François Mauriac's Vipers' Tangle

If you are feeling miserable for any reason (the lockdowns or something else), read François Mauriac Vipers' Tangle, which is the story of Monsieur Louis, whose great misery will make you forget your own. Monsieur Louis, an embittered aging lawyer, is fabulously wealthy and is dying, and he is being driven to wretchedness by his estranged family who are waiting for him to die so that they can seize his property. He writes a journal to make his family realize why his heart is a tangle of poisonous vipers. But the book has a sort of blissful climax—during a hailstorm, by the blessing of god, the realization dawns on Monsieur Louis that his torment is due to his preoccupation with profit and property, and he detects in a corner of heart the semblance of something that he identifies as love. “How strange it is that when life is just beginning for us, and when a little happiness comes our way, no warning voice is heard.”