This is one of Mauriac's most famous novels, and is often studied in schools. It is considered an early "feminist" novel, although Mauriac himself was not a feminist.

As the novel opens, Therese, a young unhappily married woman, has just escaped conviction for the attempted poisoning of her husband, primarily because he refused to provide evidence against her. During her long train ride home, she thinks back on the circumstances of her life, as she tries to come up with an explanation for why she did what she did. Her world was stifling, and she found that she had no control over her own life. She can't understand why she chose to marry Bernard, her husband, or why she did what she did. Unlike Emma Bovary, her literary ancestor, Therese did not do what she did because she wanted another man. Rather, what she wanted was the freedom to explore and to control her own life.

Mauriac states that the events he describes in the book were based on a real case in which a young wife in Bordeaux who had been accused of poisoning her husband was aquitted when her husband refused to testify against her. One thing Mauriac has said he was exploring in the book was evil: "We know that evil is an immense fund of capital shared out among all people, and that there is nothing in the criminal heart, no matter how horrible, whose germ is not also to be found in our own hearts."

This is the second book by Mauriac I have read. I much preferred the first book by him that I read, Nest of Vipers, which I liked a lot. I recognize the merit of Therese, but I somehow did not fully connect with it. I do recommend it though.

3 stars ( )

NA

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/recent-reads-therese-by-... ( )

493. Therese: A Portrait in Four Parts, by Francois Mauriac translated by Gerard Hopkins (read 27 Mar 1956) While reading this book on Mar 25, 1956, I said: "This is the first book by Mauriac I've read and it lives up to all my expectations. A strong sense of melancholy and inability to resist degradation pervade the book. Therese is now nearly mad and Marie, her daughter, is taking her home. Georges, with whom Marie is in love, has left with Madame Garcin, after writing Marie breaking off between them. There is no joy in the book. It is Jansenistic and powerful--one of the best books I have read so far this year." When I finished the book on March 27 I said of it: "A very good book, and I intend to read more Mauriac." ( )