Sin & Sanctity

VIPERS' TANGLE (288 pp.) -- Franc,ois Mauriac, translated by Warre B. Wells --Sheed & Ward ($3).

THERESE (383 pp.)--Franc,ois Mauriac, translated by Gerard Hopkins--Holt ($3).

Though little-known in the U.S., Franc,ois Mauriac ranks as one of France's half-dozen best living novelists. The publishing house of Holt is currently engaged in bringing out a uniform U.S. edition of all his works,* confident that he will shortly be as highly regarded in the U.S. as in his home country. But the forbidding theme of his novels may scare off many U.S. readers: Mauriac dwells in the gloomy fogs and disasters of moral corruption and puts a bleak emphasis on the wages of sin.

Crime & Punishment. In Vipers' Tangle, the central character is a hateful old man who schemes to leave his money to an illegitimate son in return for the love denied him by his family. When the son conspires against him, the old man discovers that love cannot be bought, then gives the money to his greedy legitimate children as a sort of franc-for-franc payment of their grudging affection. In giving up his wealth he experiences an insight into godly love, but apparently too late for him to be saved on earth.

The heroine of Therese is mired in a tight bourgeois world of money, damp country houses and spiritual smugness. Bored with her oafish husband, she tries to poison him. The poison plot is discovered and the husband recovers. Therese is kicked out and sent to Paris, where Author Mauriac harrowingly portrays her disintegration. Like all his sinners, she tries to repent. A confession scene in which Therese was absolved, says Mauriac, was torn up, because "I could not see the priest who would have possessed the qualifications necessary if he was to hear her confession with understanding."

Author Mauriac is no peddler of religious tracts; one need not share his faith to appreciate his virtues as a novelist. Few of his characters achieve spiritual peace, but they get rid of the self-deception that stands in the way of it.

The Author. Aging (62) Franc,ois Mauriac, a leading Roman Catholic opponent of the Franco regime in Spain, joined the resistance movement during World War II. Producing clandestine pamphlets, newspapers and books with such fellow writers & artists as Communist Poet Louis Aragon, he learned to respect the fighting qualities of the Communists. After the war he sought for a way to bring the U.S. and Russia together, has since decided that compromise is impossible. He now writes editorials for Paris' conservative daily Figaro, advocating a strong, vigilant western world under U.S. leadership.

* Therese is the second volume in the series; the first was Woman of the Pharisees (TIME, Oct. 21, 1946). Vipers' Tangle, now reissued by Sheed & Ward, will later be included by Holt as part of its uniform edition.

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