book cover of The Robe of Youth
 

The Robe of Youth

(1914)
A novel by

 
 
François Mauriac is a very famous French author. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as the Grand Cross of the French Légion d'Honneur, and he was a Member of the Académie Française, a highly prestigious appointment.

Mauriac originally published this book in 1914, almost exactly 100 years ago. Published at the age of 29, it was only his second novel, and he had not yet experienced much critical acclaim and was not yet famous.

The narrator of the story is a young boy named Jacques who lives a rather comfortable bourgeois life in and around the Bordeaux region of France. Mauriac also grew up in Bordeaux, so he knew the people there and their customs as well as anyone. Jacques did not grow up in a typical family household. He was raised by his grandmother, and other characters also lived in her house, including his aunt and sometimes his uncle, a nun, and his cousin, Camille, who is the second most important character in the book. Jacques is 12 years old at the beginning of the book, and at the end he is 17.

Despite the cultural differences between our modern times and a century ago, any adult can easily recognize the emotions felt by both Jacques and Camille as they grew older.

This is a pleasant book to read and is definitely less “dark” than some of Mauriac’s later works like The Kiss to the Leper or Thérèse Desqueyroux, which I have also translated. Anyone interested in Mauriac or France and French history in general will enjoy this classic novel.


Genre: Historical

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