Mauriac was awarded the Nobel in 1952. His Thérése Desqueyroux is considered one of the best French novels of the 20th Century. It is the life of Thérèse, from a well-to-do family, well educated. She marries Bernard, of her same social class, but she is not happy with him. Bernard’s sister, Anna, has a fiancé, Juan de Acevedo, not loved by the family. Thérèse tries to separate him from Anne, and he confesses never to have wanted to marry her. At the same time he convinces Thérèse to abandon her bourgeois life, and re-encounter herself. Thérèse tries to poison her husband, but is discovered and sent to prison. The husband, to avoid scandal, gets her out of the situation by extorting a false oath, which forces her into a sort of house arrest. A little later Bernard relents owing to her good behaviour, and lets her go to Paris. The book does not reflect on the moral behaviour of its characters, but Thérèse appears as a woman who seeks exclusively herself, with no interest for anything else. Her husband acts well, but generally aiming at avoiding scandal. The novel is a veiled critique of the society of the time.
B.T. (Portugal, 2016)