The Seventh Skin: The Novels of François Mauriac

Extract

Above the bedclothes, over the sheets, sometimes men awaking will stare at their hands in amazement—dead fish gleaming in the moonlight; and, if it is stormy outside and the wind is howling, sometimes those fish will seem to twitch as if a fin or flipper moved. But reach for the nearby lamp, flick it on and such ghostly imaginings vanish. Like the rest of the body, the hands become taken for granted: men forget the mystery of their flesh, and not for one instant when they look at it do they remember those seven mysterious layers of skin which protect them. Custom has dulled their eyes to the miracle of consciousness.

François Mauriac, I would submit, might be described as a novelist of the seventh skin. He is concerned not with outward appearances, but with the heart; not with neat artistic designs executed as an end in themselves, but with words as a means of testifying to the Word. Reality is the aim of his fiction—a reality whose drama is heightened because it is played against an eternal background. He has written a Life of Jesus (1937) and knows that only Jesus, had he so decided, could have written the perfect novel because, being perfect man, his vision was perfect. Others can only hope to report upon the world as they see it and, being fallen creatures, their vision may be faulty. It is the load that all artists who are Christians must accept and carry on their backs.