François Mauriac (1885–1970)

As with several recent novels I've taken on, started out quite slow but I warmed to it much more as it went on. The dark, abrupt opening starts things off on a right keel but my favourite sections came when Thérèse was finally reunited with Bernard and things become quite desperate. A portrait of a woman suffocated by provincial life, by ennui, by social custom, by her own inability to find herself in her cramped surroundings and ultimately (at least by insinuation) by her inability to realise her own sexuality apart from through her quite abstract and elusive fantasy life. Her bovarysme doesn't even let her taste the same temporary joys as Emma did, and though she ultimately gets "freedom" of a sort here it's one which promises not a great deal more than her previous confinement.… (mehr)

Reason Read: tbr takedown, Reading 1001, May 2023
"Vipers' Tangle begins as a man's letter to his estranged wife, explaining his hatred for her and their children, and is transformed under Mauriac's masterful pen into a diary of spiritual and psychological battles against God, family, and self. With remarkable subtlety and sensitivity, Mauriac relates the transformation of the protagonist by the sublime workings of grace. Vipers' Tangle's superb arc and unflinching examination of the human heart makes it easily one of the greatest novels - Catholic or otherwise - of all time."
François Mauriac, who was awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Written as a journal, it is a marital drama of a man who hates his wife and children and spends his time trying to make sure they get nothing from him. It is a novel about transformation. It is also about how we misunderstand others. For a short novel there is a lot here.… (mehr)