Sous le soleil de Satan

by Georges Bernanos

This new translation marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Georges Bernanos's first novel, Under Satan's Sun, a powerful account of intense spiritual struggle that reflects the author's deeply-felt religion. The work develops a theme that persistently inspired Bernanos: the existence of evil as a spiritual force and its dramatic role in human destiny.



This haunting novel follows the fortunes of a young, gauche, and fervent Catholic priest who is a misfit in the world and in his church, creating scandal and disharmony wherever he turns. His insight into the inner lives of others and his perception of the workings of Satan in the everyday are gifts that fatefully come into play in the priest's chance encounter with a young murderess, whose life and emotions he can see with a dreadful clarity, and whose destiny inexorably becomes entangled with his own.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, France, Literature, French Literature, Religion, 20th Century

380 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Georges Bernanos était un écrivain français, gagneur du Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie française en 1936 avec Journal d'un curé de campagne.

George Bernanos was a French writer. His 1936 book, Journal d'un curé de campagne (Diary of a Country Priest), won the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

We live in the wide and beautiful world…

Here is the horizon losing its sharpness – a great ivory cloud in the west and, from the earth to the top of the heavens, a twilight sky, a vast loneliness, already chilling – full of a liquid silence… Here is the poet’s hour, as he distilled life within his heart, in order to extract from it its essence, hidden, embalmed, baneful.
Now the human swarm stirs in the shadows, with its myriad arms, its myriad mouths; now the boulevard unfurls and glows.

In Under the Sun of Satan Georges Bernanos opposes the secular world to the world of religion.
Mouchette – a girl of sixteen – was seduced by an old aristocratic lecher so now she is with child… While the seducer considers what he should do the seduced girl has her own opinion…

I was no such fool as to believe you faithful. Don’t think that! We boys and girls don’t keep our eyes in our pockets; you learn more along the hedgerows than in the parish priest’s catechism class! We talked about you: ‘My dear – he gets the prettiest ones!...’ Thought I, ‘Why not me!’ Every dog has his day… And to realize now that Father’s big eyes scared you… Oh! I hate you!’

However she isn’t a ruthless predator – she is just a naïve and frightened girl in despair…
This is the secular world… And side by side with it there is the world of spirit…
No merciless persecution of heresy… No incinerating bonfires of inquisition… No unscrupulous fighting for power…
It’s just a story of a contemporary saint… Surmounting all the satanic temptations an innocent soul struggles to soar ever higher… And saintliness is hardly distinguishable from madness…

In a flash all things seemed possible to him, the highest rung already scaled. From the depths of the abyss in which he had believed himself forever sealed, behold a hand had thrust him through such a space that here he would surely find his despair, even his faults, transfigured, glorified. Cleared were the boundaries of the world in which each forward step costs an aching effort, and the goal came to him with the speed of lightning.

The lay world is a world of flesh and hunger and the spiritual world is a world of faith and abstract ideals.

[klay · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW...
La première partie raconte l'histoire de Mouchette : l'intrigue est captivante, le personnage complexe et le dénouement des plus romanesques. C'est dans la deuxième partie que tout se complique avec l'introduction d'un nouveau personnage : un abbé en pleine crise existentielle. Les destins croisés des deux personnages permettent de remettre en question l'œuvre tout entière. Le roman propose une réflexion sur l'écriture en prenant progressivement la forme d'une hagiographie. La prose est sublime et les difficultés rencontrées par les personnages reflètent un rapport à l'existence fascinant.

[Hux · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book which is disjointed and bloated, hard to follow, and desperately trying to squeeze profound ideas into something which is ultimately clumsy and without structure. You never really sense any plot, just the rambling thoughts of characters engaging in spiritual crisis, ennui and torment. I barely recognised any semblance of a real person here, merely characters upon which to hang weighty burdens of human frailty. It was a slog to turn each page and I kept hoping for a momentary hook which never came. In fact, it was difficult to read even the most basic of sentences without desperately wanting Bernanos to inject something exciting or unexpected into it, even something coherent would do. I understand what he's doing but I never found a way to get into it. 

The book begins with a teenage girl, Mouchette, discovering she is pregnant and the father being incensed. Some cad or bounder, a lecherous aristocrat, has apparently done the deed. Almost immediately I was wondering when this was set (because Bernanos doesn't tell us) and I assumed it was the 17th century or something based on the small snippets of detail we get. But the book is exploring secular themes in contrast to religious ones so I think it might actually be the early 1900s (again, I don't know because the book is vague, distant, and blundering). But this first section is probably the only part of the book that's actually worth reading in terms of events and prose. After she cuts her own throat the book delves into even greater melodrama with the introduction of a young priest she met who uses this experience to embark on a career of performing miracles and battling demonic instinct whilst hoping to secure his soul against satan (then his evil twin arrives and has an affair with... no, that didn't happen but it might as well have). Then, in the final third, when I was already done with this thing, Bernanos introduces a novelist. It's all over the place and not in a good way.

It also (I must confess) didn't help that this was yet another book I was hoodwinked into buying from Amazon which appeared to be a proper book but which was actually something printed in someone's garage in Bumfluff, Idaho, a huge brick with gigantic text and uninspired printing. Anyway... if awkward storytelling and the inner monologues of catholic priests excite you, then you might like this. I really didn't. I often see people describe books they dislike as uneven. I don't really know what that means. But I can tell you, and with some conviction, that this book was massively... uneven. 

[Czarny Pies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Le film "Sous le soleil de Satan" réalisé par Maurice Pialiat a gagné le Palme d'Or de 1987 à l'unanimité. C'est tout à fait étonnant que l'on a pu réaliser un aussi bon film basé sur un roman aussi cocasse. Georges Bernanos pensait que les prêtres romains catholiques étaient des combattants dans une guerre contre Satan. Dans "Sous le soleil de Satan", Mouchette, une guidoune adolescente qui devient enceinte fuit la maison familiale. Quand son amant qui est trois fois plus vieux qu'elle refuse de l'accueillir, elle le descend avec son fusil de chasse. Peu après elle se croise le chemin avec un jeune curé qui a du mal trouver sa vocation. Le jeune curé essaie de la convaincre de se racheter mais elle choisit de se couper la gorge avec un rasoir. Coup de théâtre avant de mourir elle appelle le curé et repentit. Grace à son rencontre avec la jeune pécheresse, le curé trouve sa vocation et entame une longue carrière où il effectue des nombreux miracles. Son dernier tour de force est de ranimer un enfant mort. L'effort est tel qu'il meurt d'une crise cardiaque.
C'est très difficile pour un lecteur contemporain d'accepter une telle intrigue. Ce n'était guère plus facile en 1926 l'année de la parution du livre. La manière dont Bernanos a écrit le roman n'a pas aidé. Le jeune curé qui est le protagoniste est absent du premiers tiers du roman tandis que la pauvre Mouchette meurt avant le mi-chemin. Il y a des longues conversations qui tournent en ronde entre prêtres sur leur vocation. Avec les trois quarts du roman parcourus Bernanos introduit un romancier libéral mécréant qui va dominer le dernier quart du roman.
Pialat a très bien compris les faiblesses et il a fait des excellents changements. Parmi d'autres choses il a supprimé le personnage de l'écrivain et il a augmenté la présence du la jeune adolescente brillamment interprétée par Sandrine Bonnaire. Gerard Depardieu a été superbe dans le rôle du curé. Néanmoins, le fait qu'un grand réalisateur y a trouvé de quoi faire un bon film ne me fait pas aimer ce roman si inégal.

[Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mamma mia, angosciante. E' un curato d'Ars triste, tristissimo, tanto triste da risultare improbabile. E' la bontà, la gioia e la serenità dell'abbandono nelle braccia del Padre, dove sta?

[Tighy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Acum mă bucur în suferinţe pentru voi şi împlinesc în trupul meu ceea ce lipseşte suferinţelor lui Cristos pentru trupul Său, care este Biserica.” - Coloseni 1:24

[Liviu Szoke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Posibil unii s-o considere o capodoperă, eu am tot sperat că va fi un nou „Numele trandafirului”, dar spinii s-au dovedit prea tari și povestea prea ne-poveste ca s-o pot numi poveste.

[Steven R. McEvoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my radar for a while. After reading Diary of A Country Priest in a few different courses in school I had always intended to circle back, but had not done so. This specific book had been recommended to me a few times, but it was out of print and hard to track down. That has now been resolved by Cluny Media. Cluny is in the process or restoring to print in new editions many Catholic Classics. They have the goal of promoting Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition. They are bringing back into print works of theology, philosophy, history, science, and literature. And unlike some other publishers who release revised versions, or edited version, or release books under a new title every few years, Cluny appears dedicated to keeping the classics classy. These are new fresh typeset editions. In Quality paperbacks and excellently formatted eBook edition.

Bernanos is considered one of the most important France Catholic, if not just Catholic novelists of the 20th Century. He is known for his penetrating insight into people, and their intentions and drive. This book at first seemed like a disjointed work. It was not until I was almost through the novel that the pieces came together and clicked and a realised cohesion in the novel. I will be honest at times this was not an east story to read. Reading about the priest’s self flagellation, and the young woman’s mental anguish, and self abuse was not easy to stomach. His ability to capture spiritual anguish and anxiety is penetrating. His representation of a trial with the devil is dark and disturbing.

The story at first appeared disjointed. But once the different arcs of the story come together it culminates in a very powerful way. This book is not for the faint of heart. It was a hard read but, in the end, well worth it.

I cannot say I loved this story. I did appreciate it. But I can categorically state that these new editions by Cluny are excellent. Both in their quality, and for the fact that they are bringing back in print classics such as this story. I look forward to reading many more books from Cluny as they are continuously expanding their offerings.

Read the review on my blog Book Reviews and More.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2018 Catholic Reading Plan!

[Madalina_Constantin · Rating 3 out of 5]

E foarte greu pentru un scriitor francez să scrie despre sfinți pentru că, post-iluminism, sfinții sunt priviți cu mare suspiciune de către publicul larg din Franța. Inspirat probabil de viața Sf. Jean-Marie Vianney, romanul e convingător epic, personajele sunt foarte bine creionate, totul se leagă. Conflictul dintre bine și rău este unul puternic. Dar, spre deosebire de povestea vieții unui Sfânt real, din cartea lui Bernanos nu ieși cu toate pânzele sus, ci cu corabia înnecată. Adică foarte dărâmat. Cu senzația că răul cu care te lupți o viață întreagă iese mereu biruitor. Cu sentimentul că viața religioasă nu-ți aduce nicio bucurie, că e doar o cruce permanentă. Și un pic mizantrop, pentru că omul poate părea pe dinafară întreg, dar pe dinăuntru este o cloacă de gânduri rele și de pofte abjecte. Autorul nu vorbește deloc despre puterea de seducție a lui Dumnezeu, nici despre întâlniri admirabile care îți marchează viața. Adică nu vorbește despre Bine. O să ziceți, de ce n-ai citit titlul? Și dacă l-ai citit, de ce te-ai băgat? Curiosity killed the cat.

[Ivanko]

"Kako im se žuri! Kako brzo idu! No čim brže dođu do daha, vidjet ćete ih - ah, vidjet ćete tu strašnu djecu kako traže, kako usnama kušaju odvratnu sisu koju Sotona cijedi za njih, nabreklu od ljupkog otrova!... Čovjek Križa, unaprijed pobijeđen, sve do smrti diže ruku, oprašta, odrješuje!"

Bernanos se u prvom dijelu ovog triptiha bavi bludnom djevojčicom Mouchette koja je neminovno pala pod utjecaj sotone, na kraju i počinila najveći grijeh.
Kasnije se radnja okreće na posve drugu stranu gdje nam se otkriva glavni lik romana abbé Donissan, "budući lumbreški svetac" kako ga od samog početka oslovljava heterodijegetički pripovjedač koji nas vodi kroz radnju. On će se cijelim svojim bićem suprotstaviti sotoni, u nekoliko trenutaka čak ga i susresti, i postati spasitelj nebroja grešnih duša koje traže milost.
Posebno je upečatljiva scena samoranjavanja svećenika Donissana u prvom dijelu romana.
Kroz djelo se Bernanos uhvatio u koštac sa temama smrti, suicida, opsjednutosti, žrtve, suživota sa grijehom i utegom starosti.

Ovom knjigom sam završio neku svoju "sotonsku trilogiju" koju sam sasvim slučajno oformio ove godine.

"Pakao ne nalazi svoju najveću korist u stadu raspuštenika koji iznenađuju svijet zloglasnim prijestupima. Najveći sveci nisu uvijek sveci koji čine čuda jer kontemplativac najčešće živi i umire nepoznat. No i pakao ima svoje samostane."

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the greatest Catholic novel I’ve ever read, and I say that as a lapsed Catholic who is not the audience for this book. It’s the story of a priest, Father Donissan, who lives the life of a saint – not the romantic/artistic/literary notion of a pious, gentle soul strolling through the fields amid children and lambs, known throughout the land for radiating a shining aura of perfection, but rather a tormented, suffering, unknown rural priest caked in the dirt of the stables, who does battle in the trenches, spends his life self-flagellating in a small, dirty room, and bears the brunt of being constantly on call to the parishioners who see him as a kind of useful idiot or spiritual beast of burden for their troubles. He is either a mystic (if you are a believer) or a mad recluse (if you are not). There are no miraculous, storybook moments of salvation, but rather a long string of encountering temptations and sins amid endless misery and death. As Bernanos writes, Satan has no need to tempt and test the truly wicked (they are already on his side), but instead throws the full weight of his machinations on the saintly, who must bear the worst of what he has to offer.

Of course, I see the priest as a reclusive madman whose visions and self-harm are just psychological disorders. In fact, the character I most identify with is the writer presented at the end of the novel (a thinly veiled Anatole France, according to Malcolm Scott in The Struggle for the Soul of the French Novel), presented by Bernanos as a clueless atheist who doesn’t understand at all the true nature of Father Donissan’s piety and suffering, but only sees him as a sad old man who is a literary symbol rather than a real person. And yet, despite my own perspective aligning with the foil of this novel, I found it to be a gorgeously written philosophical meditation on Catholic ideology and an insightful condemnation of unrealistic depictions of Christian piety.

[Piotr · Rating 5 out of 5]

là le roman de ces matinées hivernales, froides et humides, ce «drame d'un monde sans dieu», d'un tragique écœurement, désespéré, si noir, si noir.. De quoi affreusement bien commencer son année!..

Une minute, une longue minute, il écoute son propre blasphème, comme la dernière pelletée de terre sur une tombe. Celui qui renia trois fois son maître, un seul regard a pu l’absoudre, mais quelle espérance a celui-là qui s’est renié lui-même ?

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty cool and intense book about getting tempted by satan and scourging yourself with a big ole whip thing

[Monty Milne · Rating 2 out of 5]

A strange, intense, disturbing and depressing book which I did not enjoy. Certainly, there was some interesting stuff here: the glimpse into the inner and outer lives of Catholic priests in rural France a century ago feels authentic. The very long winded and intense spiritual, philosophical and theological discussions between clerics are certainly more profound than anything in, say, Graham Greene. But…

The system of belief explored here is joyless, life denying, contrary to nature, and repellent. Or at least so it seems to me. The whole thing drips with misery, sin, and sexual guilt. Indeed, it seems to suggest that unless you do too, you are going to Hell. Just like the hero of the novel – who is a great saint, according to the author – but that won’t save him either.

I can’t take this and it just reinforced my prejudices that Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular – or at least the Bernanos understanding of it - is a Bad Idea. If you want a serious novel by a French Catholic writer who has some theologically interesting things to say about death and sin – but who doesn’t make you want to hang yourself – then read Mauriac’s “Viper’s Tangle”. Not this. Father Donissan practises extreme forms of self flagellation but – despite or maybe because of this mentally disturbed behaviour – Bernanos regards him as a saint. Which suggests to me that Bernanos was as deranged as his fictitious priest – especially if he thinks this kind of thing is going to tempt anyone to join his club. Non merci, monsieur.

(Started reading in French but switched to an English translation because my French skills were not up to it).

[Martyna · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is this book about? They say about the path to holiness. About self-sacrifice and adversities that must be overcome in this way. But why is it missing this holy glory?

Perhaps because glory is no longer an earthly, human and sensual matter. And because we are able to describe only what we have experienced ourselves, the author ended the story at the time of the death of the miserable priest of Lumbres, to whom his whole life seemed to be tangibly tempted by Satan. A man who permeated human souls. To which crowds of faithful dew from all over the country.

But there is also a different way of interpretation. And this is based on the assumption that novels do not have to be obvious, simple and end with a happy solution of the action. The mentioned irony of fate, or if someone else prefers the malicious premeditation of God, does not necessarily have to be everything, it can only be an appearance. A pretense that conceals something that we are still unable to comprehend, something that defies our cognitive capabilities. And that is why it seems to be injustice in its pure form, delusion and absurdity.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won't normally put books read for dissertation purposes up here, but this one deserves a review (Bernanos was one of the most important French Catholic novelists of the 20th century). This book is intense, mostly in a good way. Essentially it's an attempt to imagine what it would be like if a modern saint were born in the twentieth century, written by someone who truly hates the twentieth century and does not think a saint could find a place in it. There are some very creepy exorcist-style scenes with the devil, but neither the putative saint nor the reader is clear how real any of this is. Anyway, it's the only book I've read since my sunday school days that has made me feel truly wretched about myself. That's part of the problem with this book, though: it has absolutely no sense of humor or irony, which maybe made sense in '26 but doesn't now. Nothing for Bernanos is in quotation marks. Maybe now we need a postmodern saint (Obama?).

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Au-dessus de lui, la nuée se déchire en lambeaux. Une, dix, cent étoiles renaissent, une par une, à la cime de la nuit. Une pluie fine, une poussière d'eau retombe d'un nuage crevé par le vent. Il respire l'air rafraîchi, détendu par l'orage... Ce soir, il ne se défendra plus : il n'a plus rien à défendre ; il a tout donné ; il est vide... Ce cœur humain, il le connaît bien, lui... (Il y est entré avec sa pauvre soutane et ses gros souliers.) Ce cœur ! Ce vieux cœur, qu'habite l'incompréhensible ennemi des âmes, l'ennemi puissant et vil, magnifique et vil. L'étoile reniée du matin : Lucifer, ou la fausse Aurore..."

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a slog to get through. There is no doubt George Bernanos can describe spiritual anxiety and anguish, but the inner turmoil the protagonist endures in this novel is incoherently narrated and none of the characters elicit the reader's sympathy. Psycho-spiritual malaise takes up most of this book.

[Jelena Glazova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Under the sun of Satan - a masterpiece!! Terrific Bernanos.

[Claire Scorzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

vale como 4.5 :)

[Cay-lamity · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Here is the evening hour the poet Toulet loved. Here is the horizon losing its sharpness-a great ivory cloud in the west and, from the earth to the top of the heavens, a twilight sky, a vast loneliness, already chilling-full of a liquid silence. .. .Here is the poet's hour, as he distilled life within bis heart, in order to extract from it its essence, hidden, embalmed, baneful. Now the human swarm stirs in the shadows, with its myriad arms, its myriad mouths..."

Germaine knew how to love, which means that she fed within ber, like a fine ripen­ ing fruit, a curiosity after pleasure and hazard, the bold confidence of th ose who risk their whole fa te on one throw, brave an unknown world, begin afresh with each generation the history of the ancient universe.

Once again a young female animal, at the threshold of a lovely night, tries timidly, and then with frenzy, her adult muscles, her teeth and her claws.
Gropingly she opened her door, went down the stairs tread by tread, made the key grind in the Iock, and felt full in her face the outdoor air, which never had seemed to her so soft. The garden slipped by like a shadow. What was simpler? She had gone.

They rec­ognized each other, both.

To run about the fields like a midsummer partridge.

Really admired her for the first time. A feeling other than desire, a kind of fatherly sympathy he had never before experienced, drew him toward this rebellious child, more eager and prouder than be, bis feminine comrade

The steel jaws of her father's dwelling, soon to snap closed upon her,
She had escaped, that was all; she quivered at the feeling of freedom. She had rushed to him as though to vice, to the long-indulged illusion of once and for all taking the decisive step, of ruining herself for good.

She wanted nothing better than to look him straight in the eye, to watch him from under her long lashes, to enjoy his confusion, her face pale at the thought of her being so dangerous and wily, as strong as a man.

Each falsehood was a fresh delight, which tightened her throat like a caress; that night she would have lied despite insults, despite blows, to the very peril of her life; she would have lied for the sake of lying.

The blood welled back into her heart.

"Tomorrow," she told herself, eating her heart away. Tomorrow forgetfulness will come and shall be free."

Let other girls cringe and die under the linden trees, their lives having lasted but an hour or a hundred years. Life for a moment opened, spread out in all its breadth, the wind of space striking full, then folded back, plummeting like a stone.

Delight in evil as through a dangerous game

She dearly loved as the very image and the symbol of her own degradation.

With this mere trifle of a body, this poor little fiat belly, these breasts which within the cups of the hands. I draw near the open window, as though were being called from outside; I wait am ready. Not one voice alone calls me, you know! But hundreds! Thousands!

She gloated over this depravity in full flower. Do you think you have known women like me?
An animal pride breathed in her voice

You are now the only man I can talk to without lying.

How it hurts, not to act out your own part but the very part which disgusts you most. The very walls were liars.

Up to the place where God awaits you, you will have to climb; climb, or be lost. Expect no human help.
This will of God upon his poor soul overwhelmed him with a superhuman weariness. Some­ thing more intimate than life itself seemed to be suspended within him.

It fought to have its way. It was it not himself?

In the very midst of joy, something yet continued to exist which the rapture did not consume.

What does it serve to dream?

A determination to deliberate violence.

He smiled with a child's smile. He is in the prayer of the Solitary One, in his fasting and in his penance, in the depths of his deepest ecstasy and in the heart's silence.

They made up one single pain. Everything had disappointed or cheated him.

Satan knows how to take advantage of too long a prayer or too harsh a mortification.

When the spirit of rebellion was in you, saw the name of Gad written in your heart. That which revealed itself in this hour to Father Donissan's eyes was not at all a symbol or a figure; it was a living soul, a heart sealed to all others!

Child's first vision is so full and so pure that the universe of which he has just possessed himself cannot at first be severed from the quivering of his own joy. All its colors and all its shapes flower at once

God helps us even in our madnesses. And when man arises to curse Him, it is He alone who supports that feeble hand.

You are like a plaything, like a child's toy ball, in the bands of Satan.

How little substance does the sin which devours us leave to life! A single ruby jet of blood.

"How you struggle in His hand," said he sadly. "Shall you again escape Him?"

A poor creature merely hastily reweaving the briefly torn web of her lies.

Have seen you as perhaps no other creature like you has ever been seen in this world have seen you in such fashion that you cannot escape me, with all your wiles. Do you think that your sin horrifies me? You have scarcely offended Gad more than do the animals.

You piler from God only the worst mud of which you are made, Satan!

Have seen you in them, and I them in you.

Every­ where sin was bursting its shell, was laying bare the mystery of its procreation: scores of men and women bound together in the fibers of the same cancer, the frightful bonds meanwhile retract­ ing, like the severed limbs of an octopus, into the very core of the horrible creature,

She was relinquishing her all. She yielded every­ thing, and it was as though the herd had come to devour her own life cupped in her own hands.

She felt in her wretched little life the huge deceit, the huge laughter of the de­ceiver.

The totally wakeful instinct of an animal far from its lair, on an unfamiliar path.

Surrounded by this new audience, she was what she had wanted to be, still resembling her favorite imaginary character, a girl of danger and mystery, with a unique destiny, a heroine

This dreadful emptiness was hollowed out within her.

When the soul itself cowers within its jacket of flesh, the most abject creature longs for a miracle and, if he knows not how to pray, at least instinctively, like a mouth spread wide to catch a breath, opens himself to God.

She had reached the point of deliberately provoking within her the powers of disorder, summoning madness as others summon death.

Her life a secret between herself and her master, or rather the secret of her master alone.

All her sentient life lay at the tips of her fingers,

"One compromises one's salvation only by useless activi­ties outside one's proper path.
The Lord summons you to perfection, not to peace.

You need only be a poor priest to know what is the frightening monotony of sin!

Not peace, but a brief respite, a halt in the darkness

But the saint is always alone, at the foot of the cross. No other friend.

Between Satan and Himself, God hurls us, as His last rampart.

We don't know what a sinner is.

What is the devil, I ask you? Hardly do they dare utter his name without a smile. They whistle to him like a dog. What then do they think they have tamed him?

The mystery of human suffering, of God outraged in man, His refuge!

But suffering remains to us, which is our part in common with you, the mark of our election, The universe, of which sin stripped us, we shall recover, inch by inch, we shall hand it back to you just as we received it

Everywhere you hold out to us the tip of the blade; After me another, and then yet another, raising the same cry, holding embraced the cross

the saint's testimony is as though torn out by iron.

[Anna Prejanò · Rating 4 out of 5]

L’abate Donissan vede il mondo come un tavolo da gioco in cui la posta tra gli sfidanti – Dio e il diavolo – è l’uomo. La sua storia, sconcertante in sé, risulta tanto più perturbante quanto più l’autore dissemina particolari contraddittori, culminanti nella scena principale, quella dell’incontro con il Maligno, che addirittura ricalca passo passo i sintomi e lo svolgimento di una crisi maniacale, insinuando così non tanto il dubbio che il santo sia solo un pazzo, quanto quello che siano gli stati alterati della coscienza la chiave per aprire le porte della comprensione profonda. Del resto, in altri due punti del libro si afferma, anche se per bocca dell’intellettuale corrotto, che l’autoflagellazione è per l’abate ciò che le droghe sono per altri, e che l’effetto di guarigione del raccontarsi allo psicanalista o al confessore è lo stesso.
Tutta la sequenza che si conclude con l’incontro con Satana è stupenda. Si inizia precisando che l’abate conosce una forma di gioia “simile alla dilatazione di un’altra vita nella vita”. Prima è assalito da ricordi d’infanzia, poi gli parla “dentro dentro, una voce estranea, ma col tono preciso della sua voce”. Poi ancora la gioia, la “dilatazione della gioia … fino alla divisione dell’anima dall’intelletto”. In un tale stato d’animo egli esce nella notte, si sente forte della “scioltezza del suo pensiero”: “intieri capitoli dei suoi libri, letti e commentati con tanta fatica, e che, per solito, doveva strappare come a pezzi dalla sua memoria, gli si presentavano improvvisamente nel loro ordine, con titoli, sottotitoli, paragrafi in fila e persino con le glosse marginali”. All’improvviso la stanchezza lo opprime e si rende conto di essersi perso; sta girando in tondo: “Cento volte tentò di rompere il cerchio magico, senza mai riuscirvi”. Sarà Lui, Satana, a soccorrerlo, e a dargli il bacio della sua amicizia…
La storia si conclude in modo agghiacciante, con un miracolo fallito, forse l’ultima tentazione, che mette fine al delirio di onnipotenza e alla vita stessa dell’abate, il cui cadavere sembra dire “Tu volevi la mia pace, e vientela a prendere!”

[Gloomy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Tú querías mi paz —exclama el santo—. ¡Ven a cogerla!"

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sous le Soleil de Satan aka Under the Sun of Satan by Georges Bernanos was selected by Le Monde for its 100 Books of the Century list

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Mond...





Sous le Solei de Satan could be a life changing book, transformative, inspirational and definitely though provoking, unless one comes to it with Pride and Prejudice (just like I guess I do) and has the conviction that there is no ‘intelligent design’, we have evolved just like Darwin, Christopher Hitchens and Ricky Gervais would describe it, from apes – actually, we are apes and our cousins, the chimpanzees share most of our DNA, and since they have discovered what ‘atrocities’ they commit, killing each other, cannibalizing and what not, we can say that we are very similar, if not identical, when it comes to those who select as tribe leaders the likes of the very stable genius, Bolsanaro, Duterte, even Modi and others like them.



In fact, whichever way you arrive at this stunning book, the main character, abbe Donissan, is memorable, a potential role model, at least on some levels, with his dedication, bravery, relentless hard work, munificence, resilience, determination which drives him to mortification, pain inflicted on himself to the point where he faints from the loss of blood, pain and the immense wound he has transformed his back into…the latter ritual would not be something to copy, evidently, but it just goes to show that we have a super human here – again, skepticism, atheism and a cynical view of dogmas would provoke other reactions, see laughter, annoyance, is this man for real, what a load of lunatic kerfuffle and other takes like those.

Indeed, Donissan would be declared the Saint of Lumbres – Georges Bernanos refers to him as the ‘future saint’ – and his exploits are varied and involve miracles, for he meets with Satan (and feels at times that he lives Under the Sun of Satan…there is a movie made, based on this magnificent book http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/n... with Gerard Depardieu, then at the zenith of his performance power, for he was not yet a Russian subject, friend of the tyrant…what man chooses of his own volition to live in a dictatorship) and furthermore, he survives and resists the temptation of a Faustian pact, the feeling I have is that the devil is forced to retreat…



The first part of this chef d’oeuvre (well, some segments have been hard for the under signed to consume, but he is such a goddamn lazy bitch, facetious, snobbish, hedonistic fool looking for pleasure, almost to the exception of anything else…books have to be rather short, with a maximum of 350 pages, promising indolent [ and maybe some elevated, erudite] joys, without asking for too much effort) is about a sixteen years old girl, Mouchette, who will take center stage later in the novel, when she encounters the ‘future saint’ and he will have a devastating effect on her and the remorse she feels.

Anotine Malorthy is her father, and he suspects that his daughter, Germaine aka Mouchette, has had a liaison with the marquis that he goes to confront, only to be told that there has been no affair between them, but when the parent tries a ruse, saying that the girl had confessed, the accused says that ‘she had lied to both of them, in two different ways’, more or less, though this is not a quote and then there is further confrontation…



The pregnant teenager walks out of the house after midnight and she faces her lover – the marquis is indeed the guilty man, though he will pay very soon the maximum penalty for his transgressions and what may have not been at the time statutory rape, but it is a serious crime now…and Prince Andrew is facing the charge, potentially compromising the future of the monarchy in Britain, and surely elsewhere – who is angered by the notion that she had broken the vow of silence that they had made, which of course she had not…

However, the talk is more than tense, it becomes a game of cat and mouse to some extent, for the girl provokes the man to explain his position, mentions marriage, even if she is not desperate to become his consort, on the contrary, she appears to be in control, bold, effusive, daring, possessed, cunning, reckless, disappointed in the adult that had enjoyed the intimacy they shared, but when it comes to taking responsibility, he becomes evasive, talks of the mountain of debts he has, the need to sell his properties so that he has something to eat and live on, all with the apparent intention of stalling, or maybe evade the future with her altogether, bringing the girl to the point where she takes a shotgun and…kills him.



It was not premeditated murder – we could nonetheless launch into an attempt to probe into the depths of her mind, motives, state of affairs, hidden desires a potential Elektra complex, only this reader is not a fan of Freud, the opposite is true, my belief is that Freud is passé and the insistence on sexual desire in children, castration, penis envy and so much more are just off – more of an accident, but when she tells the story to another lover, the deputy Gallet, she is met not with disbelief, but astonishment and the conviction that she is going mad, for the ‘inquest’ was brief and the case is filed as suicide, for indeed, she was so close to the an when it happened, as he came to take the gun from her, that it looked like he had the weapon in his hands and decided to end his life with it…

The towering figure is that of the future saint nonetheless, the man who is not educated, he has always struggled with the texts (after e has some epiphanies, he gets better at studying though), a massive, gauche, brave, docile, shy, modest man that comes as close to the image of a hermit, a stoic as it is possible, he inflicts pain on himself, to drive himself towards God and away from Satan – granted, this is a misguided attempt perhaps, and some jokers might even disqualify him and say he is a nutcase or a pervert, into BDSM and without a woman to harm him, or maybe another man, he just resorts to self-flagellation and mutilation…



By his own admission, the abbe is tormented, tempted by Satan (the latter appears under the guise of a horse trader at some point) and he admits to his shortcomings and aspires to purity, bringing the parishioners to absolution, all the time Sous le Soleil de Satan, and the hesitations, the intense fight, the rejection of the Faustian pact http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/f... is memorable and makes for an outstanding Magnum opus, especially for those who have the flexibility, openness, attention, thirst for knowledge and looking for answers that this miraculous work requires and deserves…

Posted 26th January 2022 by realini

[Andrew Weitzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

In early 20th century France, a simple-minded country priest fights a hopeless battle against the sins of his parishioners and at times, he believes, even Satan himself, incarnate and appearing before him to mock his efforts. His desperate zealotry leads him to extreme measures, from asceticism to self-flagellation to even rejecting his own salvation.

This novel is gets pretty intense after a slow start, so stick with it. Regarding the main character: I doubt author Georges Bernanos meant for Father Donissan to be viewed as a madman, but he comes across that way at times. He's just got more motivation than sense, and his not particularly agile mind is ill prepared to handle the stress of the many, many confessions he receives. That's how I read him, anyway. A very interesting character unlike any other.

[Marcelo Dávola · Rating 1 out of 5]

O prólogo é até interessante. Mas que livro chato, arrastado e prolixo. Não recomendo em hipótese alguma.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thus is a novel of mysticism, temptation, and the ceaseless struggle between grace and damnation. At its center is Father Donissan, a humble, tormented priest who becomes both a vessel of divine grace and a man haunted by Satan himself.

The narrative follows his encounters with sinners, most memorably a young woman named Mouchette, whose tragic descent into violence and despair mirrors his own spiritual agony. Bernanos, a devout Catholic, wrote not a conventional realist novel but a spiritual drama in prose.

His style is fervent, often exalted, fusing naturalistic detail with visionary intensity. The landscapes—bleak, rural France—become stages for cosmic conflict. Donissan’s struggles with doubt, temptation, and his terrifying visions of the devil dramatize the eternal battle between good and evil.

Yet Bernanos resists easy piety: Donissan’s sanctity is inseparable from suffering, his holiness a kind of martyrdom of the soul. The novel’s mystical fervor anticipates later Catholic writers like Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor, but Bernanos is even more uncompromising.

The presence of Satan is not metaphorical but visceral; evil stalks the world with terrifying immediacy. At the same time, the novel affirms the possibility of grace, though only through pain and sacrifice.

Under Satan’s Sun is challenging—its theological concerns may seem alien to secular readers—but its intensity is undeniable. It reads like a spiritual storm, shaking the reader into confronting questions of faith, sin, and redemption.

Bernanos believed literature should wrestle with ultimate truths, and this novel does so with a ferocity few can match. It is both unsettling and profoundly moving, a classic of religious fiction that burns with undimmed fire nearly a century later.

[Benoît · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bold but meandering first book that throws many ideas into a Faustian plot that is split in three chronological parts (the story of Mouchette, the priest’s temptation, the priest as a saint) but that revolves around a single, striking vision: that human life is the fighting ground for a subterranean, dark, primal, heroic fight between redemption and evil.

For this reason, most of the book is situated at a fairly abstract level, through the introspection of our young countryside priest, l’abbé Donissan, based on a real character. His destiny is more excitingly discussed with his superior and with the devil himself. The third part of the book introduces additional characters that come back for a final examination of the priest’s case in his final moments.

That external perspective was maybe my favorite, which probably reveals how little I related with Donissan himself: his too many and contradicting qualities, his confusing experience and motivations. I did not fare better with Mouchette, the young female character whose story takes up a hundred pages in the “prologue”, her reasons and motivations are no easier to understand, and it was unclear if what happened to her was natural or supernatural.

Although I enjoyed l’abbé Menou-Segrais and the writer, overall I do not think all those characters meet very convincingly. If the language of Bernanos can be undeniably powerful, it also frequently veers obscure. If his ideas and dialogues can be striking, they are often heavy and labored, and turn into an obsession that can only exhaust the reader’s patience.

[Tyler Plunkett]

Going to be better about logging what I read in 2021.

A brutal book that plunges the reader headfirst into intense spiritual crisis and the deceitful balm of nothingness. Extremely Catholic in that it equates living on Earth with foolish misery yet insists that there is no moral alternative. Bernanos was later quoted as saying “The hard thing is not loving your neighbor as yourself. It’s loving yourself enough so that the literal observance of the precept will not do harm to your neighbor” which does suggest that the book’s self-laceration goes beyond theology and is a personal struggle to be combated. His loquacious prose will certainly not be to everyone’s taste, but the novel’s portrayal of a Saint driven mad by uncertainty and hopelessness is much more moving to me than the typical hushed solemnity—sainthood is viewed here as an act of self-annihilation rather than a sharing of gifts.

Interested to watch the Pialat adaptation in the coming days. Having seen most of his films, he leaves little room for spiritual matters so it’ll be interesting to see how he handles an unwaveringly religious text. Somewhat disappointed to see, judging by the IMDB character list, that he doesn’t appear to have adapted the book’s last section, in which a libertine French ironist shows up to see the Saint. It’s the book’s most bizarre passage and the only time it shifts from Christian dialectic to a dialectic between the spiritual and the material.

[Michel Gutwilen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como leitor iniciante, costumo ter dificuldades em encontrar o metafísico na literatura, diferente do Cinema, talvez porque eu ainda seja mais sensível à experiência visual e sonora, mas com Bernanos estou aprendendo que a leitura da Palavra pode ser também uma ponte para vivências sobrenaturais. O mais interessante é que em Sob o Sol de Satã não sei se estou diante do Mal ou do Bem, se, junto com o cura de Lumbres, fui ludibriado pelo Diabo ou Iluminado por Deus. A palavra e a experiência pessoal aqui é tão traicoeira quanto verdadeira, não é possível haver certezas de nada, reina a dúvida. E na dúvida talvez exista, paradoxalmente, a maior certeza da Verdade.

Sem dúvidas o capítulo da idade do protagonista para à vila vizinha no qual ele anda em looping e julga ter tido um encontro com o Diabo é a passagem mais onírica que já li em um livro. O espaço de preenchimento e nebulosidade que Bernanos dá na própria descrição do cura, assim como a alternância do relato e a elipse na cena do menino morto se tornam verdadeiros testes de fé para o leitor.

Bernanos tem o verdadeiro poder da prosa poética e filosófica, no qual diferente de outros autores contemporâneos existencialistas que irão fazer de seus personagens veículos de consciência para expressar seus pensamentos sobre o mundo e a vida, é justamente na descrição do pensamento e do mundo com o mundo que Bernanos nos leva a verdadeiros fluxos de consciência mais profundos, imersos na experiência mística do personagem.