Reading Order
Journal d'un curéLe Journal d'un curé de campagne Reading Order
Le Journal d'un curé de campagne (Diary of a Country Priest, 1936) by Georges Bernanos is the masterpiece of twentieth-century French Catholic literature — a first-person journal of a young priest in a provincial village in the Pas-de-Calais who is dying of stomach cancer, cannot reach his parishioners, and moves through isolation, self-doubt, and spiritual darkness toward a final grace. The novel won the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française and was filmed by Robert Bresson in 1951 in what is generally considered one of the greatest films ever made. Bernanos's theological vision is Augustinian — grace operates invisibly, often against the will of those it touches, and the most abject failure can be the vehicle of the most complete sanctity. The cure of Ambricourt is incompetent as a village priest, despised by most of his parishioners, and physically destroyed; but in a pivotal scene with the dying countess he performs a spiritual intervention of extraordinary power. Bernanos was also the author of Sous le soleil de Satan (1926), his first novel, and the political essay Les Grands cimetières sous la lune (1938), a denunciation of the Franco atrocities that Bernanos — a royalist, not a leftist — witnessed in Majorca.
Where to start
Read Le Journal d'un curé de campagne first and in its entirety — the journal form requires continuous reading to feel the accumulation of the young priest's isolation and the final grace. Then watch Bresson's film (1951) — it is the ideal companion. Read Sous le soleil de Satan (1926) for the earlier, more violent confrontation with evil; and Les Grands cimetières sous la lune (1938) for the political Bernanos.
Complete Journal d'un curé Book List
- 1Buy
Le Journal d'un curé de campagne
Georges Bernanos·1936·Start here — the masterpiece; read the journal continuously; then watch the Bresson film; Grand Prix roman Académie française - 2Buy
Sous le soleil de Satan
Georges Bernanos·1926·Under the Sun of Satan — the first novel; the Abbé Donissan and the encounter with evil; more violent than the Journal; read after the masterpiece - 3Buy
La Joie
Georges Bernanos·1929·Joy — the Prix Femina novel; Chantal de Clergerie and the spiritual joy that frightens those around her; the third major Bernanos novel - Buy
Journal d'un curé de campagne
OptionalRobert Bresson·1951·The Bresson film — not a book but the essential companion; Bresson transposes Bernanos's prose directly; one of the greatest films ever made - 4Buy
Les Grands cimetières sous la lune
Georges Bernanos·1938·The political essay — Bernanos's denunciation of Franco's atrocities in Majorca; a royalist condemning the right; the political Bernanos essential to understanding the novelist
Journal d'un curé — Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Le Journal d'un curé de campagne considered a masterpiece?
The novel's power comes from the combination of three elements that are individually achievable but together are almost unprecedented: the absolute authenticity of the spiritual experience (Bernanos was himself deeply Catholic and the cure's spiritual struggles are rendered from the inside), the formal discipline of the journal (the day-by-day record that resists the consolations of retrospective narrative — the cure does not know he is dying, does not know that grace will come), and the final scene with the dying countess, which is the most extraordinary episode in modern French Catholic fiction — a spiritual intervention that happens against the will of both parties and against all theological expectation.
What is Bresson's film of the novel?
Robert Bresson's Journal d'un curé de campagne (1951) is generally considered one of the greatest films ever made — listed in every major film poll including the Sight & Sound list. Bresson transposes Bernanos's prose almost directly: the film uses long passages of the novel's text as voice-over narration, and the actor Claude Laydu's performance is based on the same radical renunciation of theatrical expression that characterizes Bresson's film style generally. The comparison between novel and film is one of the most illuminating studies in adaptation in the history of the two arts — Bresson found cinematic equivalents for everything Bernanos achieved in prose.
What is Bernanos's theological vision?
Bernanos's theology is fundamentally Augustinian: grace is sovereign, operates invisibly, and is not proportioned to human merit or human understanding. The priest of Ambricourt is a failure by every human measure; grace operates through him precisely because he is a failure, because he has nothing of his own to oppose to it. The great saints in Bernanos — Donissan in Sous le soleil de Satan, the country priest, Chantal in La Joie — are all figures who have been stripped of human self-sufficiency and are therefore available to grace. This is the opposite of the sentimental Catholic novel in which faith produces worldly success and inner peace; in Bernanos, faith produces suffering, isolation, and a grace that is indistinguishable from destruction.
Why did Bernanos denounce Franco despite being a royalist?
Bernanos was in Majorca when the Spanish Civil War began in July 1936, and he witnessed the Franco regime's systematic execution of civilians — including priests — in the Nationalist zone. His political position was royalist and anti-republican; he had no sympathy for the Spanish Republic. But what he witnessed in Majorca was not a crusade against communism (as the Catholic press in France was presenting it) but a military dictatorship liquidating its opponents with the blessing of the Church. Les Grands cimetières sous la lune (1938) — The Great Cemeteries under the Moon — is his testimony against the French Catholic press that was lying about what was happening; the book cost him his relationship with the French Catholic right and isolated him politically for the rest of his life.
What is the relationship between Bernanos and Mauriac?
François Mauriac and Bernanos were the two major French Catholic novelists of the interwar period, but their visions are profoundly different. Mauriac's Catholicism is primarily a framework for psychological analysis — the guilty conscience, the conflict between carnal desire and religious aspiration, the provincial bourgeois world that produces spiritual suffocation. Bernanos's Catholicism is primarily a framework for spiritual combat — the direct confrontation between grace and evil, the priest as soldier of God, the spiritual life as warfare. Mauriac's world is psychological and social; Bernanos's is metaphysical and supernatural. The comparison shows two very different things that French Catholic fiction could be.
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