Background
François Mauriac was born in Bordeaux on November 11, 1885, of a prosperous middle-class family. He lost his father in infancy, but the influence of his mother, a stern and puritanical Catholic, pervades his literary works.
(A Kiss for the Leper firmly established future Nobel Priz...)
A Kiss for the Leper firmly established future Nobel Prize-winner François Mauriac as one of the twentieth centurys preeminent novelists. Jean Péloueyre, heir to an extensive estate in southern France, is a maladroit, misshapen, misbegotten young man. The very antithesis of a hero, Jean is very much in need of saving. And yet, as Anthony Esolen writes in his accompanying essay, The redeemers and the redeemed are not whom we expect. Against Nietzschean notions of power and sentimental dilutions of Christianity, Mauriac casts Jean and his young bride as cooperators in redemption, leprous, unenlightened souls whose Redeemer bore the punishment that makes themand uswhole. Like in the novels which would develop his renown, Vipers Tangle and A Woman of the Pharisees, Mauriac crafts a story that is visceral, violent, and saturated with the mystery of mercy.
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( François Mauriac's masterpiece and one of the greatest ...)
François Mauriac's masterpiece and one of the greatest Catholic novels, Thérèse Desqueyroux is the haunting story of an unhappily married young woman whose desperation drives her to thoughts of murder. Mauriac paints an unforgettable portrait of spiritual isolation and despair, but he also dramatizes the complex realities of forgiveness, grace, and redemption. Set in the countryside outside Bordeaux, in a region of overwhelming heat and sudden storms, the novel's landscape reflects the inner world of Thérèse, a figure who has captured the imaginations of readers for generations. Raymond N. MacKenzie's translation of Thérèse Desqueyroux , the first since 1947, captures the poetic lyricism of Mauriac's prose as well as the intensity of his stream-of-consciousness narrative. MacKenzie also provides notes and a biographical and interpretive introduction to help readers better appreciate the mastery of François Mauriac, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1952. This volume also includes a translation of "Conscience, The Divine Instinct," Mauriac's first draft of the story, never before available in English.
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( Book jacket/back: Francois Mauriac-who won the Nobel Pr...)
Book jacket/back: Francois Mauriac-who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952-is famous for his subtle character portraits of the French rural classes and for depicting their struggles, aspirations and traditions. The Woman of the Pharisees-one of Mauriac's most accomplished novels-is a penetrating evocation of the moral and religious values of a Bordeaux community. In Brigitte, we see how the ideals of love and companionship are stifled in the presence of a self-righteous woman whose austere religious principals lead her to interfere-disasterously-in the lives of others. One by one the unwitting victims fall prey to the bleakness of her "perfection." A conscientious schoolteacher, a saintly priest, her husband and stepdaughter and an innocent schoolboy are all confronted with tragedy and upheaval. But the author's extraordinary gift for psychological insight goes on to show how redeeeming features inevitably surface from disaster. The unfolding drama is seen through the discerning eye of a young Louis-Brigitte's stepson-whose point of view is skillfully blended into the mature and understanding adult he later becomes.
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(Frangois Mauriac To the younger French reader today, M. M...)
Frangois Mauriac To the younger French reader today, M. Mauriac is better known as a journalist, as an academician, and even as a polemicist than as a novelist. Even ten years ago, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1952, Mauriac was looked upon as a weekly adviser to the French, as a chronicler and critic of social and political and religious problems in his journalistic writings. In the twenty-odd novels he has published the first appeared in 1909 he is the writer deeply interested in the metaphysics of sin and drawn to the secret unconfessed dramas of his characters. He has been called too glibly a Catholic novelist, although in the strictest sense there is no such type of writer as a Catholic novelist. (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org
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critic dramatist journalist novelist poet
François Mauriac was born in Bordeaux on November 11, 1885, of a prosperous middle-class family. He lost his father in infancy, but the influence of his mother, a stern and puritanical Catholic, pervades his literary works.
Educated at a Catholic school and at Bordeaux University, Mauriac moved to Paris in 1906, determined to become a writer.
He published his first volume of poems in 1909; more poetry and two novels followed before he was mobilized as an army medical orderly in 1914. He was invalided out 3 years later. From 1920 date Mauriac's most productive years as a novelist, his novels including Le Baiser au lépreux (1922; A Kiss for the Leper), Genitrix (1923; Genitrix), Le Désert de l'amour (1925; The Desert of Love), and Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927; Thérèse).
About 1928 came a religious crisis in Mauriac's life, with a corresponding change of emphasis in his works. Earlier he had been criticized for portraying sinners more attractively than believers in the narrow, provincial, middle-class families of his novels, where, as all sexuality implies sin, love and happiness become impossible. Now he began to stress the possibility of divine grace, even for the hardened atheist and family tyrant who is the hero of Le Noeud de vipères (1932; Vipers' Tangle), the most successful of the later novels. In 1933 Mauriac was elected to the French Academy. Other works of this period include biographies, more poetry, and religious essays.
In the late 1930s Mauriac found politics coming to the forefront of his attention: he denounced Gen. Franco's insurrection in Spain and later, after the German defeat of France in 1940, helped the cause of the French Resistance with his pen. After the Liberation he continued to write hard-hitting political articles in several newspapers. More novels, stage plays, volumes of criticism, memoirs, and diaries brought Mauriac's total number of books to over 60. Mauriac became, after De Gaulle's return to power in 1958, one of the President's most passionate supporters. Mauriac died on September 1, 1970.
( Book jacket/back: Francois Mauriac-who won the Nobel Pr...)
( François Mauriac's masterpiece and one of the greatest ...)
(A Kiss for the Leper firmly established future Nobel Priz...)
(Maria Cross becomes the object of the fascination of both...)
(Frangois Mauriac To the younger French reader today, M. M...)
Quotations:
"No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. "
"To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others. "
"If the flame inside you goes out, the souls that are next to you will die of cold. "
"That is the mystery of grace: it never comes too late. "
"If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads. "
From 1933 he was a member of the Académie française.