Viper's Tangle (Loyola Classics) [Paperback]

Francois Mauriac (Author), Robert Coles (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2005 | Series: Loyola Classics

“Mauriac’s best novel.”—Catholic World

“A lucid and penetrating study . . . Mauriac proves himself as good a storyteller as he is a psychologist.”—The New York Times

“A most admirable and exciting novel.”—New Statesman

The masterpiece of one of the twentieth century’s greatest Catholic writers, Vipers’ Tangle tells the story of Monsieur Louis, an embittered aging lawyer who has spread his misery to his entire estranged family. Louis writes a journal to explain to them—and to himself—why his soul has been deformed, why his heart seems like a foul nest of twisted serpents. Mauriac’s novel masterfully explores the corruption caused by pride, avarice, and hatred, and its opposite—the divine grace that remains available to each of us until the very moment of our deaths. It is the unforgettable tale of the battle for one man’s soul.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This audio edition of the 1932 novel is read in a straightforward fashion by Geoffrey Howard. An old man reflects on a life without love, without letting one's guard down even to one's family. His life's work seems to have been evading love. He has plotted to disinherit his wife and children from his considerable fortune. He explains the events and thoughts that led him to such a narrow, spiteful life in a series of letters to his wife, which are never shared with her. Mauriac creates Louis as a miserable old miser devoured by bitterness. In a quest to untangle the roots of his wretchedness, Louis begins writing his life story. As he tries to explain and to justify himself, his introspection leads him to see beyond his bitterness to a more profound, deeper understanding. Make no mistakes, there is no happy ending here. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952, Mauriac develops a character from the inside out, so to speak. The listener is able to move into Louis's mind, to feel and understand his motivation. The reading has little drama, as if the reader is plowing through pages of dictation. But, all in all, it rather suits the story. This is not likely to be popular with the average patron wanting recreational listening. Recommended for academic collections and large public libraries wanting to have a comprehensive audio collection.ANancy Paul, Brandon
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

One of the greatest Catholic novels of the twentieth century, Vipers’ Tangle is the story of Louis, an elderly man filled with bitterness who keeps a journal in which he records the vipers’ tangle of his own heart. With subtlety and wisdom, Mauriac traces the transfor­ma­tion of this tortured soul by the light of God’s grace.
 

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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Loyola Classics (September 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0829422110
• ISBN-13: 978-0829422115
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.8 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #438,710 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Christian novel unafraid of psychological realism April 13, 2008

By Lara Simone

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am surprised that one of the reviews (referring to the AudioBook version) calls this novel sermonizing. I have read many of the Loyola classics, and I appreciate most of them as pleasantly innocuous novels with Christian themes, but of all that I have read so far, I find Viper's Tangle the most literary and the least didactic. It is also one of the most uncontrived conversion stories that I have ever read.

The protagonist of the story, a miserly old man close to death, tells of his bitterness towards his family and the world with great psychological acumen. He explains to the reader exactly how his hypocritical bourgeouis family has led him to go to great lengths in plotting to disinherit them. He despises his wife's Catholicism, and he offers an incredibly disturbing because realistic portrait of her narrow-mindedness, her failures of charity, even as he freely confesses his own wretched flaws.

What is extraordinary about the story is that his turn of heart begins to occur not as the result of an intervention by some saintly Christian character who shows him the "real meaning of faith." Small, chance discoveries occur that allow the protagonist to see his wife in a new light and allow him to realize that though she and her faith were indeed imperfect, like himself, she too hid complexities and anxieties within her. The religion that he held in contempt because it seemed so false and shallow begins to seem genuine as he gains a better picture of the role it played in her inner life, that he was too self-absorbed to see in the years she was alive.

I appreciate this book for its honest portrayal of imperfectly led Christian lives, and the (not-sermonizing) message that the individual members of the church can be both saint and sinner. To acknowledge this, even to be laid psychologically bare, with all one's faults, before a non-believer, does not discredit Christ but is evidence of his mercy.

My review may make this book sound explicitly theological, but Mauriac does not beat the reader over the head with theology. The real strength of this book is its exquisite prose and psychological realism. So many modern novels have unabashedly delved into the rottenness of the human soul, but this book gives voice to the great Hope that is Christianity, that rottenness, in all its forms and stages, does not preclude redeemability.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars memorable, if rare, work April 7, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I read Viper's Tangle (I believe my translation was "Nest of Vipers") in high school and became fascinated with Francois Mauriac. I went on to read some of his other works, including "The Desert of Love." This work is psychological and personal in nature. If you enjoy stories which probe characters' minds, this is an excellent choice. An invalid man lies in bed, dying, remembering his life and coming to terms with it, and himself. An unknown classic. Also great if you like to collect obscure literature!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eschatological Meditation February 5, 2009

By John Murphy

Format:Paperback

I was very grateful when Ignatius Press sent a copy of this book to me to review for Catholicfiction.net. It's truly a "lost masterpiece," as other reviewers have noted. I thought I'd share a truncated version of my original review, as I feel this book deserves to be read by anyone who appreciates deep, if dark, stories with a profound spiritual element. Indeed, "Vipers' Tangle" is structured as a lengthy confession--sometimes a confession, sometimes a polemic, sometimes an invective--from Monsieur Louis, a wealthy retired lawyer of declining health who feels surrounded by a nest of vipers, his family. Yet the vipers' tangle is within as well as without.

The story bears a passing resemblance to Dickens' classic, "A Christmas Carol": a rich, "covetous old sinner" struggles against God's grace to find redemption. But where Dickens' tale had its author's infectious good-humor and largeness of spirit, Vipers' Tangle is an often disturbing journey to the heart of an odious man's mystery. In both stories, however, the ultimate point is that God's grace is accessible to anyone, even the most miserly old sinner.

Through his barrister narrator, a man very difficult character to stomach much less love, Mauriac is making a case of his own. By presenting the reader with a malevolent old man on his deathbed, the author's case is simply this: no one is beyond the reach of God's grace. Without romanticizing Louis, Mauriac expresses the tragedy of a wasted life, the tragedy of a man who has closed himself off from a community of love to wallow in his own despair. Louis is sinned against as well as sinning, but he reserves many of his harshest judgments for himself. He is honest, not hypocritical, and he often turns his cruelty inwards. There is a telling moment when someone asks the local priest if it is permissible to hate the Jews. He replies that "each of us has the right to hate one of Christ's butchers, and one only--himself, but no one else."

"Vipers' Tangle" is an eschatological meditation on the final things, the moment of death. "Apocalypse" is a popular subject for many sensationalistic religious thrillers, but the fact remains that every person's death is his or her own apocalypse--the end of the world. Though unsentimental, Mauriac's vision of one lonely man's last days is hopeful. As Death approaches Louis, the material universe begins to slough away, to diminish in importance as it recedes behind him. The essential drama of Catholic fiction (and why so many great writers are Catholic or have catholic sensibilities) is not whether a character dies--we all die--but whether a character dies in a state of grace. High stakes make for compelling stories, and no stake is higher than the condition of one's eternal soul. Choices in this life have repercussions in the next.

Mauriac asks the reader to bear with his bitter, cruel narrator. He even implicates the reader in Louis' sin-ridden life by suggesting that love requires patience and understanding--a willingness to reach out to souls in torment. "Even the genuinely good cannot, unaided, learn to love. To penetrate beyond the absurdities, the vices, and above, the stupidities of human creatures, one must possess the secret of a love that the world has now forgotten."