Light in August by William Faulkner

This time through, I found this book more misogynistic than I remembered. Faulkner's patronization of Lena Grove was increasingly irritating. But I also found beautiful moments and intriguing moments. Both Gail Hightower and Joe Christmas struck me as more sad than ever--especially when you see Joe so emotionally maimed that he resents Mrs. McEachern's attempts at kindness. I found Joe's "parchment" skin especially telling, because the characters in the story write their own readings of Joe as they consider him in context. I was also interested in the patterns of naming. Joanna and Joe are linked by the first syllables of their names, but one might also remember that Joanna is slightly mis-named, after her father's first wife, Juana (herself relatively dark-skinned as a Spanish woman). Overall, intriguing, but slightly more troubling than I remembered.