I know my heart—it is a knot of vipers. They have almost squeezed the life out of it. They have beslavered it with their poison, but, underneath their squirming, it still beats. Impossible now to loosen the knot, I can fight free only by cutting it with a knife, by slashing it with a sword: I am come to bring not peace but a sword.
Undergraduates and graduate students are invited to join us for “Venom and Grace: François Mauriac’s Vipers’ Tangle,” the Summer 2026 Faith in Fiction virtual reading group.
An epistolary novel, Vipers’ Tangle (1932) introduces us to Louis, an embittered old man who is composing a screed-turned-confession for his despised wife on his deathbed. Long convinced of his own rottenness, Louis aims to exact one final act of malice on his family by depriving him of the massive fortune he has hoarded throughout his lifetime. However, as he records his memories of his unhappy and wretched life, the atheist Louis cannot help but feel his heart—a “knot of vipers”—tugged at by divine grace.
Vipers’ Tangle is a classic of French Catholic literature. Its author, François Mauriac, was elected to the hallowed Académie française the year after the novel was published (1933), and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1952.
All undergraduate and graduate students are invited to join us for our weekly meetings. Discussion will be facilitated by Quinn Moore, Collegium’s Operations Coordinator and a PhD Candidate in French History at the University of North Carolina. Her research focuses on the influence of religion on twentieth century French intellectuals.
Date: Wednesday evenings in June, 6:00-7:15 PM EDT
June 3
June 10
June 17
June 24
Location: Virtual via Zoom
To register, click the button below. All participants will receive a free copy of the book. Questions? Please contact Quinn Moore (qmoore@collegiuminstitute.org).