Sanctuary (1931)

Summary

Paul H. Bixler. “In Sanctuary Wm. Faulkner Plumbs the Depths of Horrors.” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 7, 1931, Amusement Section, p. 16.

“He writes like an angel,” said Arnold Bennett of William Faulkner. Presumably when the late lamented author of Clayhanger penned that compliment, he was thinking of style. Certain it is that when one considers content, the stuff of which Faulkner's stories are made, the young American is better described as writing like a devil.

Faulkner is interested in evil unadulterated. In Sanctuary, his last published novel but the first that has been at all widely read, out of a dozen or more carefully delineated characters only one approaches the normal; with each of the others there is something psychically wrong. The result is error heaped on error, perversion on perversion. The book is one long tattoo of horror. Were it not continued incessantly for 380 pages, the author's performance would be completely effective. As it is, some time before the end occurs, the reader is stunned and insensible from too many blows on his spinal column. The story is too much of an evil thing.

Sanctuary, though published the most recently, is not its author's last novel, incidentally. Its appearance in print was held up by the publishers until As I Lay Dying, Faulkner's own favorite among his longer works, was written and published.

These remarks, I hope, will not prevent anyone from reading the book. For six years now Faulkner has been the most gifted novelist writing in the United States. Too few people interested in good writing and in American literature have known this fact.