Sanctuary [Paperback]

Although not major Faulkner, it is still Faulkner, and is definitely worth reading. It is set in Yoknapatawpha county, and features many characters who either appear in other books or whose relatives appear in other books. Furthermore, the key female character in the book, Temple Drake, reappears as the major character in REQUIEM FOR A NUN, written twenty years after this one. While I do not rate this anywhere nearly as highly as many of his other books, being something of an oddity, it is nonetheless absolutely not a waste of time. While there are many sensationalist elements, there are still many magnificent sentences that read more like poetry than prose, and many of the characters are memorable.

If one is wanting to read only one or two books by Faulkner, I would not recommend this one. I would recommend instead AS I LAY DYING or, if one is feeling more ambitious, ABSALOM, ABSALOM. But if one is planning on reading all of the major works of Faulkner, then this is a book one should not skip. Minor Faulkner is better than the major works of many other writers.

SANCTUARY is not an easy book. You'll find yourself, if you're like me, rereading passages to understand exactly what's going on. The characters, though precisely described, can be difficult to picture in your mind, especially as we move further away from the Jazz Age, with its unusual expressions, costume, and mores. Imagine Tennessee and Mississippi when cars were relatively new to the roads, when the various social strata -- some wearing suits, some overalls -- began mixing together more easily. Imagine being a teenage girl acting as a woman trapped in a moonshiner's shack, far away from the protection of her home, encountering men like creatures in a horrific play who drink liquor and watch her lie under the covers, her only protector passed out beside her.

Faulkner's reintroduced introduction is a godsend that will help you decipher the book somewhat. The editor's notes at the end of the book will help you understand much of the jargon and the motivation of the characters.

A good read in any age.

It's prohibition, and business is good for moonshiners like Lee Goodwin, living in a large but decrepit antebellum house with his "wife" Ruby and baby son, who is kept in a box hidden behind the stove to protect him from rats. Goodwin, while not a bad man himself, associates with a number of hoodlums, including a sympathetic young man named Tommy and a cruel cretin called Popeye who harbors a nasty secret about his past and his libido.

One night, a drunk named Gowan Stevens and his girlfriend Temple Drake, the privileged daughter of a judge in Jackson and a college girl with a wild side, get into a car accident and end up spending the night at Goodwin's house, where Gowan had been planning to buy some whiskey. Temple, warned by Ruby that the house is no place for a girl like her, and abandoned by Gowan the next day, finds herself in a nightmarish predicament when Popeye brutally robs her of whatever innocence she had, drives her to Memphis, and puts her up at a cathouse fronting as a respectable hotel, run by a careworn but charitable madam named Miss Reba.

But Popeye and Temple have to answer for the murder of Tommy, who was shot around the time they left. Goodwin gets arrested, and a friendly lawyer named Horace Benbow, himself on vacation from his nagging wife, decides to defend him at the trial. This leads to some detective work to find Temple, who is being held prisoner by Popeye in that Memphis hotel and would provide valuable witness testimony. The manner in which Benbow manages to do this proves Faulkner's skill in characterization, as he employs two members of the infamous Snopes family to comic as well as narrative effect.

"Sanctuary" has two very memorable morbid, but poetic, images: the first involving Flaubert's doomed Madame Bovary, of all people; and the second describing a funeral for a small-time hoodlum that is transformed into a bacchanalian celebration by the fatalistic sensibilities of the Memphis underworld. This is a scene which could be conjured only by a William Faulkner (or a Nathanael West).

This novel is an odd brew. It feels messy yet still exhibits an unquestionable professionalism; its characters are grotesque but all the more interesting because of it. Faulkner's writing is never explicit; you must be attentive to clues and details because you'll be expected to piece together the puzzle later. This is the main challenge confronting his readers, but understanding Faulkner means being willing to accept this challenge.