AN EARLY MAURIAC
LINES OF LIFE (Destins), by Francois Mauriac, translated by Gerard Hopkins; Eyre and Spottiswoode, English price 12/6. "HE story of Bob Lagrave, ‘a _ toohandsome young man with bad habits, and his impact on other lives, especially the life of Elizabeth Gornac, a widow, is beautifully told in this early novel by Francois Mauriac, first published» in 1928. French writers often have a genius for compression: they can say in 150 pages what is generally spread through 300 pages and more by Anglo-Saxon novelists. Yet Mauriac, who has this gift of economical writing, is never in a hurry. The Sauternes country, dry with heat and heavy with grapes ripening in the sun, grows upon the reader like a living presence. Of the characters, the widow Gornac is most fully realised. The theme of love in an aging woman is handled with delicacy and compassion; and if sometimes she seems to suffer more thar she should, there is always the patient earth to draw her back to quietness. In this new translation the book joins the collected English edition of Mauriac’s
novels.
H.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570412.2.23.6
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 14
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184AN EARLY MAURIAC New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 14
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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