Sanctuary

By: William Faulkner

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

A powerful novel examining the nature of evil, informed by the works of T. S. Eliot and Freud, mythology, local lore, and hard-boiled detective fiction, Sanctuary is the dark, at times brutal, story of the kidnapping of Mississippi debutante Temple Drake. She introduces her own form of venality into the Memphis underworld where she is being held.

©1958 William Faulkner (P)2005 Random House, Inc.

Irony of the Old South

Faulkner is the bard of the post Civil War South. No one can weave a tale like him. Possibly Americas greatest.

Sanctuary

Took me 3 weeks--read alone leisurely w novel shall reread again. Love Faulkner. Xo Xo

Not for everyone

Faulkner's way with words is not for everyone, and the coarse sexual abuse is graphic even by todays standard; and easy to imagine the controversy cause by the corncob in the 1930's. This isn't my favorite Faulkner story and not one I'd recommend to anyone but a serious reader of Faulkner.

Loved the reader!

Where does Sanctuary rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

A memorable listening experience. I found myself rewinding and listening repeatedly to passages. The prose is so rich that with each re-listen, more details emerge.

What other book might you compare Sanctuary to and why?

I have also listened to and loved Absalom, Absalom!, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August. I preferred Sanctuary to Light in August, but do not consider Sanctuary as brilliant as Absalom or Sound.

What does Stephen Hoye bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I must disagree with fellow readers who did not like Hoye's interpretations of the book's many Southern dialects. Hoye's voice sounds very similar to Faulkner's own inflections as heard in his Nobel speech. I also thought Hoye brought realism and authenticity to the range of voices in the novel which span the social classes--from the Memphis Madam, Miss Reba, to Horace Benbow's gentrified drawl, to the hillbilly twang of the bootleggers

Terrific.

This a relatively overlooked masterpiece. Supposedly more "commercial" than many of his later works, Faulkner tells a chilling story.

Possibly inflated rating from big Faulkner fan

Faulkner’s first commercial success tells of the rape and kidnapping of Temple Drake—a slight, coy “Ol’ Miss” student—the crime she witnesses, and the sordid aftermath of both. To help his wronged client and his family, lawyer Horace Benbow tries to discover Temple's whereabouts, all while under suspicion himself. While not Faulkner’s best work, it has merit belying his claim that it was a potboiler written merely for profit, as its sensational features are outshone by the craftsmanship involved in depicting different types and shades of moral degradation expressed through memorable characters as well as small groups and mobs. Stephen Hoye’s narration has an elegiac quality that implies that something is being lost with each sentence’s slow unfolding. This often suits a text that renders so much actual and perceived loss, but not always; it seems an inappropriate way to read, for instance, a description of a table being set. The Southern dialect was believable (to this ignorant Northerner, anyway), and most characters were differentiated adequately, though failure to modulate pitch at times caused confusion.

Painful

Not Faulkner's best by a long shot, but the book is better than the narrator allows it to be. The effect is similar to that of having a mosquito at your ear while you are trying to sleep. . . .

Performance

Compared to other interpretations of Faulkner's novels, this reader fell short. Boring. Only the great story written by Faulkner, with a life of its own stood up for itself.

great read

I lived it. The narrator was superb and reading this book reminds me of my pa.

Dark and unrelenting

This the darkest Faulkner I have read. I can't say I enjoyed it very much. I fear it is much more true to life than I would like to think. definitely no happy ending.