What do you think?
Rate this book
Thérèse Desqueyroux #1-4
Thérèse
From the moment she walks from court having been charged with attempting to poison her husband, to her banishment, escape to Paris, and final years of solitude and waiting, the life of Thérèse Desqueyroux is passionate and tortured. The victim of a hostile fate, Thérèse, as Mauriac said of her ‘belongs to that class of human beings … for whom night can end only when life itself ends. All that is asked of them is that they should not resign themselves to night’s darkness.’ Thérèse’s moving and powerful story affirms the vitality of the human spirit, making her an unforgettable heroine.
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published March 1, 1995
About the author
François Mauriac
571 books409 followersFrançois 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
August 5, 2020
I have said before I am so thankful for Goodsreads…a number of the books I have read and really enjoyed I would never have read if it hadn’t been for this site. I had read a novel by Georges Simenon, the famous French novelist who specialized in the roman durs style: The Truth About Bebe Donge, a novel about a women who poisoned her husband! I became a fan of Simenon because of several Goodread friends who are ardent admirers of his writing. Anyway, a GR friend recommended 'The Truth About Bebe Donge', and so I read it and liked it…and was reading the GR friend’s review of the book over again and also reading other people’s comments about his review and there was one person who made this comment “Simenon's story reminded me of Mauriac's Thérèse Desqueyroux”. What’s this? 😮 Given I liked The Truth About Bebe Donge so much, I was intrigued by what Thérèse Desqueyroux was about, so I procured that book, and hence this review.
The book I read was 'Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts' and consists of four ‘portraits’ of Thérèse — two novellas and two short stories (Thérèse and the Doctor & Thérèse at the Hotel), the two novellas beginning and ending the portrait. The first novella is his masterpiece and it is entitled by the protagonist’s married name, Thérèse Desqueyroux. I read it in one sitting it was so good. He published it in France in 1927. Therese is a young married woman in her twenties who may have poisoned her husband. The novella concerns that and what led up to the possible poisoning and what happened after the possible poisoning. An interesting character study on both her and some other characters in the novella. And the writing is really good. I wavered between 4 and 5 stars for this one so I gave it 4.5 stars. 😊
François Mauriac published Thérèse Desqueyroux in 1927 (it came out in English translation a year later). He still had Thérèse on his mind for he wrote his two short stories about her in 1933 and then in 1935 another novella about her, longer than Thérèse Desqueyroux entitled The End of the Night. The End of the Night while longer (196 pages) is not half as good as Thérèse Desqueyroux (134 pages), and I would give it 2.5 stars at most. So I would recommend putting Thérèse Desqueyroux on your TBR list (or at least read other reviews of the book) and either get it by itself or get Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts, and get it for Thérèse Desqueyroux…
How good is Thérèse Desqueyroux? Here is something from the Wikipedia link of the book:
• The novel is Mauriac's best known work, and was described as "outstanding" in the biography that accompanied his Nobel Literature Prize citation. On 3 June 1950 Le Figaro named it as one of the winners of the "Grand Prix des meilleurs romans du demi-siècle", a prestigious literary competition to find the twelve best French novels of the first half of the twentieth century. Nominations were judged by a distinguished French literary jury chaired by Colette, and the winners were included the following year in a specially published and illustrated collection. In 1999 it came 35th in a national poll to find the 100 best French works of the 20th century. (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A...
Mauriac (1885-1970,) was writing at the same time that three other famous French writers were publishing, Albert Camus, Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir (Beauvoir and Sartre did not think highly of Mauriac). Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Prize winner For Literature, has a very interesting history — he was part of the French Resistance in WWII. Here is a link to Mauriac’s life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3...
You know, they made a movie out of Thérèse Desqueyroux, twice, the first time in 1962 and the second time in 2012 and starring in the eponymous role Audrey Tautou! It’s ironic she can play the sinister Thérèse and the role which I remember her most by, the charming woman, Amélie.
Reviews:
From a blogsite: https://kevinstephany.wordpress.com/2...
From another blogsite: https://martinasblogs.blogspot.com/20...
I believe editions available in English of Thérèse Desqueyroux are: Thérèse (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1951); Therese (Penguin, 1959); Thérèse Desqueyroux (translation, introduction, and notes by Raymond N. Mackenzie, Foreword by Joseph Cunneen, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated, 2005); and Thérèse Desqueyroux (Routledge, 1996). The book I read, Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts, is available in its original printing (Henry Holt and Company, 1947) or in paperback (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1972/3), and I also think the Penguin classic published in 2003, Therese, is actually Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts because it is over 300 pages longs.
The book I read was 'Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts' and consists of four ‘portraits’ of Thérèse — two novellas and two short stories (Thérèse and the Doctor & Thérèse at the Hotel), the two novellas beginning and ending the portrait. The first novella is his masterpiece and it is entitled by the protagonist’s married name, Thérèse Desqueyroux. I read it in one sitting it was so good. He published it in France in 1927. Therese is a young married woman in her twenties who may have poisoned her husband. The novella concerns that and what led up to the possible poisoning and what happened after the possible poisoning. An interesting character study on both her and some other characters in the novella. And the writing is really good. I wavered between 4 and 5 stars for this one so I gave it 4.5 stars. 😊
François Mauriac published Thérèse Desqueyroux in 1927 (it came out in English translation a year later). He still had Thérèse on his mind for he wrote his two short stories about her in 1933 and then in 1935 another novella about her, longer than Thérèse Desqueyroux entitled The End of the Night. The End of the Night while longer (196 pages) is not half as good as Thérèse Desqueyroux (134 pages), and I would give it 2.5 stars at most. So I would recommend putting Thérèse Desqueyroux on your TBR list (or at least read other reviews of the book) and either get it by itself or get Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts, and get it for Thérèse Desqueyroux…
How good is Thérèse Desqueyroux? Here is something from the Wikipedia link of the book:
• The novel is Mauriac's best known work, and was described as "outstanding" in the biography that accompanied his Nobel Literature Prize citation. On 3 June 1950 Le Figaro named it as one of the winners of the "Grand Prix des meilleurs romans du demi-siècle", a prestigious literary competition to find the twelve best French novels of the first half of the twentieth century. Nominations were judged by a distinguished French literary jury chaired by Colette, and the winners were included the following year in a specially published and illustrated collection. In 1999 it came 35th in a national poll to find the 100 best French works of the 20th century. (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%A...
Mauriac (1885-1970,) was writing at the same time that three other famous French writers were publishing, Albert Camus, Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir (Beauvoir and Sartre did not think highly of Mauriac). Mauriac, the 1952 Nobel Prize winner For Literature, has a very interesting history — he was part of the French Resistance in WWII. Here is a link to Mauriac’s life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3...
You know, they made a movie out of Thérèse Desqueyroux, twice, the first time in 1962 and the second time in 2012 and starring in the eponymous role Audrey Tautou! It’s ironic she can play the sinister Thérèse and the role which I remember her most by, the charming woman, Amélie.
Reviews:
From a blogsite: https://kevinstephany.wordpress.com/2...
From another blogsite: https://martinasblogs.blogspot.com/20...
I believe editions available in English of Thérèse Desqueyroux are: Thérèse (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1951); Therese (Penguin, 1959); Thérèse Desqueyroux (translation, introduction, and notes by Raymond N. Mackenzie, Foreword by Joseph Cunneen, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated, 2005); and Thérèse Desqueyroux (Routledge, 1996). The book I read, Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts, is available in its original printing (Henry Holt and Company, 1947) or in paperback (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1972/3), and I also think the Penguin classic published in 2003, Therese, is actually Thérèse: A Portrait in Four Parts because it is over 300 pages longs.
May 4, 2015
I know nothing of love save that it is the constant object of my desire, a desire that possesses me and blinds me, setting my feet on the ways of the waste land, dashing me against the walls, forcing me into bogs and quagmires, stretching me exhausted in the muddy ditches of life.
Run away, Thérèse. The trees where she suffered alone moan that is human. She's not alone. Mauriac is right that it is a huge family, the unresting, and a recognition would burn like an outbreak of forest fire. I don't believe it is as easy as saying no to the oppression of life. It isn't a choice to be happy. The suffocating husband Bernard is smugly snug in his bed that no one lies in another they didn't make. When young Thérèse is a sleepwalker, sold on settling down. Time she doesn't have. Hell is decisions too late. Bernard was a cold lover. I've been reading a lot of books lately that recall the selfish new husband in David Lean's film Ryan's Daughter. When I get married my dream lover will--- this is it? Forever? (The pitchforked everyone else come along too. How dare she want anything else?!) I don't know how she accepted the shallow waters of convent friend, and Bernard's half-sister, Anne, as affection. Anne and her kind don't know anymore than Thérèse does about happiness. Indeed, she must have maintained her stream of pious instruction as self assurance that she knew what she was in for. People like Anne and her father she can grace with nothing they needed her to give them so long as they are absent. Run away. It is so true that there is the personal understanding she is starving for, before Thérèse and after her. I think there's a truth closer to when she is before the judgement. The new Curé in the parish (the town don't think he's up to scratch either. Won't play sports, nose in books). Something akin to the person who can't let you down as rock shoulders of seashell oceans. If you went to flesh and blood and stone wouldn't let you in. Worse if every day went on without you in a foreign language of peace. The huge family is in The Curé's being and Thérèse can watch him without expecting anything. I have found that I feel relief from something that knows (though it's true that I have to have them all of the time. It is constant getting up) that cannot be called on to see you. She allows her husband to overdose himself, acts against her prison. Run away, run away, run away! In the first story 'Thérèse Desqueyroux' she is constructing her own defense, let off the judicial hook on lies for the family name but shut out from the same path others walk. It's that film "Bed-nobs and broomsticks" and she's drifting in her too late in a sky of cold beds, with strange heads of sleep she can't catch up. I wanted her to end it all, couldn't see that it was worth living in her home prison and nothing else. Bernard sees her emaciated living corpse and instead of his wife it is a picture of female inmates in his vision. There's some truth between this, the closest she gets to a reprieve, and knowing the prison of her husband's immovable fatness of himself. Their family are sitting on her. I can put myself in Thérèse's shoes to wish it had never happened, that she hadn't gone to the pharmacist with a forged prescription to poison the Bernard cell. To wish she had run away. To see the danger in the prison shells. That was pretty great this reality of what happened and what didn't have to happen. Don't do it, don't get married, don't have a baby. Don't get on the sides of mercy.
I don't understand why Mauriac and Thérèse believed that Thérèse corrupts others. How can he believe that and also believe in that she isn't alone? What kind of sheltered dreams did daughter Marie have, the young would-be lover of 'Thérèse at the Hotel', Marie's conquest Georges, his idol Mondoux (Thérèse knew his type as the pimply afraid of women young man who the other young men adopt their cold fires), etc. etc. etc. lead that they went through every day with their bubbles in tact? It gave me a perverse pleasure when the high and mouse Anne is knocked down from her the world is too big for me and the empty suit that suits my romantic vision. The young man who loves to hear himself talk never loved her. She wouldn't have what she wanted, however much she blamed Thérèse. What is Marie winning by keeping the first and only life she imagines in marrying Georges? He doesn't want to marry her, tells her again and again that she will not be his life. What is this complete ownership that doesn't breed its own darkness? It made me happy that she is not "set". I don't know why it made me so happy. Really, I feel impatient hearing love plans, resent not being allowed to do what I want to scratch my soul's itching. See?! I wanted to cry. It isn't guaranteed that YOU are so special, and Thérèse is not, that it all works out to say this person and I don't have to do anything else. Thérèse herself would take her pin to their balloon and bring them down to where she lives. She doesn't live anywhere realer than them, though. Where when the person who understands you is enough. That it would take away the inconsolable ache, the I don't know what to do when the nights are too long. Whenever anyone has told me that I made them feel less alone I'd feel sick for the impending drop. I can't do anything and feeling those same feelings of loneliness and darkness isn't ever enough. I'm a dripping blanket, unable to uplift anyone else. What else do you DO after you've admitted to not knowing what to do? Why isn't acceptance enough? I want to cry how bleeding unfair it is that it is never enough to be. I have felt just as Thérèse does when she's the confident to the lovesick Anne and Marie. They only care about her to stand in the way of reality of family who say no to their this marriage is gonna set me for life shit. But what would have happened if one of those drunks attached to a deaf bench had had proof of light in making through another day? What if the maid she counts on to live and breathe as a human in the inhuman night had a mutual dependence on we're all a big family in Thérèse? What if the old Aunt Clara had once entered the room when her niece wanted her to be there? Thérèse was as big of a jerk as anyone else in that. And all I could think of for her to do was to say fuck it to the whole thing. If there was peace in doing that then go ahead and do that. When I was very young my mother railed at me for my ability to be happy in "worthless" things like books and movies. She would have had only accepted the Marie kind of world of cleaving to a husband and no one else exists. I had to get into a really good book to not feel sick about her anymore, I remember, but I did it. Thérèse didn't do anything to Georges when she knew about the young attached friend who he couldn't bear clinging to him. Why is the choice Thérèse's but it wasn't the choice of Georges to accept what weighted him down from the human-shark swimming? Flip no was it Georges fault that that young man died, either. If it is her choice, then it is their choice. I don't understand this either/or. I think people are torn between what it looks like all gone to hell. I think there's more than you are where you want to be when people can want opposing ends. To live your life and to see the end. If she corrupts, then they corrupt. Would anyone see Thérèse when she pulls back her hair to reveal her mangled brow and not see only the burst? Mauriac wrote more of her ending, a spiritual kind of acceptance that she couldn't feel in her human family. He consulted a real life priest about it and everything, but only after. I'm glad it isn't included. Watching her sleep like she did with baby Marie feels right to me.
Run away, Thérèse. The trees where she suffered alone moan that is human. She's not alone. Mauriac is right that it is a huge family, the unresting, and a recognition would burn like an outbreak of forest fire. I don't believe it is as easy as saying no to the oppression of life. It isn't a choice to be happy. The suffocating husband Bernard is smugly snug in his bed that no one lies in another they didn't make. When young Thérèse is a sleepwalker, sold on settling down. Time she doesn't have. Hell is decisions too late. Bernard was a cold lover. I've been reading a lot of books lately that recall the selfish new husband in David Lean's film Ryan's Daughter. When I get married my dream lover will--- this is it? Forever? (The pitchforked everyone else come along too. How dare she want anything else?!) I don't know how she accepted the shallow waters of convent friend, and Bernard's half-sister, Anne, as affection. Anne and her kind don't know anymore than Thérèse does about happiness. Indeed, she must have maintained her stream of pious instruction as self assurance that she knew what she was in for. People like Anne and her father she can grace with nothing they needed her to give them so long as they are absent. Run away. It is so true that there is the personal understanding she is starving for, before Thérèse and after her. I think there's a truth closer to when she is before the judgement. The new Curé in the parish (the town don't think he's up to scratch either. Won't play sports, nose in books). Something akin to the person who can't let you down as rock shoulders of seashell oceans. If you went to flesh and blood and stone wouldn't let you in. Worse if every day went on without you in a foreign language of peace. The huge family is in The Curé's being and Thérèse can watch him without expecting anything. I have found that I feel relief from something that knows (though it's true that I have to have them all of the time. It is constant getting up) that cannot be called on to see you. She allows her husband to overdose himself, acts against her prison. Run away, run away, run away! In the first story 'Thérèse Desqueyroux' she is constructing her own defense, let off the judicial hook on lies for the family name but shut out from the same path others walk. It's that film "Bed-nobs and broomsticks" and she's drifting in her too late in a sky of cold beds, with strange heads of sleep she can't catch up. I wanted her to end it all, couldn't see that it was worth living in her home prison and nothing else. Bernard sees her emaciated living corpse and instead of his wife it is a picture of female inmates in his vision. There's some truth between this, the closest she gets to a reprieve, and knowing the prison of her husband's immovable fatness of himself. Their family are sitting on her. I can put myself in Thérèse's shoes to wish it had never happened, that she hadn't gone to the pharmacist with a forged prescription to poison the Bernard cell. To wish she had run away. To see the danger in the prison shells. That was pretty great this reality of what happened and what didn't have to happen. Don't do it, don't get married, don't have a baby. Don't get on the sides of mercy.
I don't understand why Mauriac and Thérèse believed that Thérèse corrupts others. How can he believe that and also believe in that she isn't alone? What kind of sheltered dreams did daughter Marie have, the young would-be lover of 'Thérèse at the Hotel', Marie's conquest Georges, his idol Mondoux (Thérèse knew his type as the pimply afraid of women young man who the other young men adopt their cold fires), etc. etc. etc. lead that they went through every day with their bubbles in tact? It gave me a perverse pleasure when the high and mouse Anne is knocked down from her the world is too big for me and the empty suit that suits my romantic vision. The young man who loves to hear himself talk never loved her. She wouldn't have what she wanted, however much she blamed Thérèse. What is Marie winning by keeping the first and only life she imagines in marrying Georges? He doesn't want to marry her, tells her again and again that she will not be his life. What is this complete ownership that doesn't breed its own darkness? It made me happy that she is not "set". I don't know why it made me so happy. Really, I feel impatient hearing love plans, resent not being allowed to do what I want to scratch my soul's itching. See?! I wanted to cry. It isn't guaranteed that YOU are so special, and Thérèse is not, that it all works out to say this person and I don't have to do anything else. Thérèse herself would take her pin to their balloon and bring them down to where she lives. She doesn't live anywhere realer than them, though. Where when the person who understands you is enough. That it would take away the inconsolable ache, the I don't know what to do when the nights are too long. Whenever anyone has told me that I made them feel less alone I'd feel sick for the impending drop. I can't do anything and feeling those same feelings of loneliness and darkness isn't ever enough. I'm a dripping blanket, unable to uplift anyone else. What else do you DO after you've admitted to not knowing what to do? Why isn't acceptance enough? I want to cry how bleeding unfair it is that it is never enough to be. I have felt just as Thérèse does when she's the confident to the lovesick Anne and Marie. They only care about her to stand in the way of reality of family who say no to their this marriage is gonna set me for life shit. But what would have happened if one of those drunks attached to a deaf bench had had proof of light in making through another day? What if the maid she counts on to live and breathe as a human in the inhuman night had a mutual dependence on we're all a big family in Thérèse? What if the old Aunt Clara had once entered the room when her niece wanted her to be there? Thérèse was as big of a jerk as anyone else in that. And all I could think of for her to do was to say fuck it to the whole thing. If there was peace in doing that then go ahead and do that. When I was very young my mother railed at me for my ability to be happy in "worthless" things like books and movies. She would have had only accepted the Marie kind of world of cleaving to a husband and no one else exists. I had to get into a really good book to not feel sick about her anymore, I remember, but I did it. Thérèse didn't do anything to Georges when she knew about the young attached friend who he couldn't bear clinging to him. Why is the choice Thérèse's but it wasn't the choice of Georges to accept what weighted him down from the human-shark swimming? Flip no was it Georges fault that that young man died, either. If it is her choice, then it is their choice. I don't understand this either/or. I think people are torn between what it looks like all gone to hell. I think there's more than you are where you want to be when people can want opposing ends. To live your life and to see the end. If she corrupts, then they corrupt. Would anyone see Thérèse when she pulls back her hair to reveal her mangled brow and not see only the burst? Mauriac wrote more of her ending, a spiritual kind of acceptance that she couldn't feel in her human family. He consulted a real life priest about it and everything, but only after. I'm glad it isn't included. Watching her sleep like she did with baby Marie feels right to me.
September 28, 2017
"One can make the most contrary judgements about the same person, and yet be right- that it is all a question of the way the light falls and that no one form of light is more revealing than another."
This novel may be a foreign country to a male reader (despite the fact it was written by a man!) because it describes the servitude of women who, throughout history, have ached and desired and cried in silence for freedom. I, as a fellow woman, pity Theresa when she attempts to poison her husband by degrees- what a gentle form of death she chose! for it would be the same death by inches she herself would experience throughout her miserable life. In our blind pity for her, we become complicit in her murder of the Male.
But Theresa, having seemingly freed herself from one prison, enters another, one harder to leave than Alcatraz. For the prison she enters in Paris is one of countless, nameless crimes below the radar of the law but nonetheless as lethal. She needs the Male to define her, fulfill her silence; it is as if she unconsciously seeks to murder all men to compensate for the life she never could take, that of her husband.
When Marie enters into her life unexpectedly, she does not spare her daughter's lover and his strange friend Mondoux. She envies her daughter and in her wild imagination entertains her forbidden love with Georges. She reverts to childhood, falls victim to heart problems exacerbated by paranoia and suspicion. At the end, she doesn't seek the hand of her daughter but that of her nurse-child Anna. Or is she merely interested in keeping her around for her chauffeur boyfriend? One wonders when the chase will be over? Theresa craves the end of life and the end of night but if given the chance, we feel that she would leave the chaffeur no less enchanted. Her power, that ageless feminine mystique, is shown to be subversive and we modern readers might call attention to Mauriac's misogynistic portrayal of women but upon deeper inspection, Mauriac has found us out, we men murderers.
This novel may be a foreign country to a male reader (despite the fact it was written by a man!) because it describes the servitude of women who, throughout history, have ached and desired and cried in silence for freedom. I, as a fellow woman, pity Theresa when she attempts to poison her husband by degrees- what a gentle form of death she chose! for it would be the same death by inches she herself would experience throughout her miserable life. In our blind pity for her, we become complicit in her murder of the Male.
But Theresa, having seemingly freed herself from one prison, enters another, one harder to leave than Alcatraz. For the prison she enters in Paris is one of countless, nameless crimes below the radar of the law but nonetheless as lethal. She needs the Male to define her, fulfill her silence; it is as if she unconsciously seeks to murder all men to compensate for the life she never could take, that of her husband.
When Marie enters into her life unexpectedly, she does not spare her daughter's lover and his strange friend Mondoux. She envies her daughter and in her wild imagination entertains her forbidden love with Georges. She reverts to childhood, falls victim to heart problems exacerbated by paranoia and suspicion. At the end, she doesn't seek the hand of her daughter but that of her nurse-child Anna. Or is she merely interested in keeping her around for her chauffeur boyfriend? One wonders when the chase will be over? Theresa craves the end of life and the end of night but if given the chance, we feel that she would leave the chaffeur no less enchanted. Her power, that ageless feminine mystique, is shown to be subversive and we modern readers might call attention to Mauriac's misogynistic portrayal of women but upon deeper inspection, Mauriac has found us out, we men murderers.
October 16, 2014
Compassionate disgust. That’s how I’d sum up Mauriac’s view of humanity, or rather not of humanity but of the flesh of which humanity is composed. But this “flesh” extends beyond the actual flesh into all the background, all the buried impulses and motivations that lurk within our lives, leading our flesh into situations and traps, leaving it stranded and suffering and vying for an out, or at least a moment of tainted pleasure. The receptacle for this compassionate disgust in this volume is Therese Desqueyroux. Almost unconsciously, through no will of her own, she slowly and systematically poisons her husband, is exonerated with the help of her husband, and then is forced into exile from her family in Paris, where she continues to almost unconsciously, through no will of her own to wreak havoc in others’ lives, even though those others often welcome it, not as masochists exactly, but rather because she offers them a view into life’s depths of which they were previously unfamiliar. Each day offers new age-old traps so one must step lightly through life, but then again what’s the use? Flesh is tainted, and the only untainted pleasures are the pleasures of childhood. I suppose this is where his Christianity steps in, though that’s left out of the novels and sketches in this volume. Any kind of salvation is implied, existing outside of literature, outside of fleshy life itself. Here the flesh is left to fend for itself, and Mauriac makes us care for that flesh.
February 9, 2015
François Mauriac begins Thérèse Desqueyroux with her criminal case being dismissed. Accused of poisoning her husband, Thérèse, is acquitted by Bernard’s own felonious testimony only to become victim herself of a virtual house arrest as much for propriety’s sake as punitive vengeance. The family has closed ranks to hide the dirty secret of her guilt, determined Thérèse will remain captive in one room for the remainder of her life. And yet it’s Thérèse’s ambivalence about the crime which confounds her as well as us, the readers, as to the extent of her actual guilt, premeditation and remorse. She certainly seems to have committed this unspeakable atrocity, but how much did she actually plan her actions before she carried them out and how much did she just let things happen? We struggle to understand Thérèse as she struggles to know herself. Thérèse’s inner grappling have an eerie familiarity. Watching our heroine there is a sense a feeling of déjà vu. Her introspective efforts reminded me of similar self-examinations of conscience. Culpability is universal; ‘all have sinned’. Thérèse—through her criminal act—becomes scape goat for the collective weight of her accusers’ guilt. Her appeal as a character is her willingness to accept responsibility for her crime and yet still long for love, however little she expects to find it.
Mauriac has surrounded Thérèse with the deeply flawed not to mention mostly hostile and yet we know Thérèse herself to be far from ideal. Often we’re not sure who to sympathize with. Again this seemed familiar. How often we are in a quandary, caught among the many forces and choices—unsure which is more or less evil, more or less good, but all is opaque. And just when we seem to be on the verge of a discovery or decision, the scene changes and the discernment process begins again. I found myself moved again and again by Thérèse, especially as/when she was at her most introspective. Her mistakes and her pain only endeared her to me all the more.
Thérèse Desqueyroux is the first and the most famous of François Mauriac’s stories about the dark woman, but there are three sequels. Thérèse and the Doctor and Thérèse at the Hotel are both short stories, vignettes if you will. They give us glimpses of Thérèse from the time she is released to Paris from her house arrest until near the end of her life.
The End of the Line is the final story in the quartet known as Thérèse and it is my personal favorite. Here many earlier threads of Thérèse’s life come together and Mauriac reveals the true character of our heroine for all who can see, delivering a very satisfying, yet not unbelievable or saccharine ending.
Mauriac has surrounded Thérèse with the deeply flawed not to mention mostly hostile and yet we know Thérèse herself to be far from ideal. Often we’re not sure who to sympathize with. Again this seemed familiar. How often we are in a quandary, caught among the many forces and choices—unsure which is more or less evil, more or less good, but all is opaque. And just when we seem to be on the verge of a discovery or decision, the scene changes and the discernment process begins again. I found myself moved again and again by Thérèse, especially as/when she was at her most introspective. Her mistakes and her pain only endeared her to me all the more.
Thérèse Desqueyroux is the first and the most famous of François Mauriac’s stories about the dark woman, but there are three sequels. Thérèse and the Doctor and Thérèse at the Hotel are both short stories, vignettes if you will. They give us glimpses of Thérèse from the time she is released to Paris from her house arrest until near the end of her life.
The End of the Line is the final story in the quartet known as Thérèse and it is my personal favorite. Here many earlier threads of Thérèse’s life come together and Mauriac reveals the true character of our heroine for all who can see, delivering a very satisfying, yet not unbelievable or saccharine ending.
January 20, 2019
After Mauriac had written the novella Thérèse Desqueyroux, about a woman in 1920s rural France who is acquitted of attempting to poison her husband, he kept writing. Over the next 10 years he wrote three additional sections that he would tack onto the novella; two very short ones, in which Thérèse has left her tiny hamlet and her infant daughter and husband and moved to Paris as a single woman, and a longer one, equal in length to the original novella, in which her heart ailment becomes increasingly painful and brings her closer to death, and her daughter Marie, now 17, visits her in Paris because she has fallen in love with a young man studying there. This last section is published independently as La Fin de la nuit, 1935 (English: The End of the Night).
This edition contains the original 1927 novella plus the other three sections: Thérèse and the Doctor, Thérèse at the Hotel, and The End of the Night.
The original novella is by far the strongest. Thérèse, who was in fact guilty of the charges but aided by her husband Bernard, who corroborates her lies in the stand in order to spare the family scandal, comes across as a sympathetic character - a strong woman with her own opinions who refuses to be cowed by whatever society, or her relatives, have planned for her. I sensed overtones of lesbianism in her relationship with her best friend Anne, although it's possible I was reading too much into it. Thérèse and her husband Bernard (Anne's brother) are clearly ill-matched, as we see from both current events and the flashbacks Thérèse embarks on as she leaves the courthouse and travels by wagon and train back to her home in Argelouse. Bernard is only interested in business and hunting, while Thérèse, basically a nihilist, feels bored and stifled by country life. Mauriac's physical description of the pine forests and coastal area of the region is wonderful (both Thérèse's and Bernard's families make their living from the resin of the local pine forests).
The setting switches to Paris. Bernard won't divorce Thérèse, and will still financially support her to a degree, but he demands that they live apart and that she not be in contact with Marie. In the second section we meet a Parisian doctor and his wife as they are about to be visited by Thérèse. It's supposedly a professional rather than a social call, but the wife is suspicious of both her husband and Thérèse, who is unbalanced and needy. The third section is written in the first person and entails Thérèse's obsession with a very young man she meets at the hotel they are both staying at. In the final section, Thérèse is both physically ailing, and rapidly aging, and extremely emotionally needy, dependent on her servant Anna to stay with her until she falls asleep some nights, and asking for kisses from her. She receives a surprise visit from her daughter Marie, who is in love with a young student named Georges. Georges, however, is just stringing Marie along, and falls in love with Thérèse. Thérèse refuses him, offers him some of her family money if he will marry Marie, and everyone moves back to Argelouse as Thérèse prepares to die.
The Paris sections feel grimy, gritty, and frankly disgusting. Thérèse is described as increasingly homely, her forehead getting higher as her hair thins, her face gaunt, her hands mottled. Georges lives in squalor, and their brief relationship, while not actually sexual, was heeby-jeebifying. I longed for the pines of Argelouse. 4-5 stars for the original novella, 3 stars for everything else.
June 26, 2013
Having recently watched the 2012 film version of Francois Mauriac classic novel, I felt the need to go back to the original novel that I read decades ago when I was in my late teens. Reading Therese Desqueyroux with a twenty first century lens, I was fascinated by Mauriac's complex and multi-faceted presentation of her "case". Inspired by a "fait divers" concerning an actual court case that he read in his youth, Mauriac became deeply drawn to the young woman at the centre of it: what motivated her to want to poison her husband, getting charged with attempted murder, but then sentenced for a much lesser crime. How much was the environment in which she lived also responsible for pushing her to this extreme action? Was she born "an evil person" and finally why was she not sentenced for the crime?
All these questions are explored in more or less depth in Mauriac's 1925 novel. However, his approach is original and was probably highly unusual at the time: he writes most of the novel from the perspective of Therese herself. Her case dismissed thanks to the perjury statement by her husband Bernard, she returns "home" to the family estate in the Bordeaux region. On the long, slow voyage back by train and carriage, Therese prepares herself for her encounter with Bernard first of all. Can she find the words to express regret,can she explain what drove her to action? How will she be able to relate to husband and family and how will he and they treat her? Interspersed into the musings that incorporate flashbacks on her earlier life, the author addresses Therese directly or, at times, adds his "pauvre Bernard" and other brief commentary. Eventually, Therese and Bernard meet (in chapter nine of 13) and what ensues is both predictable and unexpected.
Mauriac, no doubt, created in Therese a most complex character, a young woman contradictory in her behaviour and attitudes, who on the one hand knowingly entered a marriage that had as much to do with property and landownership as with family needs. She is both a pragmatist and an idealist who can dream of a different life. She is bored with her life, yet does not develop any emotional ties to her baby daughter. Still, she is a woman of her time with all the restrictions imposed on her by her surroundings and society at large. With today's perspective we can pass a different judgement on her actions and the reasons for them. For the devout Catholic Mauriac himself, the questions of sin, confession, forgiveness and redemption, were apparently central to his interest in the story and they are detectable in various references and allusions. Therese, however, is presented as an agnostic who seeks forgiveness in her own way and from the person she endangered and who has all the power over her.
All these questions are explored in more or less depth in Mauriac's 1925 novel. However, his approach is original and was probably highly unusual at the time: he writes most of the novel from the perspective of Therese herself. Her case dismissed thanks to the perjury statement by her husband Bernard, she returns "home" to the family estate in the Bordeaux region. On the long, slow voyage back by train and carriage, Therese prepares herself for her encounter with Bernard first of all. Can she find the words to express regret,can she explain what drove her to action? How will she be able to relate to husband and family and how will he and they treat her? Interspersed into the musings that incorporate flashbacks on her earlier life, the author addresses Therese directly or, at times, adds his "pauvre Bernard" and other brief commentary. Eventually, Therese and Bernard meet (in chapter nine of 13) and what ensues is both predictable and unexpected.
Mauriac, no doubt, created in Therese a most complex character, a young woman contradictory in her behaviour and attitudes, who on the one hand knowingly entered a marriage that had as much to do with property and landownership as with family needs. She is both a pragmatist and an idealist who can dream of a different life. She is bored with her life, yet does not develop any emotional ties to her baby daughter. Still, she is a woman of her time with all the restrictions imposed on her by her surroundings and society at large. With today's perspective we can pass a different judgement on her actions and the reasons for them. For the devout Catholic Mauriac himself, the questions of sin, confession, forgiveness and redemption, were apparently central to his interest in the story and they are detectable in various references and allusions. Therese, however, is presented as an agnostic who seeks forgiveness in her own way and from the person she endangered and who has all the power over her.
July 12, 2017
The full title of this novel is actually Therese Desqueroux, and the inclusion of the protagonist's married surname is important to the theme. Francois Mauriac, who wrote most of his novels in the 1920s through the 1950s, is sometimes known as France's Catholic writer, but he was a rather uneasy Catholic who questioned orthodoxy and tended to write more sympathetically towards his characters who were in one kind or another of a personal or spiritual crisis. This 1926 novel asks the reader to consider just how desperately unhappy a wife would have to be if she attempted to poison her husband. Therese is married to Bernard Desqueroux, who, although he owns acres of pine trees in France's Bordeaux region and can offer her an easy life, is stern and distant. The poisoning occurs quite early in the narrative. Bernard survives, Therese is put on trial, but her in-laws manage to get the charges dismissed to avoid further bad publicity. All of Mauriac's narrative attention is focused on Therese as she waits for Bernard to take her back home. She looks back upon the crime through alternate states of conciousness and semi-consciousness not so much with feelings of guilt or horror at the attempted poisoning, but more upon how she can satisfactorily explain her motives to Bernard when he meets her at the station. Of course, such a crime can never be explained to a husband to his satisfaction. The next few months are a nightmare as Therese is kept a virtual prisoner in the family home and treated with mistrust and contempt by Bernard and his family. The 2012 French-language film version is a beautiful period piece, hauntingly faithful to the novel, and starring a subdued Audrey Tautou as Thérèse. I won't reveal any more about the novel's outcome except to say that Mauriac was so fond of this troubled heroine that he went on to write three more works about her life after this incident--short stories "Thérèse chez le docteur," and Thérèse à l'hotel" and novella Fin de la Nuit. Suffice it to say that Mauriac really loves Therese and follows her to happier chapters of her life. But in 1920s France, Therese doesn't have an easy road.
July 17, 2017
The two novellas, and two short stories, which follow Mauriac's most famous literary creation, Therese Desqueyroux, are set in Bordeaux and Paris. They chart her 'passionate, tortured life... Her story, brilliantly and unforgettably told, affirms the beauty and vitality of the human spirit in "the eternal radiance of death"'. Of Mauriac's writing, Justin O'Brien tells the following in the New York Times: 'Both his subject and his style frequently recall Racine and Baudelaire; and indeed we often feel that we are dealing here with a poem, so rich is the symbolism and so fleet is the arrangement of themes.' Martin Seymour-Smith says that: 'His books are bewitchingly readable.'
The author's foreword, directed as it is toward Therese, ends: 'I take my leave of you upon a city's pavements, hoping, at least, that you will not for ever be utterly alone.' The title story begins with Therese walking from court, 'having been charged with attempting to poison her husband'. We then follow Therese as she is banished from her home, escapes to Paris, and spends her final years of solitude waiting. Mauriac's depiction of the Paris cityscape is nothing short of stunning: 'It is not the bricks and mortar that I love, nor even the lectures and museums, but the living human forest that fills the streets, the creatures torn by passions more violent than any storm.'
There are so many small yet unusual details which render Therese a believable, and markedly human, character: 'She took off her left-hand glove and began picking at the moss which grew between the old stones of the walls they passed', and 'Once more she breathed in the damp night air like someone threatened with suffocation.' Mauriac clearly believes that he has built her up to such a realistic position; he writes: 'But compared with her own terrible existence all inventions of the novelist would have seemed thin and colourless.' His depiction of Therese's motherhood is often startlingly beautiful: 'There, in the darkness, the young mother would hear the even breathing of her slumbering child, would lean above the bed and drink down, like a draught of cool, refreshing water, the small sleeping life.'
In Therese Desqueyroux, Therese tries desperately to remember why she married her husband; she loves him, both for himself, and what he stands for - property, family, security - but the passion which she would have imagined she had felt is unavailable to her. Soon after their marriage, Mauriac shows that things began to go sour, particularly for her husband, Bernard: '... their being together no longer gave him any happiness. He was bored to death away from his guns, his dogs, and the inn... His wife was so cold, so mocking. She never showed pleasure even if she felt any, would never talk about what interested him.' As for Therese: 'She was like a transported criminal, sick to her soul of transit prisons, and anxious only to see the Convict Island where she would have to spend the rest of her life.'
Therese has been both beautifully written and translated. Therese's story is incredibly sad, and demonstrates how one can be overruled and shunned in terms of their character and choices. One cannot help but feel for Therese; she is a fascinating character to study. I did not quite love the collection, but the title story particularly was so interesting to read.
The author's foreword, directed as it is toward Therese, ends: 'I take my leave of you upon a city's pavements, hoping, at least, that you will not for ever be utterly alone.' The title story begins with Therese walking from court, 'having been charged with attempting to poison her husband'. We then follow Therese as she is banished from her home, escapes to Paris, and spends her final years of solitude waiting. Mauriac's depiction of the Paris cityscape is nothing short of stunning: 'It is not the bricks and mortar that I love, nor even the lectures and museums, but the living human forest that fills the streets, the creatures torn by passions more violent than any storm.'
There are so many small yet unusual details which render Therese a believable, and markedly human, character: 'She took off her left-hand glove and began picking at the moss which grew between the old stones of the walls they passed', and 'Once more she breathed in the damp night air like someone threatened with suffocation.' Mauriac clearly believes that he has built her up to such a realistic position; he writes: 'But compared with her own terrible existence all inventions of the novelist would have seemed thin and colourless.' His depiction of Therese's motherhood is often startlingly beautiful: 'There, in the darkness, the young mother would hear the even breathing of her slumbering child, would lean above the bed and drink down, like a draught of cool, refreshing water, the small sleeping life.'
In Therese Desqueyroux, Therese tries desperately to remember why she married her husband; she loves him, both for himself, and what he stands for - property, family, security - but the passion which she would have imagined she had felt is unavailable to her. Soon after their marriage, Mauriac shows that things began to go sour, particularly for her husband, Bernard: '... their being together no longer gave him any happiness. He was bored to death away from his guns, his dogs, and the inn... His wife was so cold, so mocking. She never showed pleasure even if she felt any, would never talk about what interested him.' As for Therese: 'She was like a transported criminal, sick to her soul of transit prisons, and anxious only to see the Convict Island where she would have to spend the rest of her life.'
Therese has been both beautifully written and translated. Therese's story is incredibly sad, and demonstrates how one can be overruled and shunned in terms of their character and choices. One cannot help but feel for Therese; she is a fascinating character to study. I did not quite love the collection, but the title story particularly was so interesting to read.
November 20, 2017
Nobel Prize Project
Year: 1952
Winner: François Mauriac
Review: This volume consists of Mauriac's two novels about Thérèse, Thérèse Desqueyroux and The End of the Night, as well as two short stories about her life. Collectively the two novels, especially Thérèse Desqueyroux.
The issue is that these novels mix together the traditional novel and traditional themes with hints of modernism in a way that makes it feel very dated. This has not aged well. I'm glad I read the books, because they are well written and well translated, but I'm not rushing out to read more of François Mauriac's output
Verdict: François Mauriac was a famous author in his time, and critically acclaimed, and it was probably inevitable that he would win the Nobel. His traditional Catholic morality put him in public disputes with the other major French authors of his day, primarily Camus and Sartre, who did not respect his work. Perhaps it is for this reason that he is virtually forgotten today (at least in the US).
Year: 1952
Winner: François Mauriac
Review: This volume consists of Mauriac's two novels about Thérèse, Thérèse Desqueyroux and The End of the Night, as well as two short stories about her life. Collectively the two novels, especially Thérèse Desqueyroux.
The issue is that these novels mix together the traditional novel and traditional themes with hints of modernism in a way that makes it feel very dated. This has not aged well. I'm glad I read the books, because they are well written and well translated, but I'm not rushing out to read more of François Mauriac's output
Verdict: François Mauriac was a famous author in his time, and critically acclaimed, and it was probably inevitable that he would win the Nobel. His traditional Catholic morality put him in public disputes with the other major French authors of his day, primarily Camus and Sartre, who did not respect his work. Perhaps it is for this reason that he is virtually forgotten today (at least in the US).
July 13, 2021
This classic book of French literature from the early 20th century (1927-1935) actually features four stories about the main character, Therese Desqueyroux. In the first story, Therese is on trial for attempting to poison her husband, Bernard, by dosing him with arsenic but cleared after he gives evidence on her behalf - but this is only to protect the family reputation and Therese is forced to live apart from Bernard and their daughter and is initially confined to the house before he eventually relents and allows her to live independently but separately from the family. The middle two stories are interludes, featuring Therese at the doctors (psychiatrists) and at a hotel, with the last (and longest) section covering her life in Paris and her eventual reunion with daughter, Marie, as her grip on her mental health begins to decline. Some parts of this were more enjoyable than others but overall I rated this as 3 stars - 7/10.
October 17, 2018
“What did it matter—the sort of country one was fond of, pines or maples, sea or plain? Life alone was interesting, people of flesh and blood. ‘It is not the bricks and mortar that I love, nor even the lectures and museums, but the living human forest that fills the streets, the creatures torn by passions more violent than any storm. The moaning of the pines at Argelouse in the darkness of the night thrilled me only because it had an almost human sound!’”
Gorgeously written! Thérèse is such a voracious antihero, an absolute treasure to encounter on the page.
November 23, 2015
There is no doubt that Mauriac is an amazing writer - one of the best I've ever come across - and that in a translation. I'm sure he's better in French. Without the introduction, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate this one quite as much. It is very short, but it was pretty convoluted. This one is a deeply psychological read that leaves an awful lot up to the reader to interpret. It's very much like Henry James in this sense, but in a different more poetical style. I didn't care for the story but enjoyed the writing and appreciated the story for what it was meant to convey. At the end, there was a segment of his early version ("Conscience") of the story which had a different voice and medium. From that came this quote, which I loved:
"The love or repulsion that we inspire in others has almost nothing to do with circumstances we can control."
The writing is 4 stars - maybe even 4.5 stars, but for the content I know he's capable of, I feel like for Mauriac, this is a 3.5.
"The love or repulsion that we inspire in others has almost nothing to do with circumstances we can control."
The writing is 4 stars - maybe even 4.5 stars, but for the content I know he's capable of, I feel like for Mauriac, this is a 3.5.
August 18, 2024
With Thérèse, which is really two novellas and two short stories about the titular character, Mauriac succeeds where he failed in A Kiss for the Leper, but just barely: he resists the urge to slap on an ending of Catholic redemption through the transcendence of suffering, thus invalidating the work with an inauthentic character transformation. He notes in the Preface to the last section, “The End of the Night,” that he had indeed written just such a final scene, in which Thérèse confesses on her deathbed and is redeemed, but decided to destroy the pages. Thankfully, he was wiser here than in his earlier novel. Of course, Thérèse still dies redeemed in a way – opening her arms wide on her bed in imitation of the crucifixion was the point at which Mauriac almost went over the edge – but she just does so in a state of lonely, partial delusion.
Thérèse is one who poisons the minds of others, and whose mind is poisoned in turn. The fact that she also happens to have engaged in a literal attempted poisoning is almost moot. We feel empathy for her, even if we don’t feel her actions are justified or don’t like her personally, since her actions are only in response to a life that stifles, where darkness reigns only until the release of death. Like a poisonous insect ensnared by an enemy, the release of her venom is an act of self preservation. Liberated at death, she is no longer in need of her venom.
Ironically, the entrapment begins in the opening of the novel when she is set free from her attempted murder trial. I am reminded of the opening of Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, when Franz is released from prison: “Now the punishment begins,” Döblin writes. Like Franz, Thérèse is then subjected to a succession of figurative prisons: marriage, her reputation, her age, motherhood, her psychological state, and her deteriorating body. Here is Mauriac at his closest to traditional naturalism, which I think is why I like this novel more than some of his earlier ones that only skirt the issue or, even worse, dilute the impact by an overly religious détournement. The religion is here, to be sure, but in more tolerable doses (no pun intended, due to the poisoning theme!).
Thérèse is one who poisons the minds of others, and whose mind is poisoned in turn. The fact that she also happens to have engaged in a literal attempted poisoning is almost moot. We feel empathy for her, even if we don’t feel her actions are justified or don’t like her personally, since her actions are only in response to a life that stifles, where darkness reigns only until the release of death. Like a poisonous insect ensnared by an enemy, the release of her venom is an act of self preservation. Liberated at death, she is no longer in need of her venom.
Ironically, the entrapment begins in the opening of the novel when she is set free from her attempted murder trial. I am reminded of the opening of Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, when Franz is released from prison: “Now the punishment begins,” Döblin writes. Like Franz, Thérèse is then subjected to a succession of figurative prisons: marriage, her reputation, her age, motherhood, her psychological state, and her deteriorating body. Here is Mauriac at his closest to traditional naturalism, which I think is why I like this novel more than some of his earlier ones that only skirt the issue or, even worse, dilute the impact by an overly religious détournement. The religion is here, to be sure, but in more tolerable doses (no pun intended, due to the poisoning theme!).
May 14, 2023
"Is this it?" is a tricky question to answer. There is much self-deprecating meandering in this novel and at its core, it's about trying to find someone who truly understands you and never finding that person. About hoping that finding the pull will lessen the ache you feel and realising it doesn't.
November 6, 2025
very interesting, feeling trapped in a life only then to be condemned to waiting for the ‘end of the night’.
January 28, 2016
An image of incredibly powerful yet fragile Therese resonate in ones mind long after finishing the book. Therese was an only child of a very conservative and carrier oriented man. Her mother died shortly after giving the birth and except for old, half deaf Aunt Clara there was no other woman's influence in Therese's life. Therese grew up mostly in the company of her father and his man friends talking business around the dinning table and loosing herself in books and studies. She did not have a chance to observe relations of husband and wife in her young life and hence she gained no understanding of its peculiar nuances.
pg.22 "Everything which dates from before my marriage I see now as bathed in a light of purity- doubtless because that time stands out in such a vivid contrast to the indelible filth of my wedded life."
Therese seems to have somehow noble idea of the marriage, more so as of a business like contract that she would observe between her father and his business friends, than a union of two different genders where she is to contribute also with the privacy of her own body.
pg.32 Therese wedding... "Therese, very soon, would be one of the heard of those who have served their purpose."
pg.35 "The truth is that desire transforms a man into a monster, so that he became utterly unlike himself. Nothing is severing as the frenzy that seizes upon our partner in the act."
pg.36 description of Therese's honeymoon. ... "She was like transported criminal...."
As Therese became pregnant with her first and only child another proof of unpreparedness for a role of a wife and a mother surfaced in her life. She felt no maternal joy over the pregnancy.
"pg.50 "She longed to have a knowledge of some God. She wanted to pray that this unknown little life which was still an indistinguishable part of herself might never see the light of day.""
pg.53 "There was nothing she detested more in novels than the delineation of extraordinary people who had no resemblance to anyone whom one met in normal life."
One might think she is just a cold blooded woman, but in the fact Therese is very alive and passionate woman, whose passion is, however, locked away from her shallow minded self indulging husband. There is much more of a human under a cover of Therese's front. Terese's passion unleashed as she met a fellow soul in a young Azevedo, man with whom her sister in law is much in love.
pg.59 Jean Azevedo:"It's not so much seeking God that matters, as, having once found him, to remain within his orbit."
pg.62 "For each man, here as elsewhere, is born subject to the law of his nature: here, as elsewhere, individual destiny rules each single life."
pg.63"Accepting ourselves for what we are forces each one of us to come to grip with his real nature, to see it clearly and engage it in mortal combat. That is why so many emancipated minds became converted to religion in its narrowest form."
I believe that meeting Azevedo was the breaking point when Therese "converted" or gave in to her nature. She felt trapped in a captivity and refused to be just anther food for the earthly appetite of Bernard Desqueyroux. She felt life would have much more to offer to her if she would severe the chains of her marriage. She detested Bernard's ways of enjoying simple things in life, Therese did not care for comfort and simplicity of life of a wife, her soul was screaming to be understood.
pg.84 Bernard is summed up; "Wen, at the hospital, they had told him - oh, how tactfully!- of his wife's attempt upon his life, the calm way in which he had responded had earned him unstinted admiration - though it had cost him remarkably little effort. Nothing is ever wholly serious for those who are incapable of love."
Bernard thought of Therese ; "No doubt she was a monster; still ... if only she had believed in God... Fear is the beginning of wisdom."
pg.107 "We find our fellow-creatures tolerable, thought Therese, once we know that it is in our power to leave them."
It is tormenting to read through the pages of Therese's reasoning for the act she had done, however one cannot also help but feel for her as she felt trapped in the suffocating loneliness of her marriage.
My copy of this book includes Therese and the doctor, Therese at the hotel and The end of the night sequences. Each shows a different side of Therese but the last one brings the most of her psyche and leads to a better understanding of a wretched soul of Therese Desqueyroux.
pg.22 "Everything which dates from before my marriage I see now as bathed in a light of purity- doubtless because that time stands out in such a vivid contrast to the indelible filth of my wedded life."
Therese seems to have somehow noble idea of the marriage, more so as of a business like contract that she would observe between her father and his business friends, than a union of two different genders where she is to contribute also with the privacy of her own body.
pg.32 Therese wedding... "Therese, very soon, would be one of the heard of those who have served their purpose."
pg.35 "The truth is that desire transforms a man into a monster, so that he became utterly unlike himself. Nothing is severing as the frenzy that seizes upon our partner in the act."
pg.36 description of Therese's honeymoon. ... "She was like transported criminal...."
As Therese became pregnant with her first and only child another proof of unpreparedness for a role of a wife and a mother surfaced in her life. She felt no maternal joy over the pregnancy.
"pg.50 "She longed to have a knowledge of some God. She wanted to pray that this unknown little life which was still an indistinguishable part of herself might never see the light of day.""
pg.53 "There was nothing she detested more in novels than the delineation of extraordinary people who had no resemblance to anyone whom one met in normal life."
One might think she is just a cold blooded woman, but in the fact Therese is very alive and passionate woman, whose passion is, however, locked away from her shallow minded self indulging husband. There is much more of a human under a cover of Therese's front. Terese's passion unleashed as she met a fellow soul in a young Azevedo, man with whom her sister in law is much in love.
pg.59 Jean Azevedo:"It's not so much seeking God that matters, as, having once found him, to remain within his orbit."
pg.62 "For each man, here as elsewhere, is born subject to the law of his nature: here, as elsewhere, individual destiny rules each single life."
pg.63"Accepting ourselves for what we are forces each one of us to come to grip with his real nature, to see it clearly and engage it in mortal combat. That is why so many emancipated minds became converted to religion in its narrowest form."
I believe that meeting Azevedo was the breaking point when Therese "converted" or gave in to her nature. She felt trapped in a captivity and refused to be just anther food for the earthly appetite of Bernard Desqueyroux. She felt life would have much more to offer to her if she would severe the chains of her marriage. She detested Bernard's ways of enjoying simple things in life, Therese did not care for comfort and simplicity of life of a wife, her soul was screaming to be understood.
pg.84 Bernard is summed up; "Wen, at the hospital, they had told him - oh, how tactfully!- of his wife's attempt upon his life, the calm way in which he had responded had earned him unstinted admiration - though it had cost him remarkably little effort. Nothing is ever wholly serious for those who are incapable of love."
Bernard thought of Therese ; "No doubt she was a monster; still ... if only she had believed in God... Fear is the beginning of wisdom."
pg.107 "We find our fellow-creatures tolerable, thought Therese, once we know that it is in our power to leave them."
It is tormenting to read through the pages of Therese's reasoning for the act she had done, however one cannot also help but feel for her as she felt trapped in the suffocating loneliness of her marriage.
My copy of this book includes Therese and the doctor, Therese at the hotel and The end of the night sequences. Each shows a different side of Therese but the last one brings the most of her psyche and leads to a better understanding of a wretched soul of Therese Desqueyroux.
June 13, 2016
“You have to realize that all through one winter I dropped arsenic regularly into the cup of a man whose captive I was more completely than if I had been locked into a cell with stone walls. […] Georges, why are you looking at me like that? I am not a monster. You, too, have been guilty...you would realize it if you took the trouble to search your conscience – and you would not have to search for long...I don't mean that you ever gave anyone an overdose of medicine in an attempt to get rid of them...but there are other ways, so many other ways, of pushing people aside! How many have you thrown neck and croup out of your life?”
Some really phenomenal writing here, especially in the first (original) novella. I found the two short stories to be more or less unnecessary, even in terms of propelling the story, but the second (and longer) novella was fascinating in parts. I found it a little long, but it's amazing and admirable how much mind, body, and soul Mauriac put into his Thérèse. You could tell he truly slaved away over these two novellas! Rare is the protagonist that one is so able to thoroughly know and understand.
Some of my favorite passages:
“How could I possibly have known that during those years before life had properly begun for me I was, in fact, living my true life? Pure?”
“All that matters is to hoist one's sails and make for the open sea, avoiding like the plague all those who persuade themselves that they have found what they sought, who cease to move forward, but build their little shelters and compose themselves to slumber.”
“What would there to be to think about when he could no longer think of her?”
“It's always the same, always in these periods between tides that I let myself get caught. I persuade myself that my heart is dead, when really it is only getting its second breath. In the slack periods between successive bouts of passion, when there is no one there to put me in blinkers, I can see myself in the mirror, looking far older than my age; can see the reflection of a used-up woman who is no longer good for anything.”
"Therese's childhood. However sullied the stream, there is snow at its source.”
“Just as in this part of the country all carriages are precisely 'fitted to the road,' or in other words, just wide enough to ensure that the wheels will fit neatly into the ruts made by the passing wagons, so all my thoughts, till that moment, had been equally 'fitted to the road' which my father and my parents-in-law had traced.”
Some really phenomenal writing here, especially in the first (original) novella. I found the two short stories to be more or less unnecessary, even in terms of propelling the story, but the second (and longer) novella was fascinating in parts. I found it a little long, but it's amazing and admirable how much mind, body, and soul Mauriac put into his Thérèse. You could tell he truly slaved away over these two novellas! Rare is the protagonist that one is so able to thoroughly know and understand.
Some of my favorite passages:
“How could I possibly have known that during those years before life had properly begun for me I was, in fact, living my true life? Pure?”
“All that matters is to hoist one's sails and make for the open sea, avoiding like the plague all those who persuade themselves that they have found what they sought, who cease to move forward, but build their little shelters and compose themselves to slumber.”
“What would there to be to think about when he could no longer think of her?”
“It's always the same, always in these periods between tides that I let myself get caught. I persuade myself that my heart is dead, when really it is only getting its second breath. In the slack periods between successive bouts of passion, when there is no one there to put me in blinkers, I can see myself in the mirror, looking far older than my age; can see the reflection of a used-up woman who is no longer good for anything.”
"Therese's childhood. However sullied the stream, there is snow at its source.”
“Just as in this part of the country all carriages are precisely 'fitted to the road,' or in other words, just wide enough to ensure that the wheels will fit neatly into the ruts made by the passing wagons, so all my thoughts, till that moment, had been equally 'fitted to the road' which my father and my parents-in-law had traced.”
March 30, 2020
Therese is a spiritual successor to Madame Bovary, trapped in rural France with nothing to exercise her mind and passion. It is arguably a little derivative, but Mauriac imbues the story with Gothic undertones, the redolence of death scenting the pages, climaxing in a kind of psychological horror where Therese is entombed in loneliness and the perceived emptiness of her life a la campagne.
"She stared before her, seeing in her imagination the cage with its innumerable bars, each of which was a living person, a cage full of eyes and ears, in which she would have to spend the whole of her life, squatting motionless, her chin on her knees, her arms clapped about her legs, waiting for death."
I was less interested, however, in Therese's relationship with husband Bertrand than with the half-glimpsed love story between herself and Anne. Regardless of whether or not it could have blossomed into an affaire de coeur, the connection and contrast between Therese and Anne is perhaps the most nuanced aspect of the novel.
The edition I read includes further works about Therese, but after reading Therese and the Doctor I decided not to proceed any further. All the psychological complexity seemed to have vanished, reducing Mauriac's creation to nothing but a lovelorn fool with murderous tendencies.
"She stared before her, seeing in her imagination the cage with its innumerable bars, each of which was a living person, a cage full of eyes and ears, in which she would have to spend the whole of her life, squatting motionless, her chin on her knees, her arms clapped about her legs, waiting for death."
I was less interested, however, in Therese's relationship with husband Bertrand than with the half-glimpsed love story between herself and Anne. Regardless of whether or not it could have blossomed into an affaire de coeur, the connection and contrast between Therese and Anne is perhaps the most nuanced aspect of the novel.
The edition I read includes further works about Therese, but after reading Therese and the Doctor I decided not to proceed any further. All the psychological complexity seemed to have vanished, reducing Mauriac's creation to nothing but a lovelorn fool with murderous tendencies.
July 5, 2009
Oh, the agony of reading this for the book group.
Really self-absorbed, unsympathetic horrible characters drag this down to the depths of despair. I only made it through the first 2 books of this collection and could face no more.
Avoid.
Really self-absorbed, unsympathetic horrible characters drag this down to the depths of despair. I only made it through the first 2 books of this collection and could face no more.
Avoid.
September 12, 2015
Trois étoiles sont assez , qu'il était un peu ennuyeux ,difficile roman parce que son la première fois que je lis un roman en langue française, bien que la traduction anglais m'a aidé très beaucoup
I can't deny how the translation helped me !
I can't deny how the translation helped me !
May 16, 2011
Pass the razor blades. Depressing beyond belief!
March 2, 2013
One of my favourite French reads. Read when I was just a kid emotionally, but this tale of a woman's desperation and the power of the human spirit moved me greatly. Highly recommend.
June 22, 2014
THERESE IS THE SOLE EMBODIMENT OF A SOUL WAITING FOR FORTUITOUS FLASHES OF LOVE AND FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS SIMULTENOUSLY. MAURIAC HAS REVEALED A MATYR.
October 27, 2016
Structurally reminiscent of Ford Madox Ford.
August 20, 2017
I've heard so much about this book maybe that's why I've only rated 4/5. It's an excellent one though, simple, clear with unforgettable images.
December 24, 2025
This book consists of four stories, two novellas and two short stories, about Therese Desqueyroux. Subtitled, A Portrait in Four Parts. It was first published in English as a collective whole in 1947.
‘Therese Desquevroux’, a novella that was first published in french in 1927 and is my favourite of the four stories. It tells of a young woman’s plight after she committed a crime against her husband. The story is set in Bordeaux, France, and opens with Therese having been acquitted of the crime of poisoning her husband, Bernard. The novella explores both the causes and the repercussions of her seemingly morally devoid act. Her unhappy marriage, unwanted motherhood and the intense social pressures, show a woman driven to unimaginable extremes by those around her. This novella is deservedly regarded as the author’s most famous creation.
‘Therese and the Doctor’, a short story, first published in french in 1928, describes an incident when Therese visits a doctor.
‘Therese at the Hotel’, a short story, first published in french in 1928, describes a conversation Therese has with a young man.
‘’The End of the Night’ a novella first published in french in 1935 describes Therese as an older woman and her attempt to salvage the love affair of her daughter. This novella is the weakest story of the four.
Francois Mauriac won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952.
‘Therese Desquevroux’, a novella that was first published in french in 1927 and is my favourite of the four stories. It tells of a young woman’s plight after she committed a crime against her husband. The story is set in Bordeaux, France, and opens with Therese having been acquitted of the crime of poisoning her husband, Bernard. The novella explores both the causes and the repercussions of her seemingly morally devoid act. Her unhappy marriage, unwanted motherhood and the intense social pressures, show a woman driven to unimaginable extremes by those around her. This novella is deservedly regarded as the author’s most famous creation.
‘Therese and the Doctor’, a short story, first published in french in 1928, describes an incident when Therese visits a doctor.
‘Therese at the Hotel’, a short story, first published in french in 1928, describes a conversation Therese has with a young man.
‘’The End of the Night’ a novella first published in french in 1935 describes Therese as an older woman and her attempt to salvage the love affair of her daughter. This novella is the weakest story of the four.
Francois Mauriac won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952.
January 22, 2018
I read this compilation of the four stories with Therese. The first novel (Therese Dequeyroux) written in 1927, details the ramifications of her failed attempted poisoning (overdosing) of her husband Bernard a few years, and one daughter, into their marriage. The second and third are shorter stories of her meeting a Freudian doctor and the third her romantic meeting of a young man in a hotel. The final novel (The end of the Night) written 1935, is set 15 years later as Therese deals with her reconciliation with daughter Marie, and Marie’s engagement to Georges.
Therese is an intriguing character and following her life in this mixed perspective narrative is a worthy read. The style has a clever sense of seediness, classic literary prose and psychology. One doesn’t know if it’s a loveless marriage or a loveless wife; whether to feel sorry or despise Therese; is she too weak or too strong willed? She is self-absorbed but at who’s fault?
I would strongly recommend committing to reading all the novels and not just the more renown first – it is the conclusive final novel that draws everything together.
“How distorted in our minds the people we know best become when we are not actually with them”.
A great book – 5 stars.
Therese is an intriguing character and following her life in this mixed perspective narrative is a worthy read. The style has a clever sense of seediness, classic literary prose and psychology. One doesn’t know if it’s a loveless marriage or a loveless wife; whether to feel sorry or despise Therese; is she too weak or too strong willed? She is self-absorbed but at who’s fault?
I would strongly recommend committing to reading all the novels and not just the more renown first – it is the conclusive final novel that draws everything together.
“How distorted in our minds the people we know best become when we are not actually with them”.
A great book – 5 stars.
August 21, 2019
A difficult book to review.
Mauriac writes the four short stories in this novel, centred around his vividly-imagined heroine Thérèse, with such ambiguity and purposeful vagueness that it was difficult to form an opinion as I read. Thérèse is an incredibly strong woman and Mauriac is at pains to show this in his descriptions of her as well as in her actions. He also has such intimate knowledge of her that he subtly shows the chinks in her armour by getting Thérèse to reveal them herself through interior thoughts.
By the end of the collection I thought I knew Thérèse but even then, the thoughts I had are hard to disentangle from the thoughts that Mauriac through the protagonist purposely convoluts in the readers mind. Mauriac in this regard is an absolute master at blurring the boundaries between what is right and what is wrong and this central theme is played out in the course of Thérèse’s life in a very sadly inevitable way.
Mauriac writes the four short stories in this novel, centred around his vividly-imagined heroine Thérèse, with such ambiguity and purposeful vagueness that it was difficult to form an opinion as I read. Thérèse is an incredibly strong woman and Mauriac is at pains to show this in his descriptions of her as well as in her actions. He also has such intimate knowledge of her that he subtly shows the chinks in her armour by getting Thérèse to reveal them herself through interior thoughts.
By the end of the collection I thought I knew Thérèse but even then, the thoughts I had are hard to disentangle from the thoughts that Mauriac through the protagonist purposely convoluts in the readers mind. Mauriac in this regard is an absolute master at blurring the boundaries between what is right and what is wrong and this central theme is played out in the course of Thérèse’s life in a very sadly inevitable way.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews