- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Classics; New Ed edition (8 Aug 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 009958591X
- ISBN-13: 978-0099585916
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 2 x 19.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,165,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £3.80
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Requiem For A Nun for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £3.80, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Product Description
Nancy, a black nursemaid, is about to be hanged for killing her mistress's baby. The lawyer, Gavin Stevens, compels the mistress to confess the reason for Nancy's crime. The law takes its course; but justice, in Faulkner's sense, has been done.
From the Back Cover
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
Nancy, a black nursemaid, is about to be hanged for killing her mistress's baby; her lawyer, Gavin Stevens, compels the mistress to confess the reason for Nancy's crime. The law takes is course; but justice, in Faulkner's sense, has been done.
'There is tension and passion enough in the drama. The impetus never fails' Observer
'A wonderful example of Faulkner's power of dramatic suspense ... Faulkner is a great poet and tragedian' Listener
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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 Manuel 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.
Unlike some items in the Faulknerian corpus, 'Requiem for a Nun' is as accessible as it is philosophically profound. Tell your friends about it today.
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.
Unlike some items in the Faulknerian corpus, 'Requiem for a Nun' is as accessible as it is philosophically profound. Tell your friends about it today.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Yonder comes sin
1 Feb 2011
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Still a work of a Genius
25 Sep 2007
Format:Hardcover
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!
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!
7 of 11 people found the following review helpful
An "off day" for a literary genius.
20 Sep 1999
Format:Paperback
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.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
