Faulkner's Horror Story

Sanctuary was both horrifying and oddly engrossing to read. I think of all the books we've read so far, this one could translate the best into film (which I just read that it did, in 1933's "The Story of Temple Drake"). The images that came to mind as I was reading, especially when there was dialogue, was a sort of 1940s cross between a film noir and the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird." Though it presented itself the most vividly in my mind's eye, Sanctuary did feel a bit lazier, at least in terms of prose style, than The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying. Just as I got tired of hearing about Margaret Power's "red scar" of a mouth and Januarius Jones's "yellow goat eyes" in Soldiers' Pay, so I got tired of hearing about how thin Temple Drake is or how implacable Narcissa is. I like to judge a book by whether or not it feels like I'm reading, whether or not I have to trudge through syntactical mud or whether I glide effortlessly. This seeming inattention to the words he was choosing made me trudge through some serious mire, instead of just absorbing myself completely in the story.

That small criticism being said, I really enjoyed the novel. Well, maybe "enjoy" isn't the right word for it...the world Faulkner creates in Sanctuary is filled with vices and abysses: rape, alcoholism, murder, prostitution, poverty, hatred, revenge, cowardice. Even the infant son of the Goodwins seems unable to find anything to live for, as he lays inert and unresponsive in his mother's arms, rarely lifting his "lead-colored" eyelids. As we've seen grow more prevalent in the previous couple of novels, Faulkner shies away from creating any absolute heroes out of his characters: yes, Horace Benbow does seem to be pulling an Atticus Finch in his defense of Goodwin, but he has just left his wife and child and is hiding out with his sister (whom he had incestuous feelings towards in an earlier draft of the novel). Certainly not a Donald Mahon. The only truly good character we see is Tommy, the bare-foot, simple-minded protector of Temple who suffers the wrath of Popeye (question: is Popeye black?).

I found an article in The New York Times about Sanctuary, in which the writer shared something Faulkner had once said to him: ''It is my ambition to be, as an individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books. ... It is my aim and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: He wrote the books and he died."

After reading this absolutely horrific and depressing, yet incredibly well-written, novel, I'm left wondering, "What part of Faulkner is Sanctuary supposed to come from?" I have read a good deal of Faulkner, outside this class and for it, and I never realized how far into the darkest recesses of the human nature he was able to delve until opening this novel. I feel like he was able to exorcise some real demons with this one, perhaps even more so than The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying.