Between the epigraph and the author’s note, I went to page one assuming that he was simply a broken, wounded man, and that he was like that from his very earliest youth. If you want to blame something for “making him that way”, I think the book simply offers concupiscence as the reason. For the whole book, we are waiting to see if/when he will ever respond to Grace. It’s almost like reading the back story of Ebenezer Scrooge - like the whole time after he breaks it off with what’s her name but before the ghosts come to him. It also has a feel of The Screwtape Letters, only from the perspective of a patient who is being conquered by demons (ie, temptations) over and over again.
His whole life, his whole sense of self, is a festering wound. There’s only one cure for that!
I think the book has a Dante-esque quality, the premise being: this is the life of someone that makes their own hell in life and without repentance will continue to live it in eternity. Mauriac is giving us a taste of the life of someone we might meet in Inferno.
This section was a bit harder for me. It felt a little monotonous, but I was tired when I reading so it was probably just me. It’s definitely requiring some close reading. Re which, I did not think at all of the possibility of Luc being the narrator’s son, but maybe that means I am trusting him too much.
He certainly has pathos for me. I’m still thinking of Karenin, cold and closed off to all compassion - until maybe his wife is dying??…
I also was wondering about a spiritually allegorical reading of the novel, so I hope y’all come back to that. I can’t find the particular part now that it struck me, but it was somewhere he is addressing Isa in this section. Maybe about her “charity”.
Between the epigraph and the author’s note, I went to page one assuming that he was simply a broken, wounded man, and that he was like that from his very earliest youth. If you want to blame something for “making him that way”, I think the book simply offers concupiscence as the reason. For the whole book, we are waiting to see if/when he will ever respond to Grace. It’s almost like reading the back story of Ebenezer Scrooge - like the whole time after he breaks it off with what’s her name but before the ghosts come to him. It also has a feel of The Screwtape Letters, only from the perspective of a patient who is being conquered by demons (ie, temptations) over and over again.
His whole life, his whole sense of self, is a festering wound. There’s only one cure for that!
To be clear: Jesus. Jesus is the cure. 😉
And the epigraph from St Teresa of Avila - a Doctor of the Church - tells us, I think, that this is what Mauriac wants us to know.
I think the book has a Dante-esque quality, the premise being: this is the life of someone that makes their own hell in life and without repentance will continue to live it in eternity. Mauriac is giving us a taste of the life of someone we might meet in Inferno.
This section was a bit harder for me. It felt a little monotonous, but I was tired when I reading so it was probably just me. It’s definitely requiring some close reading. Re which, I did not think at all of the possibility of Luc being the narrator’s son, but maybe that means I am trusting him too much.
He certainly has pathos for me. I’m still thinking of Karenin, cold and closed off to all compassion - until maybe his wife is dying??…
I also was wondering about a spiritually allegorical reading of the novel, so I hope y’all come back to that. I can’t find the particular part now that it struck me, but it was somewhere he is addressing Isa in this section. Maybe about her “charity”.
I am really surprised how much I am finding this book a page turner! So good. Thanks for the great discussion.