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Sin and Salvation #7
Requiem for a Nun
This sequel to Faulkner's SANCTUARY written 20 years later, takes up the story of Temple Drake eight years after the events related in SANCTUARY.
245 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
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2713 people want to read
About the author
William Faulkner
1,349 books10.7k followersWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. A Nobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and often is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature.
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.
Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.
Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".
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June 6, 2017
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, the first of four sons of Murry Cuthbert Falkner and Maud Butler. He had three younger brothers: Murry Charles "Jack" Falkner, author John Faulkner, and Dean Swift Faulkner. Soon after his first birthday, his family moved to Ripley, Mississippi. On September 21, 1902, the Falkner family settled in Oxford, where he lived on and off for the rest of his life. His family, particularly his mother Maud, his maternal grandmother Lelia Butler, and Caroline "Callie" Barr (the black woman who raised him from infancy) crucially influenced the development of Faulkner's artistic imagination. Both his mother and grandmother were avid readers and also painters and photographers, educating him in visual language, and thank you Wikipedia for all of this personal history that doesn't have a whole lot to do with this review. Faulkner is all about the history and context of a person, and in Requiem for a Nun, of a place. It is a curious book in that at least half of it is an absorbing faux-history lesson - one that doesn't have a whole lot to do with what the book is supposedly about. So what is the point of Requiem? It appears to be a continuation of Temple Drake's story from Sanctuary, in play form. Like so:
Temple Drake, wringing her hands, her voice on the edge of hysteria:The language that Faulkner uses to describe the history and context of this certain place is gorgeous. Swooningly beautiful in that classic, often hypnotic Faulkner way, full of these gloriously long, long, looooong sentences; writing that is subtle and ironic and often a deadpan sort of humorous - my favorite. Style to die for, which is a rare and wonderful thing when reading history. I could get lost in that kind of prose, and I often did. Lost in the best sort of way. I often forgot that this book was supposed to be about irritating, useless Temple Drake... and apparently Faulkner did too.
"I-I-I am still an empty vessel, now a walking symbol of a life not being lived, of selfishness and self-denial and just plain denial-denial, oh woe is me! My dead eyes refuse to cry but my angst smolders and burns!"
Nancy, resolute and vaguely saintly:
"I am Temple's black servant and I shall die for her sins! It is what I have been placed in this story to do! My spirituality and my checkered past and my willingness to sacrifice myself for some sad, trifling white woman illustrates my innate saintliness! Also, I murdered Temple's baby because sometime you have to kill an infant so that a wife can be forced to stay with her husband and not run off like some slattern! Hallelujah, oh glory be! Off I go to die! Praise Jesus!"
Temple Drake, nervously tapping her foot, her eyes darting here and there:
"Farewell, saintly black woman! You die so that I shall live! And that's not messed up at all, no way, not one little bit! I'm sorry, what was your name again?"
William Faulkner:
"Both of you are dreadfully tedious and so I find myself being endlessly distracted when trying to make something meaningful out of your so-called lives. I think I shall write more about the history and context of a certain place because why not, I'm motherfuckin' Faulkner and I do what I wanna do!"
October 21, 2021
From the sprawling and fecund swamps north of Jefferson, in Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, in the generations after the land the slave owners quitted their unjust agrarianism, after the great war between the states, in which the sons of the South and the masses of the Northern states fought bravely but tragically, and after the hordes of carpetbaggers and the legislative intent of Reconstruction, and the fables and myths of that murky time; constrained as it was with the night rides and demons and white sheeted plagues and embarrassed founders who, whiskey besotted, tired and corpulent, drained not of sustenance but of vitality and the soul of their Christian birthrights and heritage – founded as they were and did upon a lie that was known to be an intentional misrepresentation but was nonetheless published with vigor and steadfastly defended with the irony of Jefferson’s words ever echoing in the hinterland and in the hearts and minds of those whose inheritance was not of the land or of the ideas of that founder but of the rootless and unbequeathed hostility, and mean hatred of one for another – to the coming of the later century, when the ghosts and shades of that old time cast longer and dimmer shadows upon the pantries facing away from the sun, and in the twilight of a septuagenarian and octogenarians fading memory when those old soldiers and combatants would themselves lie entombed under the marble and stone memorials of a history turned into legend, and again to myth and legend, when those old fables, whose luster would bedeck songs and hymnals but not the codes and statutes of a modern sun, where the clumsy and foul automobile would chance and sputter beneath the spiders webs of crackling electrical wires, humming with the whispers of conversation of cast aside and distant speakers, cold and separated, like the copper wire kettles and the ding dong of outraged and progressing time; TIME, TIME and TIME again, as the tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow of a lost age becomes a soft and warm light of a new age, but one that is like the whiskey haunted and mind reeling morning after the drunkards tirade, when girls, maidens in another time, fall prey to the predators who, maintaining the old ways, repugnant and fetid with only an image of old glory, keeping only the soiled vestige of a better time, but whose time was a wastrel, a rotted tree trunk, rotten to the core, diseased and septic, being a haunt for the rats and tenants of forlorn and dusty passages and desolate places, a wasteland for owls and raptors and creatures of scorn and abuse, ravagers of time; and she, that one who was lost, but who wandered away without incident or lament and who was captured too easily and taken away, not as the abandoned Sabines, but rather as one led astray, not by rough cords and blandishments, but swayed by hand and a promise of something wild and depraved and unlicensed by father or judge or brother or by a society intent on casting the candle light, dim and simple as it is, of some propriety, some divorced remnant, as suggestion of civility to mete out a life of regret and liquored and somnolent, nightmarish tranquility.
I composed this run-on sentence as an homage to Faulkner and also to test the limits of my own ability to keep going. That was 536 words and I can only imagine Faulkner’s sixty seconds worth of distance run on the typewriter. Hemingway, Faulkner’s literary contemporary and rival, said something like writing was easy, just sit in front of a typewriter and bleed. Hitting the “period” key must have been for William Faulkner, the most painful strike of the set.
Requiem for a Nun, Faulkner’s 1950 sequel to his earlier Sanctuary, is like many of his works, an experiment in composition. This one is half play and half run-on sentence, with the non-dramatic segments forming a history of Yoknapatawpha County architecture, especially as they relate to the courthouse, jail and state house of Mississippi.
We find Temple Drake, eight years removed from her exertions in Sanctuary, but still quite the messed up and deranged debutante. Incredibly, this is 1950 after all, she has married Gowan Stevens, the drunk party animal who LEFT HER at a bootlegger’s cabin in Sanctuary. Those who have not read that train wreck need to before trying out this one for size.
Not one of his better works, but still entertaining and illuminating, especially for his more mature commentary on racism and the nonsensical nature of elitist society and the hypocrisy of a rule of law that fails to provide due process and equanimity.
Temple and her family have lost a child, presumably at the hands of their black nanny, but as you might guess, Faulkner has woven quite the web of entangled circumstance.
Faulkner’s portrayal of Nancy, the condemned prisoner, and a character we met briefly in the short story “That Evening Sun” is especially poignant.
For Faulkner fans certainly, also for fans of the Southern Gothic genre and for literature students who are looking for experimental styles.
I composed this run-on sentence as an homage to Faulkner and also to test the limits of my own ability to keep going. That was 536 words and I can only imagine Faulkner’s sixty seconds worth of distance run on the typewriter. Hemingway, Faulkner’s literary contemporary and rival, said something like writing was easy, just sit in front of a typewriter and bleed. Hitting the “period” key must have been for William Faulkner, the most painful strike of the set.
Requiem for a Nun, Faulkner’s 1950 sequel to his earlier Sanctuary, is like many of his works, an experiment in composition. This one is half play and half run-on sentence, with the non-dramatic segments forming a history of Yoknapatawpha County architecture, especially as they relate to the courthouse, jail and state house of Mississippi.
We find Temple Drake, eight years removed from her exertions in Sanctuary, but still quite the messed up and deranged debutante. Incredibly, this is 1950 after all, she has married Gowan Stevens, the drunk party animal who LEFT HER at a bootlegger’s cabin in Sanctuary. Those who have not read that train wreck need to before trying out this one for size.
Not one of his better works, but still entertaining and illuminating, especially for his more mature commentary on racism and the nonsensical nature of elitist society and the hypocrisy of a rule of law that fails to provide due process and equanimity.
Temple and her family have lost a child, presumably at the hands of their black nanny, but as you might guess, Faulkner has woven quite the web of entangled circumstance.
Faulkner’s portrayal of Nancy, the condemned prisoner, and a character we met briefly in the short story “That Evening Sun” is especially poignant.
For Faulkner fans certainly, also for fans of the Southern Gothic genre and for literature students who are looking for experimental styles.
April 7, 2017
This sequel to "Sanctuary" is so much better than that one, it almost makes up for having to wade through that one just to read this one. It tells us what really happened to Temple Drake, and is set 8 years after her abduction. The style is very different, written in a combination of prose and play dialogue. I wasn't sure I would be happy with that before beginning, but by the end thought it was just more example of Faulkner's willingness to take chances in his literature. If you read "Sanctuary", this is a must, but don't read this as a stand alone. Not the place for anyone reading Faulkner for the first time to start, but the history of Jefferson and Yoknapotawpha County given in Act 1 was really helpful to me in understanding characters and timelines from earlier novels.
April 18, 2017
Faulkner's sequel to Sanctuary, set eight years later with Temple Drake married to Gowan Stevens, gives a more complete picture of the inner workings of this woman's mind and soul, though it remains far from clear in true Faulkner style. Temple seems a very damaged woman, but when that damage began and who inflicted it cannot be answered. Was it when Gowan crashed his car? Or perhaps her decision to meet him for that game? Or later with Popeye? Or earlier, as an overly cherished and protected daughter of Jefferson, Mississippi prominence? As a young woman of entitlement, she had always done what she wished to do.
For me she is not evil so much as incapable of being a full human being. There is something missing in her, perhaps the ability to truly relate to others.
Faulkner has chosen an interesting structure for Requiem. There are discourses on the long history of Jefferson and the surrounding county, some parts exquisitely told, separated by a three act play whose major players are Lawyer Gavin Stevens and Temple Drake. The play contains very detailed stage directions, such as are found in the plays of Tennessee Williams. These add greatly to both understanding and enjoyment.
Any one planning to read this book really should read Sanctuary first. The connections are very specific. And I would suggest reading Requiem soon after.
I have purposefully not provided much specific plot information here. That would only serve to spoil a future reader's enjoyment. And, as I see it, Temple is the rather inscrutable center of both books.
For me she is not evil so much as incapable of being a full human being. There is something missing in her, perhaps the ability to truly relate to others.
Faulkner has chosen an interesting structure for Requiem. There are discourses on the long history of Jefferson and the surrounding county, some parts exquisitely told, separated by a three act play whose major players are Lawyer Gavin Stevens and Temple Drake. The play contains very detailed stage directions, such as are found in the plays of Tennessee Williams. These add greatly to both understanding and enjoyment.
Any one planning to read this book really should read Sanctuary first. The connections are very specific. And I would suggest reading Requiem soon after.
I have purposefully not provided much specific plot information here. That would only serve to spoil a future reader's enjoyment. And, as I see it, Temple is the rather inscrutable center of both books.
October 26, 2023
Después de leer 'Santuario' de William Faulkner se tiene que leer 'Réquiem por una mujer' porque a parte de tener en común a dos de los personajes principales, se habla (y mucho) de los acontecimientos que tuvieron lugar en 'Santuario'.
Aquí el escritor mezcla teatro con narraciones completamente independientes que hablan de la forma en la que se inició la ciudad en la que tiene lugar la historia.
Me ha gustado mucho aunque el teatro no sea lo mío. El último acto es quizás el más complejo de leer y es el que me hizo restarle esa quinta estrella.
Aquí el escritor mezcla teatro con narraciones completamente independientes que hablan de la forma en la que se inició la ciudad en la que tiene lugar la historia.
Me ha gustado mucho aunque el teatro no sea lo mío. El último acto es quizás el más complejo de leer y es el que me hizo restarle esa quinta estrella.
October 22, 2024
Temple Drake gives the inside scoop on her abduction and captivity. This is what I was looking for, because Sanctuary left many open questions. But the price I paid for closure was too much. Each chapter starts with a dense historical treatise. The first sentence has 836 words. It contained nine semicolons and two parenthetical passages, one with 141 words and the other with 130. Then the second sentence starts with the word And. This continues for the first 15% of the book. After plodding through that, the story starts. But it is written as a play including stage directions. This pattern is repeated for the other two chapters. I felt like I deserved a requiem by the time I was finished.
March 27, 2022
Requiem for a Nun
'Hell,' Compson said. Everybody knows what's wrong with him.
It's ethics. He's a damned moralist.'
Ethics?' Peabody said. He sounded almost startled. He said quickly: 'That's bad. How can we corrupt an ethical man?'
An astounding departure from his traditional oeuvre—i.e. deliberate torturing of the reader with his pernicious medieval torture devices (pun intended)—to a totally refreshing frontier of accessibly inventive and gorgeous writing that is quite antonymous of the usual quandary and perplexity we are unjustly subjected to while traversing his often inaccessible and dauntingly beautiful texts. Written partly in prose and play, Faulkner as usual goes on to explore the human condition of the American South and exposing its prevailing problems with ironic humor and satire sprinkled by a detectably immaculate righteous hand onto these freshly baked texts—this one-eighty is quite a surprising thing in his repertoire. Nevertheless, a typical Faulknerphobe could almost call it a devious new artifice to incapacitate or even vanquish the reader thoroughly.
A unanimous consensus from his inexorable detractors—unrelenting critics—tells us the following when Sanctuary was published:
Most reviews described the book as horrific and said that Faulkner was a very talented writer. Some critics also felt that he should write something pleasant for a change.*
The Book Review Digest, 1932 edition, Marion A. Knight, Mertice M. Jones, Dorothy Brown, The H.W. Wilson Company, p.337.
So perhaps he took it to heart and produced Requiem for a Nun—at least the writing style took a drastic U-turn (a transmutation so to speak) or it’s simply that he couldn’t resist the temptation to usher all his outrageous characters and their ancestors back on stage to ooze one eventual great grotesque out of them.
This is also a definitive work—historical account—which imparts to the reader a tremendous amount of information and descriptions of his fictional Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi in glory detail—its genesis essentially—however there’s a caveat here because accessible and beautiful though it is you just can’t start reading Faulkner with Requiem for a Nun since it is a sequel to the sensational Sanctuary—where reader has to defend themself against the seemingly thorny texts and notorious content—so it’s definitely not a standalone novel.
Essentially, the story revolves around the enigmatic and inviolable Temple Drake aka Mrs. Stevens—the protagonist/victim of Sanctuary—and her fate, which Faulkner had to come back to twenty years later in his life in the form of the novel in question. Fortunately, he pursued her fate since she’s portrayed as a fatalistic character in the preceding novel, so it’s quite interesting to follow her and to see what’s in store for her this time around—is it fatalistic again? Does she have a choice?
And if you’re looking for a nun in this novel, I hate to break it to you, there isn’t one.
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
'Hell,' Compson said. Everybody knows what's wrong with him.
It's ethics. He's a damned moralist.'
Ethics?' Peabody said. He sounded almost startled. He said quickly: 'That's bad. How can we corrupt an ethical man?'
An astounding departure from his traditional oeuvre—i.e. deliberate torturing of the reader with his pernicious medieval torture devices (pun intended)—to a totally refreshing frontier of accessibly inventive and gorgeous writing that is quite antonymous of the usual quandary and perplexity we are unjustly subjected to while traversing his often inaccessible and dauntingly beautiful texts. Written partly in prose and play, Faulkner as usual goes on to explore the human condition of the American South and exposing its prevailing problems with ironic humor and satire sprinkled by a detectably immaculate righteous hand onto these freshly baked texts—this one-eighty is quite a surprising thing in his repertoire. Nevertheless, a typical Faulknerphobe could almost call it a devious new artifice to incapacitate or even vanquish the reader thoroughly.
A unanimous consensus from his inexorable detractors—unrelenting critics—tells us the following when Sanctuary was published:
Most reviews described the book as horrific and said that Faulkner was a very talented writer. Some critics also felt that he should write something pleasant for a change.*
The Book Review Digest, 1932 edition, Marion A. Knight, Mertice M. Jones, Dorothy Brown, The H.W. Wilson Company, p.337.
So perhaps he took it to heart and produced Requiem for a Nun—at least the writing style took a drastic U-turn (a transmutation so to speak) or it’s simply that he couldn’t resist the temptation to usher all his outrageous characters and their ancestors back on stage to ooze one eventual great grotesque out of them.
This is also a definitive work—historical account—which imparts to the reader a tremendous amount of information and descriptions of his fictional Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi in glory detail—its genesis essentially—however there’s a caveat here because accessible and beautiful though it is you just can’t start reading Faulkner with Requiem for a Nun since it is a sequel to the sensational Sanctuary—where reader has to defend themself against the seemingly thorny texts and notorious content—so it’s definitely not a standalone novel.
Essentially, the story revolves around the enigmatic and inviolable Temple Drake aka Mrs. Stevens—the protagonist/victim of Sanctuary—and her fate, which Faulkner had to come back to twenty years later in his life in the form of the novel in question. Fortunately, he pursued her fate since she’s portrayed as a fatalistic character in the preceding novel, so it’s quite interesting to follow her and to see what’s in store for her this time around—is it fatalistic again? Does she have a choice?
And if you’re looking for a nun in this novel, I hate to break it to you, there isn’t one.
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
December 2, 2016
3.5 stars
This is the 6th book I have read by William Faulkner this year, and it is my least favourite.
It has a strange structure. It's written in 3 Acts. Each 'Act' is in two sections; the first is a narrative, linked to the history of the jail and courthouse in Jefferson (the fictionalised town where Faulkner set so many of his novels); the second part is written as a play script taking up the story of Temple Drake, 8 years after the events in Sanctuary.
I felt the play script sections were written in a rather plodding style, although they did give me a better understanding of some of the events in the earlier book.
With the narrative sections, for much of the time I felt that I was reading a parody of Faulkner's writing style. And then, we reached Act 3. I thought the narrative section here was brilliant. It was Faulkner at his best, sending shivers down my spine. In my opinion, nobody else writes about the history and legacy of the southern states in such an emotive and impressive way.
So, finally, it was a worthwhile read to end my 2015/2016 Faulknerfest with.
The best known quote from Requiem for a Nun is
'The past is never dead. It's not even past',
but there are many others.
I especially like
'....so vast, so limitless in capacity is man's imagination to disperse and burn away the rubble-dross of fact and probability, leaving only truth and dream ...'
August 1, 2011
Faulkner experiments with a very different plot device and structure in "Requiem For a Nun." Faulkner surrounds and connects the acts of a play with three prose pieces addressing the early history of Mississippi through the construction of the county's courthouse and jail. In his prose, Faulkner traces the development of society's need for law. In his drama, he illustrates that the enforcement of law does not necessarily render justice.
"Requiem For a Nun" takes up eight years after the story of Temple Drake and Gowan Stevens in "Sanctuary," although Faulkner wrote "Requiem" twenty years after the appearance of "Sanctuary." Gavin Stevens defends the alleged murderer of Temple Drake Stevens' infant child by her black nurse Nancy.
Almost on the eve of Nancy's execution, Gavin Stevens takes Temple Drake to the Governor's office to plead for clemency for Nancy. In the process, Temple is forced to examine her actions in and following "Sanctuary," and her recognition of her choices between good and evil.
It is here that we find this oft quoted passage. "The past is never dead. It's not even past." In the context of "Requiem," Faulkner tells us that our actions have lasting repercussions far into the future. The only way we can find redemption for the acts we commit is to recognize those repercussions and suffer for them, though the law does not make us responsible for those acts.
I recommend that "Requiem" be read immediately following "Sanctuary." I recommend the original text edition prepared by Noel Polk, published by Random House in 1981.
"Requiem For a Nun" takes up eight years after the story of Temple Drake and Gowan Stevens in "Sanctuary," although Faulkner wrote "Requiem" twenty years after the appearance of "Sanctuary." Gavin Stevens defends the alleged murderer of Temple Drake Stevens' infant child by her black nurse Nancy.
Almost on the eve of Nancy's execution, Gavin Stevens takes Temple Drake to the Governor's office to plead for clemency for Nancy. In the process, Temple is forced to examine her actions in and following "Sanctuary," and her recognition of her choices between good and evil.
It is here that we find this oft quoted passage. "The past is never dead. It's not even past." In the context of "Requiem," Faulkner tells us that our actions have lasting repercussions far into the future. The only way we can find redemption for the acts we commit is to recognize those repercussions and suffer for them, though the law does not make us responsible for those acts.
I recommend that "Requiem" be read immediately following "Sanctuary." I recommend the original text edition prepared by Noel Polk, published by Random House in 1981.
March 13, 2017
If you have read Sanctuary you MUST continue with this sequel. It is SO much better. Reading Sanctuary was like paying dues, this is the treat. Twenty years after Sanctuary this is Faulkner's fifteenth novel and his work is so much better. He uses a few of the same characters, the connection is not that important. I did thoroughly enjoy this one, dialogue is in the form of a play, with a few visual prompts for scene and setting. Clever and easy to visualize as black and white cinema. Lawyer Gavin Stevens would look and sound good on film. Temple Drake is a knock-out. Alternating chapters are sliced in bits of, in my opinion, his forte: historical fiction. Every one of his novels that really captures me has that element of history. It's just his strong suit. The history of wilderness Mississippi, the founding of fictional Jefferson, and even the creation of the state capitol delivered as high drama, Faulkner's full page paragraphs, who could do without that. It seems this should be considered more of a classic.
July 1, 2024
I really didn't like Sanctuary, to which this is a sequel, but I'm glad I read it, as it provides the background necessary to appreciate this book's story of the next eight years in the life of Temple Drake, this, surprisingly, in the form of a play, a courtroom drama. Each of the three acts begins with a lengthy, rich imagining of the history of Jefferson, Jackson, and Mississippi, thematically linked to the drama, but collectively a treasure trove for readers trying to understand Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. This is another of his bold experiments in form and it worked for me.
May 7, 2017
To begin with, Requiem for a Nun is a great novel, but be careful in comparing it to Faulkner’s other works. It is just as good, but it is different.
In the follow-up novel, Faulkner combines a mixture of novelistic forms—about the founding of Jefferson, the Golden Dome as the state capitol building in Jackson, and the longevity of the jail—and the dramatic form of the play for the present story about Temple Drake eight years later after the events of Sanctuary.
The novel is quite well done, but the narrative summaries and history (from the beginning of Jefferson to 1952 when the reader becomes a tourist) outshine and overwhelm the present action of Temple’s attempt to find peace and salvation for her tortured soul concerning the coming execution of Nancy for the death of Temple’s child. The history is so large that it dwarfs Temple’s story. And I find it more interesting as well, but some of the past is gone, contrary to Steven’s immemorial statement, as the modern world replaces the previous one (no more mules).
The narrative summaries, which precede the drama, about the history of how justice and law came into being in Jefferson and Mississippi create the setting and the background (the past) to the present story of Temple and her confession about how she was partially responsible for the death of her child and her attempt to have Nancy pardoned. The interplay is nicely done. The past seems to be that one cannot escape justice whether it be social or personal. Temple and Gavin are also encased in the grand history of Jefferson, Mississippi, and the South. They are just the minute, present figures of a long, diverse, and complicated story.
Now the story of Temple is interesting and does remove all ambiguity about Temple’s character that was present in “Sanctuary” (while I withheld judgment on her despicable character while reading the first novel due to the physical violence she endured, this novel removes any doubt that Temple is a young woman who lacks morality, but wants to find it; who wants to relieve her guilt, but wants an easy method to find salvation).
Faulkner shows how much the dramatic form of the modern play does not fit his needs when in Act Two, he allows his notorious narrating voice to supersede the character voices of Gavin Stevens and Temple. Since modern dialogue cannot contain the thematic material that Faulkner desires to express, he implants his narrating voice into these characters so that we receive the full volume of what he wishes to portray about Temple’s need to confess and her unwillingness to do so. Instead of dialogue, we gain speeches infused with Faulkner’s high poetic rhetoric.
Yet Faulkner is not alone in his desire to mix the genres of the drama and the novel (Melville and Joyce are just a couple that preceded him), but he just can’t get away from being a novelist as the dramatic parts of the novel pale in comparison to his novelistic ones.
For Faulkner, the drama just doesn’t work as well, but those parts are still as engaging as the other, but I wish Faulkner would have found another characterizing trait to show Temple’s anxiety (Temple’s constant smoking or not smoking; Stevens’ belief that she needs a cigarette or doesn’t) or another allusion to Temple’s belief that she will be empty for the rest of her days (her constant recitation of “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”).
One caveat: read “Sanctuary” first and you will receive a full understanding of “Requiem.” Without reading the first, you might find “Requiem” less that satisfying.
And who is the Nun? I would guess, and it’s only a far-fetched guess, that the Nun is an amalgam of Cecilia Farmer, Nancy, and Temple. The narrator in the third act describes and combines disparate characteristics of females and it is the only time I found “nun” mentioned in the novel:
“—to stand, in this hot strange little room furious with frying fat, among the roster and chronicle, the deathless murmur of the sublime and deathless names and the deathless faces, the faces omnivorous and insatiable and forever incontent: demon-nun and angel-witch; empress, siren, Erinys: Mistinguette too, invincibly possessed of a half-century more of years than the mere three score or so she bragged and boasted, for you to choose among, which one she was,—not might have been, nor even could have been, but was: so vast, so limitless in capacity is man’s imagination to disperse and burn away the rubble-dross of fact and probability, leaving only truth and dream,—then”
In the follow-up novel, Faulkner combines a mixture of novelistic forms—about the founding of Jefferson, the Golden Dome as the state capitol building in Jackson, and the longevity of the jail—and the dramatic form of the play for the present story about Temple Drake eight years later after the events of Sanctuary.
The novel is quite well done, but the narrative summaries and history (from the beginning of Jefferson to 1952 when the reader becomes a tourist) outshine and overwhelm the present action of Temple’s attempt to find peace and salvation for her tortured soul concerning the coming execution of Nancy for the death of Temple’s child. The history is so large that it dwarfs Temple’s story. And I find it more interesting as well, but some of the past is gone, contrary to Steven’s immemorial statement, as the modern world replaces the previous one (no more mules).
The narrative summaries, which precede the drama, about the history of how justice and law came into being in Jefferson and Mississippi create the setting and the background (the past) to the present story of Temple and her confession about how she was partially responsible for the death of her child and her attempt to have Nancy pardoned. The interplay is nicely done. The past seems to be that one cannot escape justice whether it be social or personal. Temple and Gavin are also encased in the grand history of Jefferson, Mississippi, and the South. They are just the minute, present figures of a long, diverse, and complicated story.
Now the story of Temple is interesting and does remove all ambiguity about Temple’s character that was present in “Sanctuary” (while I withheld judgment on her despicable character while reading the first novel due to the physical violence she endured, this novel removes any doubt that Temple is a young woman who lacks morality, but wants to find it; who wants to relieve her guilt, but wants an easy method to find salvation).
Faulkner shows how much the dramatic form of the modern play does not fit his needs when in Act Two, he allows his notorious narrating voice to supersede the character voices of Gavin Stevens and Temple. Since modern dialogue cannot contain the thematic material that Faulkner desires to express, he implants his narrating voice into these characters so that we receive the full volume of what he wishes to portray about Temple’s need to confess and her unwillingness to do so. Instead of dialogue, we gain speeches infused with Faulkner’s high poetic rhetoric.
Yet Faulkner is not alone in his desire to mix the genres of the drama and the novel (Melville and Joyce are just a couple that preceded him), but he just can’t get away from being a novelist as the dramatic parts of the novel pale in comparison to his novelistic ones.
For Faulkner, the drama just doesn’t work as well, but those parts are still as engaging as the other, but I wish Faulkner would have found another characterizing trait to show Temple’s anxiety (Temple’s constant smoking or not smoking; Stevens’ belief that she needs a cigarette or doesn’t) or another allusion to Temple’s belief that she will be empty for the rest of her days (her constant recitation of “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”).
One caveat: read “Sanctuary” first and you will receive a full understanding of “Requiem.” Without reading the first, you might find “Requiem” less that satisfying.
And who is the Nun? I would guess, and it’s only a far-fetched guess, that the Nun is an amalgam of Cecilia Farmer, Nancy, and Temple. The narrator in the third act describes and combines disparate characteristics of females and it is the only time I found “nun” mentioned in the novel:
“—to stand, in this hot strange little room furious with frying fat, among the roster and chronicle, the deathless murmur of the sublime and deathless names and the deathless faces, the faces omnivorous and insatiable and forever incontent: demon-nun and angel-witch; empress, siren, Erinys: Mistinguette too, invincibly possessed of a half-century more of years than the mere three score or so she bragged and boasted, for you to choose among, which one she was,—not might have been, nor even could have been, but was: so vast, so limitless in capacity is man’s imagination to disperse and burn away the rubble-dross of fact and probability, leaving only truth and dream,—then”
July 14, 2020
Requiem per una monaca è il seguito di Santuario. Se in Santuario la protagonista era anche la morbosità e la violenza di certi capitoli, qui si assiste a un cambiamento.
Requiem per una monaca è una commedia in tre atti con scenari diversi di volta in volta, accompagnati ognuno da prologhi non dialoghi che racchiudono la storia della città e della sua costruzione. Si passa dal tribunale nell'atto primo sino al Parlamento nell'atto secondo per poi giungere alla prigione nell'atto finale e conclusivo.
Ognuno di questi scenari racconta cosa avviene ai protagonisti e cosa succede loro.
Riprende da quanto avvenuto nell'opera precedente cercando di trovare una soluzione, un finale alle vicende narrate.
A differenza di Santuario, il cambiamento che avviene qui e di cui si parla ha a che fare con la possibilità del perdono, la possibilità di perdonare se stessi e il male fatto.
"C'era qualcosa più forte della tragedia a tenere due persone insieme: il perdono".
In questa commedia, i personaggi cercano di trovare un significato alla propria vita e anche attraverso la sofferenza di ognuno provano a cercare la salvezza del mondo. Qui si tenta di dare una possibilità alla speranza, alla quale sembra difficile rinunciare e resistere.
Requiem per una monaca è una commedia in tre atti con scenari diversi di volta in volta, accompagnati ognuno da prologhi non dialoghi che racchiudono la storia della città e della sua costruzione. Si passa dal tribunale nell'atto primo sino al Parlamento nell'atto secondo per poi giungere alla prigione nell'atto finale e conclusivo.
Ognuno di questi scenari racconta cosa avviene ai protagonisti e cosa succede loro.
Riprende da quanto avvenuto nell'opera precedente cercando di trovare una soluzione, un finale alle vicende narrate.
A differenza di Santuario, il cambiamento che avviene qui e di cui si parla ha a che fare con la possibilità del perdono, la possibilità di perdonare se stessi e il male fatto.
"C'era qualcosa più forte della tragedia a tenere due persone insieme: il perdono".
In questa commedia, i personaggi cercano di trovare un significato alla propria vita e anche attraverso la sofferenza di ognuno provano a cercare la salvezza del mondo. Qui si tenta di dare una possibilità alla speranza, alla quale sembra difficile rinunciare e resistere.
May 21, 2025
Am recitit doar piesa. Întreaga carte am parcurs-o anul trecut. Nu e o piesă care să impresioneze prin spectaculozitate, dar are ceva care m-a prins. Continuă povestea din Sanctuar și o readuce în prim-plan pe Temple Drake, personaj neliniștit și purtător de traume. Ceea ce o face cu adevărat memorabilă, însă, e felul în care Faulkner amestecă teatrul cu proza și meditația istorică, creând o structură hibridă, aproape ritualică. Tot de aici provine și celebrul citat devenit emblemă a literaturii postbelice:
The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.
- o fraz�� care, în câteva cuvinte, dizolvă granițele dintre timp și conștiință.
Cred că o dorință nespusă legată de Requiem for a Nun e aceea de a o fi văzut montată de Camus. A făcut-o cândva, într-o altă lume, într-un alt timp... eu n-am fost acolo.
Cred că o dorință nespusă legată de Requiem for a Nun e aceea de a o fi văzut montată de Camus. A făcut-o cândva, într-o altă lume, într-un alt timp... eu n-am fost acolo.
May 11, 2017
Faulkner obviously could not leave Temple Drake as we last saw her in Sanctuary. There was more to her story and it must have haunted him, as it haunted me, for he returned to her twenty years later to put her soul under a microscope.
I, unlike so many, do not view Temple as an evil person. I view her as a damaged soul, someone who has been so marred by life that she can no longer function. She fails to understand, even herself, what makes her unable to feel emotion as others do, and she carries the blame within her for her obvious shortcomings. She is trapped forever in the moment of her life in which she gets into a car with a drunkard and leaves her life and self behind. Married to Gowan, she can never hope to escape that moment...for even his mere presence is a constant reminder.
To read this without first reading Sanctuary would certainly lessen the impact of the story, and in truth, I do not think you could sufficiently understand Temple without the background story that unfolds in Sanctuary. Faulkner is such a remarkable writer and his works are so layered, that I think I will still be thinking about these characters and dissecting them for some time.
The format used here is quite unique. There is a play, sandwiched within three sections of historical exposition of Jackson and Yoknapatawpha County. The history is riveting and it is unbelievable how much information and emotion Faulkner is able to convey in a these rather short sections.
I pondered the title. Faulkner does nothing haphazardly, so I’m absolutely sure there is some deep meaning to this choice. A requiem is a mass for the dead soul--and that is easy enough to equate to Temple. Her soul is undoubtedly dead. But, why a nun? Is she cloistered by her past, living apart from society, from secular life? She has no spiritual attachment to save her, nothing to worship that I can see. If anyone else has an idea about the title, I would love to hear your thoughts.
I, unlike so many, do not view Temple as an evil person. I view her as a damaged soul, someone who has been so marred by life that she can no longer function. She fails to understand, even herself, what makes her unable to feel emotion as others do, and she carries the blame within her for her obvious shortcomings. She is trapped forever in the moment of her life in which she gets into a car with a drunkard and leaves her life and self behind. Married to Gowan, she can never hope to escape that moment...for even his mere presence is a constant reminder.
To read this without first reading Sanctuary would certainly lessen the impact of the story, and in truth, I do not think you could sufficiently understand Temple without the background story that unfolds in Sanctuary. Faulkner is such a remarkable writer and his works are so layered, that I think I will still be thinking about these characters and dissecting them for some time.
The format used here is quite unique. There is a play, sandwiched within three sections of historical exposition of Jackson and Yoknapatawpha County. The history is riveting and it is unbelievable how much information and emotion Faulkner is able to convey in a these rather short sections.
I pondered the title. Faulkner does nothing haphazardly, so I’m absolutely sure there is some deep meaning to this choice. A requiem is a mass for the dead soul--and that is easy enough to equate to Temple. Her soul is undoubtedly dead. But, why a nun? Is she cloistered by her past, living apart from society, from secular life? She has no spiritual attachment to save her, nothing to worship that I can see. If anyone else has an idea about the title, I would love to hear your thoughts.
July 10, 2022
"We all are. Doomed. Damned."
"Of course we are. Hasn't He been telling us that for going on two thousand years?"
"Of course we are. Hasn't He been telling us that for going on two thousand years?"
August 18, 2025
Remarkable book. One of his best. One of his most readable. Brave, elegant writing.
Very tough ending! Sad and ambiguous. Where does forgiveness come from? ☮️
Very tough ending! Sad and ambiguous. Where does forgiveness come from? ☮️
June 6, 2017
Old Bill is a genius, not just tedious, and his jewels bubble up on top of his strange rabble. His liberties with made up language and punctuation annoyed me, as his penchant for repetition. But the themes are dark and deep, and touch on the eternal. Damnation, sin and human will vs that of the almighty are neatly detailed in this play within a history lesson. The history was interesting and educational but his writing gets in the way. The play was superb and I learned where a favorite quote comes from: "the past is never dead. It's not even past." Lovely brevity this is, amongst the other 100 word rambling sentences and double or triple or even quadruple negatives. I needed a calculator to understand some sentences. This story links with many other Faulkner books in a pleasing loop, and elucidates the plot line of Sanctuary more clearly than the original novel. Great overall, but I still don't understand the title.
September 2, 2021
I read this back to back with Sanctuary and I think that's the best way to read them ~ together. Requiem is everything Sanctuary is not ~ conplex, dense, experimental. It's split into prose sections and play sections, the play sections telling the story of Temple Drake while the prose sections tell of the history of Yoknapatawpha County, institutions like the courthouse, state house, and jailhouse and even more far reaching, the history of America. Again it's nothing like any other of Faulkner's other novels.
February 26, 2025
Dilemas morales, un pasado regurgitante y decisiones radicales, son las señas que se encuentran en Réquiem por una mujer del estadounidense William Faulkner, ganador del premio Nobel de literatura de 1949.
Mediante una desbordante narración acerca de la historia de las instituciones y los eventos que dieron forma y fondo a Jefferson y al condado de Yoknapatawpha, ejercicio de revisión que sostiene a la estructura teatral que soporta a los diálogos y acciones de los personajes, Réquiem por una mujer, retomando eventos sucedidos anteriormente en la novela Santuario del mismo autor, toma como punto de no retorno el asesinato de una niña con meses de vida por una empleada doméstica afrodescendiente, con el objetivo de disparar confesiones, revisiones y reflexiones que examinan los significados que se le otorgan a la verdad, la expiación y la culpa.
Una novela en donde no puedes perderte de ninguna coma por el enrevesado e hipnótico estilo con que Faulkner te transporta al pasado primigenio de los eventos narrados en Réquiem por una mujer, los que contienen a personajes profundamente atribulados por la culpa y el pasado condenatorio que forma parte de sus vidas, todo observado por la imperturbable presencia atemporal de las instituciones que han visto nacer, crecer y morir a los humanos que han alojado en ellas las creencias e ideas concernientes al tiempo que les toca vivir.
Personalmente he quedado con ganas de leer más a Faulkner. Un autor sumamente interesante, tanto en estilo como contenido.
Mediante una desbordante narración acerca de la historia de las instituciones y los eventos que dieron forma y fondo a Jefferson y al condado de Yoknapatawpha, ejercicio de revisión que sostiene a la estructura teatral que soporta a los diálogos y acciones de los personajes, Réquiem por una mujer, retomando eventos sucedidos anteriormente en la novela Santuario del mismo autor, toma como punto de no retorno el asesinato de una niña con meses de vida por una empleada doméstica afrodescendiente, con el objetivo de disparar confesiones, revisiones y reflexiones que examinan los significados que se le otorgan a la verdad, la expiación y la culpa.
Una novela en donde no puedes perderte de ninguna coma por el enrevesado e hipnótico estilo con que Faulkner te transporta al pasado primigenio de los eventos narrados en Réquiem por una mujer, los que contienen a personajes profundamente atribulados por la culpa y el pasado condenatorio que forma parte de sus vidas, todo observado por la imperturbable presencia atemporal de las instituciones que han visto nacer, crecer y morir a los humanos que han alojado en ellas las creencias e ideas concernientes al tiempo que les toca vivir.
Personalmente he quedado con ganas de leer más a Faulkner. Un autor sumamente interesante, tanto en estilo como contenido.
October 5, 2014
Четенето на Фокнър винаги леко ме обърква - залагането на дълги, протяжни, безкрайни изречения, които започват от една точка, а завършват толкова далече; препратките към различни времена, събития и произведения; на моменти небрежното и нехайно отношение към повествованието, което отвъд повърхността всъщност следва желязна логика.
И на фона на всичко това - жестоки, морални, винаги актуални въпроси за вината, греха и спасението, тяхното зараждане, начинът, по който предопределят и живота на човека, и смъртта му.
И на фона на всичко това - жестоки, морални, винаги актуални въпроси за вината, греха и спасението, тяхното зараждане, начинът, по който предопределят и живота на човека, и смъртта му.
January 27, 2013
Critic Kenneth Tynan has the first - and last - word on this undramatized bosherie. Faulkner wrote the pulp "Sanctuary" for $$ (which he admits) and years later this igloo-quel on the human condition (god help us) out of guilt, maybe ?
Tynan finds it a bollocks of "turgid statements" w "stammering paradoxes." The infanticide therein is "profoundly unreal, if not inhuman," he adds. Trivia: Insiders giggle that Faulkner gave the play 'rights' to onetime sweetpoo and terrible actress Ruth Ford. Which explains why she played it for a few sad weeks on Bwy. That Ford is an Edsel.
Tynan finds it a bollocks of "turgid statements" w "stammering paradoxes." The infanticide therein is "profoundly unreal, if not inhuman," he adds. Trivia: Insiders giggle that Faulkner gave the play 'rights' to onetime sweetpoo and terrible actress Ruth Ford. Which explains why she played it for a few sad weeks on Bwy. That Ford is an Edsel.
August 5, 2024
Requiem for a Nun includes one of the finest stretches of prose in Faulkner's register being blanketed as stage directions; it records the birth of existence beautifully but totally out of place which is so on-brand for a man whose genius is an anachronism in any epoch. The content of the play is too reliant on its prequel, which it also does very little to advance the original ideas of. It is not so much a sequel as it is a coda to Sanctuary, which is one of Faulkner's more traditionally exciting books. It is a successful experiment in structure, if nothing else.
May 6, 2024
بریده ای از کتاب رکوئیم برای یک راهبه نوشته ویلیام فاکنر : «وقتی گاوین و تمپل به دیدار فرماندار میروند، هدف گاوین اصلا نجات جان نانسی نیست، او میخواهد تمپل را مجبور کند از گذشتهاش حرف بزند و آن را به صورت متفاوتی درک کند، و شجاعت زندگی به عنوان خانم گوان استیونس را پیدا کند. »
October 29, 2015
Interspersing typically Faulknerian stretches of prose (told in three Acts, the prose sections are all one sentence lasting anywhere from 10-50 pages - yes, one sentence) with dramatic sections written for the stage, this sequel to Sanctuary focuses on the consequences of Temple Drake's actions. She in fact enjoys what she did in the previous book and in one of the few passages in all of Faulkner's work to directly reference religion, both Nancy the accused murderess and Temple muse on why God allows people to suffer and tempts them with sinful choices.
Most powerful and important are the interspersed prose sections which detail the history of the town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County, in essence the prequel to all of Faulkner's fictional work. While not the most important of Faulkner's works, it is is essential for a Faulkner enthusiast as well as a truly devoted reader of his work for the details it adds to our understanding to his fictional mise-en-scene. Always worth the effort with Faulkner.
Most powerful and important are the interspersed prose sections which detail the history of the town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County, in essence the prequel to all of Faulkner's fictional work. While not the most important of Faulkner's works, it is is essential for a Faulkner enthusiast as well as a truly devoted reader of his work for the details it adds to our understanding to his fictional mise-en-scene. Always worth the effort with Faulkner.
February 7, 2013
La storia della contea di Yokpanatawna, con le sue poetiche descrizioni è inframezzata dal dialogo teatrale, quasi un seguito di Santuario.
Ora capisco perché ne fanno un maestro di McCarthy, effettivamente ci vedo anche i prodromi di "Sunset Limited" nel bel dialogo finale tra la bianca e la nera che discutono sulla vita, la morte, la redenzione, il dolore.
Ora capisco perché ne fanno un maestro di McCarthy, effettivamente ci vedo anche i prodromi di "Sunset Limited" nel bel dialogo finale tra la bianca e la nera che discutono sulla vita, la morte, la redenzione, il dolore.
January 21, 2024
The sequel to Sanctuary. Dark. Full of post Civil War southern pschopathology.
Not sure about the experimental form, alternating wonderful prose expositions of the birth of the town of Jefferson - the Courthouse, the Golden Dome, the Jail - with the story as a 3 act play.
Let's just say Faulkner has a very dark view of the European colonization and rape of the continent.
Not sure about the experimental form, alternating wonderful prose expositions of the birth of the town of Jefferson - the Courthouse, the Golden Dome, the Jail - with the story as a 3 act play.
Let's just say Faulkner has a very dark view of the European colonization and rape of the continent.
May 18, 2011
Stevens living-room, 6:00 P.M.
A center table with a lamp, chairs, sofa left rear, floor-lamp, wall-bracket lamps. The atmosphere of the room is up-to-date but has the air of another time – the high ceiling and cornices indicate an ante-bellum house, perhaps inherited from a spinster aunt.
Sound of feet, then the door L opens and Temple enters. Her air is brittle and tense. She reaches for a cigarette on a side table and nervously lights it.
TEMPLE
The best thing I can say is that it was over quickly.
Gavin Stevens follows her into the room. He is a small town lawyer in his 40s.
STEVENS
First I will dispense with the play: it seems as though Faulkner
wanted to finish a few thoughts on “Sanctuary” and couldn’t
come up with any other way –
TEMPLE (tightening rather than relaxing with
each drag on her cigarette)
Yes...I would rate the play a '2' and the prose section a '4'...
STEVENS
-- unlike his Compson appendix which added to the family
history before and after “The Sound and the Fury” and was
further embellished with a humorous chapter in “The Mansion”
concerning Jason and the land that had been the golf course
that had been part of Compson mile…
The lights go completely down.
At this time in his career Faulkner began thinking about the overarching themes of his work and the mythology of his fictional world so the prose sections of “Requiem” are quite good and justifiably included in the revised “Portable Faulkner” although it is a bit confounding at first to read 30 pages that are superficially about a padlock, it is ultimately rewarding after one realizes that Faulkner has taken a unique approach to discuss how civilization takes root through the objects and actions that, when taken alone, have little meaning, but when seen in a broad context can carry the significance of history marching silently into the town that never had time to even be a village before it needed a jail and a courthouse and a town square that would be burned and rebuilt soon enough in the Battle of Jefferson, the vainglorious memory of which could cause the oldest ladies attending a screening of “Gone With the Wind” to walk out in the middle of the picture and into a city transformed by the automobile which had been banned so unsuccessfully by Colonel Sartoris (not the real Colonel who built the railroad with the man who would later shoot him, but his son Old Bayard who inherited the title and who was the only male in his tragic family line who had no war to get himself killed or decorated in, it wouldn’t have mattered which) that one of the first residents to own an automobile, Manfred de Spain, became mayor almost for the very fact that he looked grand behind the wheel;
And then another 35 pages discussing the jail and the girl who was sometimes blonde and sometimes brunette who carved her name in the window of the jail who was based on a real girl whose name Faulkner had seen carved in a window in an article I read once about a family whose ledgers had inspired Faulkner to write the famed Chapter 4 of “The Bear” in “Go Down Moses”; and I don’t think it is proper to write run-on sentences and end them with a semicolon at a paragraph break, I think it’s a bit of a cheat and that’s why I prefer listen to Faulkner on audiobook, if only this had been available on audio which it probably never will as it’s considered a minor work even though there is some major writing within it; still I would recommend tracking down “The Courthouse” and “The Jail” in the “Portable Faulkner” and that should be enough to satisfy you and even if you have loved Temple Drake in “Sanctuary” there is nothing of interest for you in the play sections of this book.
A center table with a lamp, chairs, sofa left rear, floor-lamp, wall-bracket lamps. The atmosphere of the room is up-to-date but has the air of another time – the high ceiling and cornices indicate an ante-bellum house, perhaps inherited from a spinster aunt.
Sound of feet, then the door L opens and Temple enters. Her air is brittle and tense. She reaches for a cigarette on a side table and nervously lights it.
TEMPLE
The best thing I can say is that it was over quickly.
Gavin Stevens follows her into the room. He is a small town lawyer in his 40s.
STEVENS
First I will dispense with the play: it seems as though Faulkner
wanted to finish a few thoughts on “Sanctuary” and couldn’t
come up with any other way –
TEMPLE (tightening rather than relaxing with
each drag on her cigarette)
Yes...I would rate the play a '2' and the prose section a '4'...
STEVENS
-- unlike his Compson appendix which added to the family
history before and after “The Sound and the Fury” and was
further embellished with a humorous chapter in “The Mansion”
concerning Jason and the land that had been the golf course
that had been part of Compson mile…
The lights go completely down.
At this time in his career Faulkner began thinking about the overarching themes of his work and the mythology of his fictional world so the prose sections of “Requiem” are quite good and justifiably included in the revised “Portable Faulkner” although it is a bit confounding at first to read 30 pages that are superficially about a padlock, it is ultimately rewarding after one realizes that Faulkner has taken a unique approach to discuss how civilization takes root through the objects and actions that, when taken alone, have little meaning, but when seen in a broad context can carry the significance of history marching silently into the town that never had time to even be a village before it needed a jail and a courthouse and a town square that would be burned and rebuilt soon enough in the Battle of Jefferson, the vainglorious memory of which could cause the oldest ladies attending a screening of “Gone With the Wind” to walk out in the middle of the picture and into a city transformed by the automobile which had been banned so unsuccessfully by Colonel Sartoris (not the real Colonel who built the railroad with the man who would later shoot him, but his son Old Bayard who inherited the title and who was the only male in his tragic family line who had no war to get himself killed or decorated in, it wouldn’t have mattered which) that one of the first residents to own an automobile, Manfred de Spain, became mayor almost for the very fact that he looked grand behind the wheel;
And then another 35 pages discussing the jail and the girl who was sometimes blonde and sometimes brunette who carved her name in the window of the jail who was based on a real girl whose name Faulkner had seen carved in a window in an article I read once about a family whose ledgers had inspired Faulkner to write the famed Chapter 4 of “The Bear” in “Go Down Moses”; and I don’t think it is proper to write run-on sentences and end them with a semicolon at a paragraph break, I think it’s a bit of a cheat and that’s why I prefer listen to Faulkner on audiobook, if only this had been available on audio which it probably never will as it’s considered a minor work even though there is some major writing within it; still I would recommend tracking down “The Courthouse” and “The Jail” in the “Portable Faulkner” and that should be enough to satisfy you and even if you have loved Temple Drake in “Sanctuary” there is nothing of interest for you in the play sections of this book.
March 15, 2021
Though this is one of William Faulkner's least successful late career experiments (and certainly so as a sequel to Sanctuary), it is also among his richest and most audacious -- perhaps, barring that behemoth A Fable, the last of its kind. The structure, style, themes, and writing are all a moiling, morphing mess of ideas, innovation, and sustained hope and sorrow. "Act Two" drags; but even that dragging is worth just the image, sketched in Intruder in the Dust and explored in "Act Three," of the scratched name and date on the foggy window, or the genealogy of Jefferson that Faulkner unravels in "Act One:" before the city was the town, before the town was the courthouse, and before the courthouse was the jail -- before the jail was the archive -- and before the archive was the lock, enclosing nothing and disappearing into nothing.
May 28, 2019
Un romanzo diviso in tre atti e, per larghi tratti, strutturato come un dramma teatrale.
Una storia multipla, quasi frattale, che parte dalle vicende di Nancy Mannigoe e del suo orribile delitto, passa a quella di una contea immaginaria e di una nazione nata sulle ceneri della guerra di secessione, per arrivare a tratteggiare il destino dell'umanità intera, col suo insensato avanzare privo di direzione: un ribollire scambiato per un movimento, un movimento scambiato per progresso
Una scrittura turbinosa e virtuosistica che avvinghia il lettore nelle sue spire, costringendolo spesso a ripercorrere a ritroso le pagine per trovare un bandolo nelle frasi lunghissime e piene di incisi. D'altronde stiamo parlando di uno scrittore che, a quanto si narra, quando gli chiesero cosa poteva dire ai lettori che si lamentavano di non averlo capito dopo aver letto i suoi romanzo due o tre volte, rispose di leggerli una quarta volta.
Una storia multipla, quasi frattale, che parte dalle vicende di Nancy Mannigoe e del suo orribile delitto, passa a quella di una contea immaginaria e di una nazione nata sulle ceneri della guerra di secessione, per arrivare a tratteggiare il destino dell'umanità intera, col suo insensato avanzare privo di direzione: un ribollire scambiato per un movimento, un movimento scambiato per progresso
Una scrittura turbinosa e virtuosistica che avvinghia il lettore nelle sue spire, costringendolo spesso a ripercorrere a ritroso le pagine per trovare un bandolo nelle frasi lunghissime e piene di incisi. D'altronde stiamo parlando di uno scrittore che, a quanto si narra, quando gli chiesero cosa poteva dire ai lettori che si lamentavano di non averlo capito dopo aver letto i suoi romanzo due o tre volte, rispose di leggerli una quarta volta.
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