Sanctuary (Vintage International) (original 1931; edition 1993)

I found myself at sea a number of times when reading this book. Apart from whatever limitations I, as a reader brought to the book, I think there were two main reasons for my periodic puzzlement. One was the use of contemporary colloquial expressions from the early thirties, ones I couldn’t make out, and the other challenge arose from the structure Faulkner uses, not always going forwards in time (as well as not always immediately identifying which character he is writing about). So, we have Horace Benbow at his sister’s house near Jefferson at the start of Chapter 3 and then, some twelve chapters later, at the start of Chapter 15, we find Benbow turning up at his sister’s house!

It’s certainly a grim book. Published six years after Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, it seems to come really a long time earlier. It reminds me of aspects of a couple of films: ‘Straw Dogs’ and ‘Deliverance’ where people unexpectedly end up in nightmarish situations attacked by fringe dwellers. While Popeye is clearly a dangerously criminal character from his first appearance with his eyes introduced as ‘two knobs of soft black rubber’ and his appearance giving him ‘that vicious depthless quality of stamped tin’, it becomes apparent that there are no benevolent counterparts to this epitome of all that is senseless evil in this man. Benbow is weak and disturbingly sexually attracted to his step-daughter whom he thinks about after he hears from Temple about her sexual molestation and then we don’t feel sympathy for this victim who’s characterised as someone provoking Popeye, then always looking at herself in her compact mirror and then committing perjury leading to the wrongful conviction of Goodwin.

Even the language is untempered – no apostrophes and lots of only semi-comprehensible dialogue from the damaged characters. Clearly Faulkner set out to paint a damning picture of mankind, something he does effectively with the nightmarish tone. Fortunately, I found it over the top --- right from the start when Popeye and Benbow keep looking at each other across the spring for over two hours before they walk off together – and this is after Benbow thinks Popeye is going to kill him. As I said, it’s not clear how one thing leads to the next quite often – the reader is just given that sense of inevitable decline. ( )

Apparently this was pretty controversial when it was published in 1931 because of its subjects of kidnapping and rape. I can see why.

It reminded me of a Cormac McCarthy book with more description. This isn't a positive thing, for me. There were almost no characters in Sanctuary with any redeeming qualities, and the one that did exist was only there to be the receptacle of cruelty and injustice. And the "victim" of the aforementioned kidnapping, etc., isn't even the one I'm talking about. All-around ugly. ( )

I began reading this book on June 17, 1951, and my sole comment on it that day in my journal was: "Cripes, Faulkner reads just like Erskine Caldwell." My comment on June 18, 1951, was "Reading in Sanctuary--if that is Miss.----cripes." On June 19, 1951: "Finished Sanctuary . Erskine Caldwell has nothing on Faulkner. Cripes--corn cob and all! The book was all about Popeye and this girl, Temple Drake, and Horace, the lawyer's, effort to save Lee from being convicted of a murder Popeye committed. Both die, Popeye for a murder he didn't commit, too. ( )

Novel rich in content, written in the style of pulp fiction, about female sexuality, racism, and perversion in the American South of the twenties.

Faulkner is a master of finding a narrative style that makes the reader feel like the protagonist (or narrator of the moment) feels. In Sanctuary when they are at the moonshiners' house it is confusing and foreboding not because Faulkner can't write or because he is being obscurant, but because that's how Temple Drake feels. She feels the danger, but she doesn't know where it is coming from. Faulkner can be difficult to read if you expect an omniscent view, or want to know what is going on at all times, but if you trust him he can really give you the subjective feel of his theme. ( )