| Professor J. C. Whitehouse compares Georges Bernanos (1888-1948) to Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881). Whitehouse, author of Vertical Man: The Human Being in the Catholic Novels of Graham Greene, Sigrid Undset, and Georges Bernanos, has translated many of Bernanos's novels. Both Bernanos and Dostoevsky, he says, engage the profound questions: What is a human being? What motivates us? Why do we act as we do? The answer Bernanos's literature provides is that human beings can begin to be known and understood only when seen in relationship to God. Whitehouse names two themes in Bernanos's works, sanctity and grace, and explains what the terms signify. |
Vertical Man: The Human Being in the Catholic Novels of Graham Greene, Sigrid Undset, and Georges Bernanos (St. Austin Press, 1999) |
