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William Faulkner's Sanctuary
A collection of critical essays on Faulkner's "Sanctuary" arranged in chronological order of their original publication
160 pages, Library Binding
First published July 1, 1954
About the author
William Faulkner
1,561 books11.3k 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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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 19, 2015
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 25, 2013
Christ, I love Faulkner. The story of Temple Drake is nominally central but really just prelude for Faulkner to expand on the town of Jefferson and its history---in fact, I don't think I've seen such clear explanation outside of Absolom, and possibly not even there. (Although the figure of Sutpen and his mysterious architect are shrouded more in suggestion, here.)
July 30, 2025
couldnt finish hard to follow
July 31, 2023
Dreadfully boring and predictable.
October 22, 2015
I've wanted to read this one for a while-- the book Faulkner later characterized as a potboiler and one kids in the smart set place in the line of female captivity narratives like Mary Rowlandson's book. I'm teaching a Faulkner class this semester, so it seemed as good a time as an.
I don't think it's as good or bad as reports made me suspect. I found Horace Benbow, as an archetypal put-upon white idealist, a kind of proto-Atticus Finch, a bit rubbish, though I don't think I was supposed to. Other parts of the story, though-- Temple's story, and seeing Faulkner think about kids in college, and women, and most of the elements of the bootlegging and rape storyline, were pretty good. Up to a point.
I do think the third act of this story, from when Popeye kills Red through the end of the book, is kind of random and unsatisfying. It infects the Benbow storyline as well, sadly. It's this last act that supports Faulkner's conclusion that it's a potboiler-- like he didn't know how to end it, and what he came up with really compromised the pattern as a whole.
Some great writing here, natch, as well as another character who looks like he's cut from depthless tin.
REquiem for a Nun, the follow-up that Faulkner wrote twenty years later has some weirdness going for it. Ostensibly a play that returns to the character of Temple Drake and her feckless date, Gowan Stevens, eight years later, it also features Nancy, from Faulkner's 1938 story "That Evening Sun" (though not really-- she'd be about seventy here, but she's the same age, give or take, that she was in the story, set a half-century before. But whatever-- I love Nancy, and I'm glad to see her back.) The dramatic material is maybe the weaker material here, as Faulkner tries to animate some sub-Albee-esque stuff about sacrifice and forgiveness and blah blah blah. It's weird because the dialogue actually probably sounds pretty good-- but the content is really not interesting or plausible.
But as unneeded apparatus around that dialogue, Faulkner tells us the history of Jefferson (and a little about Jackson), which is kind of a trip. It's true that by the end of the story, there's a troubling amount of Lost Cause bullshit, enough to make me wonder if its recycled from _Flags of Our Fathers_ or whatever _Sartoris_ was called. But when it's good, it's really good, especially in the rambling and digressive bits that precede act one, scene one. So, an idiosyncratic read, and probably it doesn't work at all the way it should-- I pity the fool who had to make a movie out of this material-- but there's a lot here to like.
I don't think it's as good or bad as reports made me suspect. I found Horace Benbow, as an archetypal put-upon white idealist, a kind of proto-Atticus Finch, a bit rubbish, though I don't think I was supposed to. Other parts of the story, though-- Temple's story, and seeing Faulkner think about kids in college, and women, and most of the elements of the bootlegging and rape storyline, were pretty good. Up to a point.
I do think the third act of this story, from when Popeye kills Red through the end of the book, is kind of random and unsatisfying. It infects the Benbow storyline as well, sadly. It's this last act that supports Faulkner's conclusion that it's a potboiler-- like he didn't know how to end it, and what he came up with really compromised the pattern as a whole.
Some great writing here, natch, as well as another character who looks like he's cut from depthless tin.
REquiem for a Nun, the follow-up that Faulkner wrote twenty years later has some weirdness going for it. Ostensibly a play that returns to the character of Temple Drake and her feckless date, Gowan Stevens, eight years later, it also features Nancy, from Faulkner's 1938 story "That Evening Sun" (though not really-- she'd be about seventy here, but she's the same age, give or take, that she was in the story, set a half-century before. But whatever-- I love Nancy, and I'm glad to see her back.) The dramatic material is maybe the weaker material here, as Faulkner tries to animate some sub-Albee-esque stuff about sacrifice and forgiveness and blah blah blah. It's weird because the dialogue actually probably sounds pretty good-- but the content is really not interesting or plausible.
But as unneeded apparatus around that dialogue, Faulkner tells us the history of Jefferson (and a little about Jackson), which is kind of a trip. It's true that by the end of the story, there's a troubling amount of Lost Cause bullshit, enough to make me wonder if its recycled from _Flags of Our Fathers_ or whatever _Sartoris_ was called. But when it's good, it's really good, especially in the rambling and digressive bits that precede act one, scene one. So, an idiosyncratic read, and probably it doesn't work at all the way it should-- I pity the fool who had to make a movie out of this material-- but there's a lot here to like.
February 3, 2014
Shelving requiem for another day
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews