hours Lena Grove gets to Jefferson. Christmas flees before the murder is discovered. Burch tries to get the $ 1000 reward that is being offered for the Christmas' capture. On the run, Christmas ends up in Mottstown, 30 kilometers away, where he lets himself be captured on the street. His biological grandparents live there and follow him to Jefferson, where Christmas is in prison. Only now does the reader learn that Joe Christmas is the son of the couple's daughter, who became pregnant by a circus worker. The grandfather shot the father, allowed his daughter to die in childbirth, and took the child to the orphanage. He later whispered to Christmas that his ancestry was black, though it was only hearsay.

Bunch asks Hightower, in the presence of Christmas' grandparents, to issue him with a false alibi. Hightower refuses, assuming that Bunch has his own interests. Lena Grove's child is born in the presence of Christmas' grandparents and Hightowers, with the grandmother and Hightower providing obstetrics. Bunch took care of a doctor and then saw Lena get together with her birth father after she refused to marry him. He plans to leave Jefferson forever, but meets Lucas Burch, who is fleeing from Lena Grove, and is beaten up by him. He again approaches Lena Grove. Christmas escapes from prison, steals a pistol and tries to find shelter at Hightower's. Only when it is too late is Hightower ready to relieve Christmas. But it never comes to that, because the young soldier Percy Grimm, who has persecuted Christmas without a sheriff's mandate, breaks into Hightower's house, fires five shots at Christmas and castrates the dying man.

The penultimate chapter describes the life of Hightower, who is so caught up in his own story that his marriage and his pastoral activities failed. It's about his grandfather, who in the Civil War on the Confederate belonged, was shot for stealing some chickens in Jefferson and his return Hightower expected daily.

The last chapter is about Lena Grove, who is on her way to Tennessee with her child and Byron Bunch . She rejects Bunch's advances again. Nevertheless, he stays with her while she continues undeterred.

Structure and style

The novel consists of 21 chapters, which are divided into further sub-chapters. It has a total of around 500 pages.

In the opening and closing chapters, the arrival and onward journey of Lena Groves is described as a framework .

The novel is strongly influenced by European, literary modernity , especially by the narrative technique of the stream of consciousness . The plot is not told chronologically, but rather interrupted by numerous flashbacks . The narrative perspective also moves repeatedly from one person to another, which is how Faulkner succeeds in depicting authentic insights of the characters involved. Some events are portrayed from different perspectives and connected according to the cross-fading technique in the film.

The unconscious thoughts of the acting persons are represented by italics, the conscious thoughts by single quotation marks. The use of commas does not always follow the rules either, but is done for overriding stylistic reasons. Faulkner uses numerous compound adjectives that are uncommon in English.

Symbolism and themes

Faulkner uses numerous symbols . The 21 chapters correspond to the 21 chapters of the Gospel of John . Numerous motifs from the Gospel can be found in Licht in August . In the first chapter Lena Grove travels pregnant, with few belongings and without shelter like Maria . In the twelfth chapter it is Lucas Burch who, like Judas , wants to betray the man who gave him shelter for a sum of money. Joe Christmas, whose initials are the same as those of Jesus Christ , is seized without resistance and insulted by a self-righteous crowd as a murderer and "nigger". Finally, his killing is described in Chapter 19, which deals with the crucifixion of Jesus in the Gospel of John . Like Jesus, Joe Christmas was 33 years old when he died. The role of Byron Bunch is comparable to that of Joseph .

The motif of "movement" also runs through the novel. While Hightower sits waiting in his chair and Lena Grove quietly pulls down the street, Christmas is constantly on the move until he meets Joanna Burden; later he escapes again. The symbol “wood” also returns in many variations, referring to the crucifixion.

Several themes run through the novel: religious fanaticism, the search for identity in a society shaped by racial thinking and the isolation in this society, as well as the relationship between men and women, which is characterized by underlying hatred. Most of the people depicted are socially isolated because of their racial attitudes, their own origins, or historical events related to southern history . You are victim and perpetrator at the same time.

history

Faulkner began the novel under the title The Dark House ("The Dark House") without a fixed plan on August 17, 1931 and finished it on February 19, 1932. The novel was published in October 1932 by the New York publishing house Smith & Haas. The title Light in August refers to the particularly bright, premortal light of some August days in the southern states.

Licht im August was translated into German by Franz Fein as early as 1935, making it Faulkner's first novel to be published in German. It was published by Rowohlt-Verlag . A new translation by Helmut Frielinghaus and Susanne Höbel was published by the same publisher in 2008. To this day it is considered to be Faulkner's most widely read novel in Germany.

Expenses (selection)

  • Light in August . First edition. Smith & Haas, New York 1932
  • Light in August . Corrected text. Literary Classics of the United States, 1985
  • Light in August . Translated by Franz Fein. Cover design by Heinz Kiwitz . Rowohlt, Berlin 1935
  • Light in August . Translated by Helmut Frielinghaus and Susanne Höbel. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2008, ISBN 978-3-498-02068-2

reception

Licht im August is considered to be one of Faulkner's most important novels, together with the predecessors Schall und Wahn , When I was dying and Die Freistatt and its successor Absalom, Absalom! . All of these books are also set in Yoknapatawpha County.

  • In Time magazine, the novel was included in the TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005 .
  • Licht im August was added to the ZEIT library of 100 books . The essay on the novel and Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County was written by Hans-Christoph Blumenberg .

literature

  • Regina K. Fadiman: Faulkner's Light in August. A Description and Interpretation of the Revisions . University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville 1975
  • Gerd Haffmans (Ed.): About William Faulkner . Diogenes, Zurich 1973
  • Robert W. Hamblin, Ann J. Abadie: Faulkner in the Twenty-First Century: Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha . University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2003
  • Dorothy Tuck: A Handbook of Faulkner: A Complete Guide to the Works of William Faulkner . Chatto & Windus, London 1965
  • Paul Ingendaay : Epilogue in the new translation into German by Helmut Frielinghaus and Susanne Höbel. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2008

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interpretations of the novel (archive version) ( Memento from August 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on July 4, 2010
  2. ^ A b Peter Nicolaisen: William Faulkner . rororo picture monographs. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1981, ISBN 3-499-50300-X , p. 57
  3. ^ William Faulkner: Light in August . Vintage 1990, ISBN 0-679-73226-8 , Editor's Note, p. 509 (English)
  4. ^ Peter Nicolaisen: William Faulkner . rororo picture monographs. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1981, ISBN 3-499-50300-X , p. 55
  5. ^ Peter Nicolaisen: William Faulkner . rororo picture monographs. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1981, ISBN 3-499-50300-X , p. 59
  6. ↑ The Complete List | TIME Magazine - ALL-TIME 100 Novels , accessed July 1, 2010