La Joie

Buoyed by the considerable success of his very first novel, Sous le soleil de Satan, published in 1926, Georges Bernanos threw himself without delay into the feverish writing of L’Imposture, which narrowly missed the Prix Goncourt.

Its sequel, his third novel, was entitled La Joie — a joy that certainly does not belong to M. de Clergerie, a mediocre historian obsessed with his academic ambitions, who lives in his château in Artois. In this novel, Malraux would later say, Bernanos “wrote the most beautiful scenes in modern fiction, for their depth and power”; and for Mauriac, “the power of this dazzling work lies in its rough grip, which holds us within this universe of the Fall and Redemption, which belongs to us all, believers and unbelievers alike. For one need not have faith to recognize oneself in it […].”

Many readers did recognize themselves in it, and La Joie was awarded the Prix Femina.

A fine copy.