Woman of the Pharisees

The Woman of the Pharisees by Francois Mauriac, translated by Gerard Hopkins, 241 pages

Brigitte Pian is a wicked stepmother.  She is all the more wicked because she is so widely admired for her goodness, a goodness which she pursues tirelessly.  Yet it is goodness sought not for its own sake but a cramped, loveless drive for perfection rooted in the desire to dominate and control.  Thus, in the end, all of her good deeds turn to ashes.

The story practically writes itself: the religious hypocrite is, after all, a common trope in Western culture, and one that is ideally suited to the ideological demands of modernity.  Thankfully Mauriac is too good a writer for cliche.  Brigitte does not sin through the open embrace of evil but through a perversion of the good.  Were it otherwise, she would not be so pitiable, nor her example so salutary.