"Nabokov complained that Turgenev essentially moved characters around in order for them to have conversations; and Bernanos moves them around in order for them to confess to each other. These confessions, which involve long speeches, sometimes of many pages, are extraordinarily affecting and frequently beautiful. Bernanos is, like Dostoevsky, something of a sensationalist of the soul. While Dostoevsky's characters speak to each other in the same kind of mashed and ripely careless prose in which Dostoevsky writes, Bernanos's priests and parishioners speak a formal and poetic discourse, full of metaphor and figure."--James Woods,
The New Republic "It possesses the linear perfection of the French classic novel and a concentrated power out of all proportion in its length." --Martin Turnell,
The New York Times
"A tragedy in the great tradition, piteous, harrowing--and ennobling." --Walker Percy
"Simply and directly told, this novel relates the story of the young outcast peasant girl, Mouchette . . . and her search for the compassion and strength to combat her loneliness. A beautiful and moving short novel--compassionate, perceptive, lyrical." --
Publisher's Weekly
Georges Bernanos (1888-1948) was born in Paris and studied for his license in law and literature at the University of Paris. He was the author of many novels, including
The Diary of a Country Priest, which, like
Mouchette, was adapted for film by Robert Bresson. His
Dialogues des Carmelites was used by composer François Poulenc as the libretto for the opera of the same title.
Fanny Howe was raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and moved to California to attend Stanford University when she was seventeen. She has published several books of poetry and fiction and a collection of essays called
The Wedding Dress. She is Professor Emerita of American Literature and Writing at the Unviersity of California, San Diego.