Review
A Novel Invitation
Joy by Georges Bernanos,
tr. Louise Varèse
Cluny Media, 2017
(328 pages, $17.95, paperback)
reviewed by Norm Klassen
A fine new edition of Georges Bernanos's novel Joy (1929) in English translation is now available. It looks set to introduce a generation of readers to Bernanos's fiction, if not to his writings as a whole. Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) is not nearly as popular as some other European writers such as Feodor Dostoevsky, with whom he has much in common. In his excellent accompanying theological introduction, Andrew Kaethler suggests two reasons for this: Bernanos's works are permeated by a belief in original sin rather than a modernist commitment to progress, and, more importantly, he presents the spiritual challenge of sanctity to his readers (Introduction, iv).
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