The Unique Quality of Manzoni's Novel

Extract

M François Mauriac has left us in no doubt that in his view a work of art and a work of spiritual edification are two quite different things, rarely if ever combined within the pages of one book. The artist must conform to truth, that perception of truth which is peculiar to himself, and M. Mauriac implies that this truth will not, generally speaking, be edifying. In the ultimate analysis he has made the aesthetic truth which the artist must express dependent on the spiritual condition of the author, in so far as the spiritual elevation of the work is concerned. It is a matter, he has said, of purifying the source, the source from which the creatures of the imagination spring, if the artist is to produce work which testifies to the enduring strength of the spirit. Only a saint could write a novel free from taint, a novel in which sinfulness was not a dominant characteristic, provided of course that he possessed the necessary artistic genius, but the writing of works of fiction does not appear as a form of activity consonant with saintliness. The novelist, then, who is cursed with the gift of artistic creation, must go on perpetuating his sinfulness with all the aesthetic skill at his command until he has spiritually progressed to the point where he would cease to write novels. Such, if we are to believe M. Mauriac, would seem to be the unfortunate predicament in which the Christian writer finds himself, unfortunate, that is, if he does not achieve the saintliness that would end his artistic career.