TWO NOVELS BY LEON BLOY
recuperation of a Substance wasted by Love." It is not the business
of a literary critic to assist the Holy Office in smelling out heresies.
In the context of this vision and generally in the work of Bloy and
his successors, we are, however, confronted with certain specifically
literary problems. For all literary creation is myth-making activity,
and we may therefore suppose that a practising myth-maker who
happens also to owe allegiance to a fixed and embodied mythology
is likely to find himself in difficulties.
The moral difficulties of a Catholic novelist have been closely
examined by
Fran~ois
Mauriac in
Le Roman
(
1928) and again in
God and Mammon.
Mauriac's specific difficulties were further ana–
lyzed by Charles du Bos in
Franfois M auriac el' le probteme du roman–
cier catholique
(
1933). It would be interesting· to see these three es–
says studied by some non-Catholic critic. Here let us content ourselves
with stating the moral problem of the Catholic novelist in its simplest
terms. "Dare he presume to justify himself
in
rooting out the most
unusual sins, to which his professional interest will lead him, when
their presentation
in
a book may scandalize and even corrupt his
more simple Catholic reader?" To a non-Christian, this problem
appears a little superficial and indeed a little comic (it is possible
that a communist would understand it), but one has only to read
Mauriac on the problem
to
see that it really travails him.
Of this kind of scruple, Leon Bloy was apparently incapable.
He was, however, greatly affected by a second and more fundamental
difficulty, which is only hinted at by Mauriac and du Bos. In
God
and Mammon,
Mauriac allows it briefly to be seen that, instead of
giving coherence and direction to his work, the faith tends to distract
him, to absorb his energies, to fix him in lyrical ecstasy, in the
folie
de la Croix.
This conflict was stated already by George Herbert in
the seventeenth century.
Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sun,
Much less those joys which trample on his head.
As flames do work and wind when they ascend,
So did I weave myself into the sense.
But while I bustled, I might hear a friend
Whisper, "How wide is all this long pretence!
There is in love a sweetness ready penned:
Copy out only that, and save expense."
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