Destins

by François Mauriac

191pages. poche. Broché.

Genres: France

Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

François Charles Mauriac was a French writer and a member of the Académie française. He was awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the deep spiritual insight and the artistic intensity with which he has in his novels penetrated the drama of human life." Mauriac is acknowledged to be one of the greatest Roman Catholic writers of the 20th century.

Reviews

[Majo's Library. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un livre que soit on aime, soit on délaisse. Ppersonnellement, j'ai aimé. Ne croyez pas que ce livre soit ennuyeux, il contient de succulents passages, mais ce n'est que mon avis

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Melodramatic soap opera with the kind of obvious symbolism that one often finds in a book chosen for eighth grade English classes in the U.S. (the vineyards are like Elisabeth’s sexuality, etc.). As a portrait of a middle aged, sexually repressed/frustrated woman, the novel may have had more impact upon publication in the 1920s, especially since the younger man who is the love interest is the same age as Elisabeth’s son. The implication is a kind of surrogate incestuous relationship. But as with all of Elisabeth’s relationships – with her son, with her young love interest, with her late husband, and with her father-in-law – love stagnates. She is equally incapable of those bonds as a wife/widow, as a daughter-in-law, as a mother, or as a sexually virile woman.

Like Graham Greene, Mauriac is a Catholic with an ax to grind with Catholicism – or at least the dogmatic kind that offers little real solace. I could imagine this being required reading at my Catholic high school, if only Mauriac had been an American writer. Since he isn’t read much in the States, this is long out of print.

I found a letter from Flannery O’Connor who said she had read the novel a decade previously and remembered nothing about it except the last line. That is a better summary than anything I could write. You would do better to just read the last line and skip the rest.

[Mglr18 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comme toujours avec Mauriac, on est plongé dans cette terre girondine et landaise avec des personnages dépeignant les bourgeois terriens locaux.
Le beau "petit Lagave" devenu grand sera source de malheurs chez la famille Gornac.
Le récit est empreint de ce qui faisait la vie de la paysannerie du début du 20ème, religion, possession terriennes, réussite, etc.

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 各个人物仿佛不在一个图层上。但是女主的发展还是下手好准QAQ