Audio Clips
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 Photograph by Ralph Thompson © Rector and Visitors, University of Virginia |
During the 1957 and 1958 Spring semesters, William Faulkner was the Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia. During that time he appeared at thirty-six different public events, reading from his work and answering over 1400 questions from students, faculty and others. Thanks to two members of the Department of English, Frederick Gwynn and Joseph Blotner, most of those sessions were recorded, and preserved on tape in the University of Virginia Special Collections Library. Over 28 hours of the recordings have been digitized, and are available online in the Faulkner at Virginia audio archive . The mp3 clips available below have been taken from that archive, and are playable on most devices. What does the title mean? (6 May 1958; 0:55) Did you being this novel with an image? (13 April 1957; 1:05) Is Joe Christmas a Christ figure? (27 April 1957; 0:58) Was Joe Christmas black? (13 April 1957; 1:01) Gavin Stevens' ideas about Joe's race? (13 April 1957; 0:45) Did Hightower achieve salvation? (13 April 1957; 1:07) Novel's stylistic innovations? (13 April 1957; 1:02) Does the novel view life as inevitably tragic? (27 April 1957; 0:48) |
What does the title mean? (6 May 1958; 0:55)
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, in The Portable Faulkner the editor says, "Incidentally the title of the novel has nothing to do with August sunlight; it refers to Lena Grove and her baby. In the Mississippi backwoods, it is sometimes said of a pregnant woman, but more often of a mare or cow, that she will be light in August or September." Is this how you meant it to be—the title?
William Faulkner: No, I never heard of that. It refers to a texture of the light in August in my country, in a spell of two or three cool days we call "blackberry winter." It's the light. I had never heard that business of after the cow drops the calf she's light in August.
Edward Stevenson: And that—you don't know that expression at all.
William Faulkner: No.
Edward Stevenson: I haven't heard it in Georgia either.
Unidentified participant: I suppose people have spoken to you of it since then?
William Faulkner: Yes.
Did you being this novel with an image? (13 April 1957; 1:05)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Sir, in Light in August, much of the action comes back to the scene or the picture of a column of yellow smoke coming up from Joanna Burden's cabin. I was wondering—you had said that in Sound and the Fury you got the idea for the story from seeing a little girl like Caddy in a tree. I was wondering if that happened with Light in August. Perhaps that was the scene that you had seen and that you started from in that story.
William Faulkner: No, that story began with Lena Grove, the idea of—of—of the young girl with nothing, pregnant, determined to find her sweetheart. It was—that was out of my—my admiration for women, for the courage and endurance of women. As I told that story, I had to get more and more into it, but that was mainly the story of Lena Grove.
Is Joe Christmas a Christ figure? (27 April 1957; 0:58)
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner, sometimes I've heard it said that Joe Christmas in Light in August is supposed to be a Christ figure. Now, there's some allusion to that or perhaps some evidence for it. He died at 33 [at] his lynching. There's a few things like that. Did you intend for him to be a Christ figure?
William Faulkner: No, not deliberately. That was coincidental. The writer has a—a storeroom of—of recollections, of traditions, of experience, of observation, that he uses in his trade, just as the carpenter has a storeroom of planks that he uses when he wants to build a fence or a house, and that's coincidental. I am writing about people, not about symbols, but when it seems to me the symbol is a—a good trick to use, then I will use the symbol.
Was Joe Christmas black? (13 April 1957; 1:01)
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner—
William Faulkner: Yes, sir.
Unidentified participant: Sir, in Light in August, the central character Joe Christmas had most of his troubles and his persecutions and in his search to find himself was based on his belief that he was part Negro, and yet it's never made really clear that he is. Was he supposed to be part Negro, or was this supposed to add to the tragic irony of the story?
William Faulkner: I think that was his tragedy. He didn't know what he was, and so he was nothing. He—he deliberately evicted himself from the human race because he didn't know which he was. That was his tragedy. That to me was the—the tragic, central idea of the story, that he didn't know what he was, and there was no way possible in life for him to find out, which to me is the most tragic condition a man could find himself in, not to know what he is and to know that he will never know.
Gavin Stevens' ideas about Joe's race? (13 April 1957; 0:45)
Unidentified participant: Sir, if—if he is not—does not definitely have Negro blood, well, what is the significance of Gavin Stevens's surmise there at the end when he explains that there's a conflict of blood? That that is only a guess that stands for a guess and not a final knowledge of —
William Faulkner: Yes, yes, that is—is an assumption, a rationalization which Stevens made. That is, the people that destroyed him made rationalizations about what he was. They decided what he was. But Christmas himself didn't know, and he evicted himself from mankind.
Did Hightower achieve salvation? (13 April 1957; 1:07)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: In Light in August, do you feel that Reverend Hightower dies feeling that he has achieved a certain kind of salvation, [received] some sort of salvation, [Mr. Faulkner]?
William Faulkner: He didn't die. He had—had wrecked his life. He had failed his wife. He had failed himself, but there was one thing that he still had, which was—was the—the—the brave grandfather that—that galloped into the town to burn the Yankee stores, and at least he had that. Everything else was gone, but since he had been a—a—a man of God, he still tried to be a man of God, and he could not destroy himself. But he had—had destroyed himself, but he still couldn't take his own life. He had to—to endure it, to live, but that was one thing that was—was pure and fine that he had, was the—the memory of his grandfather, who had been brave.
Novel's stylistic innovations? (13 April 1957; 1:02)
Unidentified participant: Mr. Faulkner —
William Faulkner: Sir.
Unidentified participant: Most people are very struck by your change of style in Light in August. For example, you use the present tense to tell the story [in], rather than the past. Was that—did you mean something by that or were you just using a new form for dramatic import or — ?
William Faulkner: No, that just seemed to me the best way to tell the story. It wasn't a deliberate change of style. I don't know anything about style. I don't—I think a writer with—with a lot to—pushing inside him to get out hasn't got time to bother with style. If he just likes to write and hasn't got anything urging him, then he can become a stylist, but the ones with a—a great deal pushing to get out don't have time to be anything but clumsy, like Balzac, for instance.
Does the novel view life as inevitably tragic? (27 April 1957; 0:48)
William Faulkner: Yes, ma'am.
Unidentified participant: Referring to an earlier question, did you say that Light in August argues [...] for the acceptance of an inevitably tragic view of life?
William Faulkner: I wouldn't think so, that the only person in that book that accepted a tragic view of life was Christmas, because he didn't know what he was and so he deliberately repudiated man. He didn't belong to man any longer. He deliberately repudiated man. The others seemed to me to have had a—a very fine belief in—in life, in the basic possibility for happiness and goodness—Byron Bunch and Lena Grove, to have gone to all that trouble.