The modern Catholic novel in Europe

the long version

In this comprehensive overview of masterpieces of the genre in Europe, Theodore P. Fraser concentrates on writers from France (Bernanos, Mauriac, Julien Green, Gilbert Cesbron, Jean Sulivan), England (G. K. Chesterton, Greene, Waugh, David Lodge, Spark), and Scandinavia and Germany (Sigrid Undset, Gertrud von Le Fort, Elisabeth Langgasser, Boll). Beginning with a look at the genre's origins and development in nineteenth-century France, Fraser stresses how Charles Peguy's concept of the sinner being at the heart of Christianity is itself at the heart of virtually every Catholic novel and is axiomatic in every plot. The traditional Catholic novel, Fraser argues, was built on a set of deeply held religious convictions: that there was a "hidden God" as identified by Pascal, and that this God pursued the erring soul ("The Hound of Heaven" in Francis Thompson's metaphor); that there was an essential, Augustinian antagonism between flesh and spirit; that the suffering of one individual, however unjust, could serve the purpose, in the divine economy, of redeeming the soul of another; and that the Catholic world of sign and symbol reflects another, invisible reality.