On the other hand, Light in August, is one of Faulkner's greatest books, and although it does not have the blazing directness of The Sound and the Fury (a book written more directly out of Faulkner's own experience), it has much of the creative audacity which is Faulkner's highest ideal in art. With this book, published in 1932, Faulkner completed a period of extraordinary fertility. He was only thirty five; since 1929, he had published, in rapid order, Sartoris, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, and Light in August. It was a period of tremendous creative power. When he was recently in Japan, Faulkner said of this time: "I think there's a period in a writer's life when he, well, simply for lack of any other word, is fertile and he just produces. Later on, his blood slows, his bones get a little more brittle, his muscles get a little stiff, he gets perhaps other interests, but I think there's one time in his life when he writes at the top of his talent plus his speed, too. Later the speed slows; the talent doesn't necessarily have to fade at the same time. But there's a time in his life, one matchless time, when they are matched, completely. The speed, and the power and the talent, they're all there and then he is'...'hot.'"

Hong Kong Hyatt Hotel   67 Nathan Road   Kowloon Hong Kong BCC   Cable: Hyatt Hong Kong

                                       22 July 1974

 GOOD WERSH: Funny you should ask.
    I think the time for me was that summer of '56 on Mosholu Parkway in The Bronx, with the woman and all. And the green across the street. And the children coming along so nice. I had all the fuel for the fire neatly tucked into a loose leaf folder, indexed, and I had three weeks. Three weeks! All the time in the world. A mere 6,000 words a day and then, a book with my own name on it, all by itself. What the hell would I do with all that time? It was so easy. Nothing to do, not a damn thing, except write the book. It was nothing more than a stretch of rewrite on The Post or The Journal, only you could let the words sit there overnight and then do the big job with the wrist -- then the fastest wrist in the East. So easy. I wrote all day with my eyes to the park and good music on the turntable (45s, no vocals) and when the sun began to dip the woman tiptoed with a scotch and water and I wrote even faster, transported 30 years back into another time. Then I broke for dinner with the gang, walked around the block and went back to the threshing machine, in the night, and in the morning I tore it all up with my pencil and the woman typed it nice and clean -- and it was a book. So easy. There was nothing to do but write the book, nothing to worry about in the office, nothing to worry about with the children, nothing...I guess that's what Faulkner meant when he said "hot." He meant that everything was just right, a whole glittering array of green lights. He meant it was like the athlete going into the game in the very best possible shape in his body and his head -- nothing to do but win the game...and no way to lose the game.
    How can you buy that back? It's the moment. You don't know it then. You know it later. Too late. You think it's forever. It is not forever, not the whole combination. The pieces break off, fall away, change. You have a visitor you didn't invite: Death. And other things. You just don't know. They don't put a calendar that has it all written down. What's remaindered is the Norman Mailer-Marilyn Monroe calendar, not the one you need. Norman Mailer: Selling the ass of a girl who died.
    But we're off the subject now. I lost track. I was hot and I cooled off. God bless you and your tribe. You are the salt, but then too much salt is bad too.