Customer Reviews

Requiem for a Nun

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Eight years ago Temple Drake, a privileged young Mississippi debutante, hopped off the back of a train to spend the afternoon with a young man and his motor car. It was a terrible mistake. Her date, Gowan Stevens, drank rather more than he could handle and abandoned his nubile protégée in a remote house crawling with Memphis gangsters. One sexual assault and one murder later, Temple found herself in residence at a Memphis brothel under the tutelage of the monstrous psychopath Popeye. But it wasn't all bad news: not only did Temple have access to funds sufficient to buy the very latest fashions, but she found love with a dashing local thug named Red. By the time she was liberated from her captivity, it was far from clear that she preferred the chaste comforts of home to the meretricious charms of Gayoso Street. Naturally, Temple's adventure caused quite a stir in little Jefferson, Mississippi. But Gowan Stevens, a southern gentlemen born and bred, stepped in to assuage his own sense of guilt and rescue Temple's honour by marrying her, thereby giving them both the chance to put their past behind them.

But "the past is never dead. It's not even past." Worse, "everyone must, or anyway may have to, pay for your past; that past is something like a promissory note with a trick clause in it which, as long as nothing goes wrong, can be manumitted in an orderly manner, but which fate or luck or chance, can foreclose on you without warning". And the past sure has caught up with Mrs Gowan Stevens: her infant daughter has been murdered by her black nurse Nancy, and it appears that Temple is somehow deeply implicated in the crime. `Requiem for a Nun' is about Temple's attempts to confront her responsibility for the concatenation of sin generated by her decision to jump off the back of a train eight years ago, and her desperate search for atonement. But the salvation available to Nancy, who goes to the gallows at peace with her Maker, is denied to Temple. Indeed, it seems the best most of us can do is to accept our moral responsibility for our sins and their consequences and suffer accordingly. If there's a point to anybody's suffering, it's encapsulation by a tendentious reading of a biblical phrase: "suffer little children to come unto Me". Not "permit" little children, but suffer yourself, that they might be "intact, unanguished, untorn, unterrified". It is this injunction that Temple has violated and, paradoxically, it is on this principle that Nancy commits her ghastly crime.

Ignore the numpty reviewers on this page. 'Requiem for a Nun' is as accessible as it is philosophically profound. Tell your friends about it today.

Nancy, a negro servant, redeemed from the gutter by Temple Drake, murders her mistresses baby. Only Nancy and Temple know why,and Temple once again tries to redeem herself by saving Nancy from her fate.
The modern day thread is written in the form of a stage play, whilst this is interwoven with the ebb and flow of history and its monuments,legends and flotsam.
I've always hated James Joyce.I can appreciate his influence, but I've always felt other writers were better at being James Joyce than James Joyce himself was. And one of those-better by far-is William Faulkner.
He always admitted his debt to Joyce, and has turned Joyces style to build up a strong image of the influences of nature and history in the deep south; emphasising how our past always carries with it a promissory note that fate can choose to foreclose on at any time and demand payment in full-particularily resonant in the south- and how we all suffer like Christ on his cross for the sins we commit and for those of our fathers.

No, not Faulkners greatest work, it was written towards the end of his career, but there is enough of his genius in this work (The Jail I particularly enjoyed) that you come out the other end a bit wiser; knowing that the history and progress Faulkner wrote about is still relentlessly carrying on; never knowing when fate will produce a promissory for redemption!

I'm gonna make this review short. If you've read "Sanctuary", then this book might be worth reading....once. Don't expect the usual Faulkner greatness, however - it's readable and that's all. There are about, oh, say, 20 or so Faulkner works I would recommend before this one. "Sanctuary" really didn't need a sequel, IMHO.

If you haven't read "Sanctuary", don't even bother. I can almost guarantee you'll dislike it and/or be confused by it. Not highly recommended.

Two-and-a-half stars. In Requiem, Faulkner pens a sequel to his sensational novel Sanctuary, attempting to navigate the troubled marriage of Gowan and Temple Stevens. He delves deep into Temple's psyche, revealing a woman unable (or unwilling) to escape her troubled, violent past in Memphis. Just as her marriage is spiralling to destruction, Gowan and Temple's daughter dies at the hands of their nurse, Nancy. Faulkner seems to be trying to lend some serious philosophical weight to the otherwise lightweight Sanctuary. Two problems. First, Sanctuary was fine as it was; a sequel was unnecessary. Second, the narrative structure of Requiem--half prose, half play--while initially intriguing, ultimately hinders Faulkner is his attempt to probe psychological depths. (There's only so much of that you can do when you're limited to dialogue.) Oh, and of course that annoying ubiquitous allknowing lawyer Gavin Stevens has to put his $.02 in. I recommend this book only for true Faulkner lovers.

My dad told me I was named after a character in this book so it's fun reading it. It was made into a movie but I can't find it on tape or dvd.

This is a hybrid book, part play, part I don't know, geographical history. The play is unbelievably bad - unless you've read Sanctuary, then you can probably believe how bad it is. The history of Yoknapotawpha, however, is excellent and fills in a lot of blanks about how some of the major families got there. Unfortunately, this means you can't skip it if you're doing the complete Faulkner thing.

I suppose WF is trying to rip Joyce off again with the multi-genre thing, but the play in the middle of Ulysses is a highlight. This is a nadir unquestionably. Still, there's some fantastic writing in the non-drama part, so skip the play altogether if you're really pressed for time. If you're that pressed for time, there's no way you'd end up on this book anyway. If you're looking for better obscure Faulkner, check out If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem (The Wild Palms) - genre bending, big gamble that works, and the best last sentence of a novel.

Avoid this Faulkner work. It will not enhance your appreciation for his writing; rather, you are likely to regret ever having guiltily enjoyed Sanctuary. Other than his two Snopes novels, none of Faulkner's work after World War II is worth reading, and I include Intruder in the Dust in that assessment. Instead, go back to the works that demonstrated a gift for story-telling and language, rather than sales. Sanctuary is unique in that the lurid story of course was sellable yet Faulkner was able to infuse it with his own unique vision and style.

Avoid this Faulkner work. It will not enhance your appreciation for his writing; rather, you are likely to regret ever having guiltily enjoyed Sanctuary. Other than his two Snopes novels, none of Faulkner's work after World War II is worth reading, and I include Intruder in the Dust in that assessment. Instead, go back to the works that demonstrated a gift for story-telling and language, rather than sales. Sanctuary is unique in that the lurid story of course was sellable yet Faulkner was able to infuse it with his own unique vision and style.