Books: The Scourge of Sanctity

THE LAMB (156 pp.)—Francois Maurlac—Farrar, Straus & Cudahy ($3).

As a brooding Roman Catholic novelist, François Mauriac (Woman of the Pharisees, Therèse) has cared for his soul—and for the souls of his fellow literati—as assiduously as Voltaire advised Frenchmen to tend their gardens. The trouble with Mauriac's theologico-literary gardening is that he cultivates the weeds of sin rather more successfully than the buds of virtue. In his tormented view of the world, good wins none but moral victories.

The lamb of The Lamb is 22-year-old Xavier Dartigelongue, a would-be seminary student. Like Dostoevsky's "idiot" Prince...