Moriak Francois: biography, quotes, aphorisms, phrases

F. Moriak is a French writer of the 20th century, whom the past inspired more than the future. So it may seem to those who read at least a couple of his novels. It can be considered even old-fashioned - very few contemporaries would agree that Christian morality can withstand the test of the numerous cataclysms of the 20th century. He himself admitted that his work was glued to the past. The action of almost all works was placed in the end of the XIX - the beginning of the XX century, the modern world did not seem to interest the writer at all. Nevertheless, Francois Moriak is a Nobel laureate, a member of the French Academy and one of the most important writers of the last century.

The geographical coordinates of Francois Mauriac's life: Bordeaux

Moriak Francois was born in 1885 in Bordeaux. His father, Jean Paul Mauriac, was a businessman and sold timber. Mother Margarita Moriak also came from a family of merchants. Francois had three brothers and a sister, and since he was a minor, he received the most attention. Since his childhood, he was brought up in strict Catholic traditions, whose loyalty he carried to the end of his days.

A boy was studying in Koderan, where he bought a friend for life - André Lacasa. In 1902, the writer's grandmother died, leaving behind an inheritance that the family began to share without having had time to bury her. The observation of this family drama was for Moriak the first big shock.

In the college, Moriak was read by the works of Paul Claudel, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rambo, Colette and André Gide. To such a ration he was accustomed to the brother-in-law of Andre Gide, the teacher Marcel Drouen. After college, Francois entered the University of Bordeaux at the Faculty of Literature, which graduated in 1905 as a master.

In the same year, Moriak Francois began to visit the Catholic organization Mark Sagnier. Being strongly influenced by philosophy and modernism, her followers viewed Jesus as a historical person and tried to find sources of faith.

The first literary experience: Paris

In 1907, Francois Moriak moved to Paris, where he was preparing to enter the Ecole de Chartes. At the same time, he begins to try himself in writing poetry. The collection "Hands, folded for prayer" was published in 1909. The verses were rather naive, they too strongly felt the influence of the author's religious views, but nevertheless they immediately attracted the attention of many writers. The success of the first publication pushed Moriak to leave his studies and devote himself entirely to literature. Soon came out and the first novel - "Child under the burden of chains." It already clearly marked the main idea of all his subsequent novels: a young man from the province is forced to fight the temptations of the capital and eventually finds harmony in religion.

Activities during the occupation and political views of the writer

As well as many other French writers, for example Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, Moriak actively opposed Nazism. During the occupation of France by the Hitlerites, he wrote a book directed against collaborationism. However, first of all he preached the principles of philanthropy, so after the war he called on the French to mercy towards those who collaborated with the Germans.

He also actively opposed the colonial policy and the use of torture in Algeria by the French military. Moriak supported de Gaulle, his son became the personal secretary of the general in the late 1940s.

Religious works by François Mauriac

The writer led an irreconcilable polemic with Roger Peirefitt, who accused the Vatican of indulging in homosexuality and constantly sought out hidden Jews among his employees. In addition to fiction, Moriak left several works on Christian issues: "The Life of Jesus", "Short Experiences in Religious Psychology", "On Several Restless Hearts". In the book The Life of Jesus, the writer explains why he remained faithful to the religion in which he was born and brought up. According to the author himself, it is not intended for theologians, nor for scientists, nor for philosophers. This is practically the confession of a man who is looking for a guiding thread for moral life.

Francois Mauriac: phrases and aphorisms of the great writer

Moriak left a lot of sagacious and wise statements that reveal the very essence of human nature. All his work he devoted to the study of the dark sides of the soul and the search for sources of vices. The main object of his close observation was marriage, in the unhappy life of his spouses he found irritants, pushing people to sin. He considered religion a railing, helping to keep above the chasm of human passions. But there are moments, he wrote, when even the best thing in man revolts against God. Then God shows us our nothingness to guide the true way. Religion and literature, therefore, so successfully interact, that both help to better understand a person, Francois Mauriac believed. Quotations containing Christian instructions can be found in virtually every of his novels.

Sayings about love and marriage

What are the relationships between a man and a woman in marriage, the moral aspects of their mutual dislike - that's what François Moriak first considered. Quotes about love, which the writer has a great many, indicate that the writer has pondered a lot on this topic. Just like Leo Tolstoy, he considered marriage a sacred alliance between two people. Love between spouses, wrote Moriak Francois, passing through many accidents, is the most beautiful, albeit most ordinary, miracle. In general, he perceived love as "a miracle invisible to others", he considered this to be a deeply intimate and secret affair between two people. Often he called her the meeting of two weaknesses.

In search of the lost God

An old-fashioned writer can only be called a person who cast a shallow look at his work. In fact, the main character in the novels of François Mauriac, if we sum up all of them, is the modern bourgeois society. And more precisely, a society that lost God, blindly stepped into reality, discovered by Nietzsche his postulate that God died. The literary heritage of Moriak is a kind of purification, an attempt to bring humanity back to understanding what is Good and what is Evil. The heroes of his novels jerk convulsively in their cold life and in search of new warmth they stumble upon the cold of the surrounding world. The XIX century rejected God, but XX did not bring anything in return.

Hometown as a source of inspiration

It is enough to read the writer's novel "A Teenager of Old Times" to understand who François Mauriac is. His biography is outlined in this last work with scrupulous accuracy. The hero of the novel, as well as Moriak, was born in Bordeaux in a wealthy family, was brought up in a conservative atmosphere, read books and worshiped art. Having escaped to Paris, he began to write, almost immediately earning fame and respect in literary circles. The native city firmly settled in the writer's imagination, moving from work to work. His characters only occasionally go to Paris, the main action takes place in Bordeaux or its environs. Moriak said that an artist who neglects the province neglects humanity.

The boiling cauldron of human passions

In the article "The novelist and his characters," Moriak described in detail the scope of his research - it is the psychology of man, the passions that stand on his way to God and himself. Focusing on family and domestic issues, Moriak "wrote life" in all its diverse manifestations. Snatching out of the symphony of human passions a single one, placing it under the ruthless microscope of his observation, the writer sometimes reveals the low nature of the human desire for accumulation, the thirst for enrichment and selfishness. But only so, with a surgical scalpel, you can cut sinful thoughts out of consciousness. Only by standing face to face with their vices, a person can begin to fight them.

François Mauriac: aphorisms about life and about oneself

Like every man who constantly works with the word, Moriak knew how amazingly capacious to convey his position in life in one sentence. His cutter sharply outlines the appearance of an independent person who demands respect for his space when he writes that he is standing with one foot in the grave and does not want him to step on the other foot. Do not deprive him of utterance and wit. For example, one of the most famous of his aphorisms is that unprofitable women are usually more expensive than others. Some of the writer's phrases turn things that are familiar to us in a completely unexpected way. In the aphorism "drug addiction is a long-lasting pleasure of death," a dangerous dependence acquires an almost romantic connotation.

Most of the life of the writer lived in Paris and subtly felt this city. However, the phrase that Paris is a lonely place, opens the door not so much to its backyard as to the soul of the writer himself. During his long life - Moriak Francois lived 85 years - he experienced not one disappointment and made an astute conclusion that building air locks is worthless, but their destruction can be very expensive.

Afterword

When Francois Mauriac was told that he was a happy man, because he believed in his immortality, he always replied that this faith does not rest on something obvious. Faith is a virtue, an act of will, and it requires considerable effort from a person. Religious enlightenment and grace do not condescend to the writhing soul at one point, it must itself seek a source of tranquility. Especially it is difficult in conditions when nothing around testifies to at least a small presence of morality and humility. Moriak said that he managed - with emphasis on this word - to keep, feel and feel love, which he did not see.