Sei Etsu Etsu itibaren Biberach, Tyskland
The narrator of Vipers' Tangle is a near-perfect mix of Dostoevsky's Underground Man and Tolstoy's Ivan Ilych. Which is to say, he's a bitter, bitter bastard. For some reason, I felt sure that this book would end up heavy-handed or sentimental. Early on Louis is just too miserly, to the point where it's almost beyond credulity. Rather than clumsily over-playing his hand, Mauriac, it turns out, intentionally includes this too-greedy-to-be-believed aspect as an effective plot point. Every time you think the story's driving to an inevitable, predictable conclusion, he takes a left turn. Mauriac also has the good sense to leave the outcome of Louis' soul (which is the culmination of the novel) as ambiguous. Different readers will come to opposite conclusions here--some will side with Hubert and some with Janine. Based on the fact that this is a "Loyola Classics Series" novel, however, I think we can guess where the author stands.