Books: Parable of Temptation

JOY—Georges Bernanos (297 pp.)—Translated by Louise Varèse—Panfheon Books ($2.75).

Georges Bernanos is France's most distinguished Catholic author—and his own Church's sharpest critic. His literary reputation rests chiefly on three religious novels : Diary of a Country Priest, Joy, The Star of Satan (TIME, June 17, 1940). Joy won the Prix Femina in 1929, and now appears in translation for the first time.

The difference between Joy and such popular religious novels as The Robe and The Song of Bernadette is the difference between a papal nuncio and a parish priest. Essentially a...

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