Book of the Week

Thérèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac

Recommended by Olly Zage

'People who don’t know this forsaken region don’t know what silence is. It surrounds the house like a solid thing born out of the thick mass of forest where nothing lives, only the occasional hooting owl–at night, we think we can hear the sobs we stifle.'

Neither heroine nor anti-heroine are appropriate words to describe the position assumed by the titular character  in François Mauriac’s 1927 novel. As much as anything, this ambiguity reflects Thérèse’s own sense of moral and spiritual untethering, and the brilliance of description and characterisation by which Mauriac is able to convey and instil a similar malaise in the reader.

Books of the Week

Today's post offers some non-fiction reading suggestions from 4D.

Night by Elie Wiesel
Recommended by Neel Achar

I chose this because I wanted to gain some historical knowledge on the Holocaust. I was also interested in the father-son bond involved in this book. The book is an autobiography which explores the teenage years of the author in his journey to survive the concentration camps. The soul-crushing, depressing tone gives the book a distinctive flavour, although the constant melancholy was sometimes overwhelming, making the book unbearable to read. The author's style is extremely realistic, describing the situation from their point of view as it goes from hopeful to a dire, desperate scenario of survival. I recommend it because it educates us all on the horrors of the Holocaust, providing us with useful historical knowledge. Secondly, it explores the belief in 'God' and how an omni-benevolent being would allow such suffering to his people.