Evil Under The Sun

William Faulkner's "Sanctuary" is a novel that will shock you, through its violence and language.Even after 80 odd years this tale of murder and sex is powerful enough to disturb and lingers long in the mind.Even though it is well read by Stephen Hoye,at times it can be a difficult listen.A Greek Tragedy,set in the Deep South !

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?Evil has its logic too? ? no comfort read

Approached forward from ?As I Lay Dying? and backward from Cormac McCarthy?s ?No Country For Old Men,? nothing really prepared me for ?Sanctuary.?
Scouring the internet for reviews, the only thing I got was a hysterical liken to Tobe Hooper?s ?Texas Chainsaw Massacre? ? which is plainly nonsense. Be warned, however, there is still an ?if you dare? quality to this book which belies its 1931 publication date.
Sanctuary lies at the fountainhead of the Southern Gothic genre and, had the reviewer seen Tracey Letts? stage play ?Killer Joe? which I saw when it exploded onto London?s West End for a short controversial run in the mid 1990s, then I?m sure I?d have applauded the comparison and somewhat tempered my approach in heeding the warning.
Language and stereotyping are important weapons in a culture and it is important to assert that what passes in ?Sanctuary? reflects rather than endorses that unctuous Southern Aristocracy. The words and descriptions are all here bringing an immediate dissonance that may have you throwing down the book in disgust.
But it is the milieu familiarly of Cormac McCarthy and, perhaps - not so familiarly of John Steinbeck and, I?d suggest, Quentin Tarrantino. In fact, the narrative structure of Sanctuary and the venal central cast seems to perfectly inform Tarrantino?s filmic work.
You have to view the whole from its completion and be prepared to work hard, put your sensitivities to one side and complete the catharsis before coming out of this Grecian tragedy into the bright sunny day of the rainy 6th arrondissement of Temple Drake?s ?Paris with Daddy.?

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