The Devil and Pierre Gernet: Stories

by David Bentley Hart

Brilliant scholar and wordsmith David Bentley Hart turns his mind and imagination to narrative fiction in this volume, The Devil and Pierre Gernet , a thought-provoking collection of four short stories and one novella. Anticipating questions about his shift in genre, Hart writes that "God is no more likely (and probably a good deal less likely) to be found in theology than in poetry and fiction."

These stories -- "The Devil and Pierre Gernet," "The House of Apollo," "A Voice from the Emerald World," "The Ivory Gate," and "The Other" -- beguile and entrance the reader through Hart's engrossing, opulent writing style and the complex characters he evokes and explores.

Often bedazzling, sometimes heartbreaking, and ultimately mesmerizing, Hart's wide-ranging stories are united by a common thread of haunting religious and philosophical questions about this life and the next. Here is fiction to fully engage both the mind and the heart.

Genres: Fiction, Theology, Literature, Short Stories, Philosophy

176 pages, Paperback

First published February 22, 2012

About the author

David Bentley Hart, an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion and a philosopher, writer, and cultural commentator, is a fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. He lives in South Bend, IN.

Reviews

[Paul H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read everything that Hart has published since I first ran across Beauty of the Infinite as an undergraduate in 2004. He's obviously one of his generation's most brilliant theologians, arguably the best, but these short stories are just an embarrassment. It's obvious that he's trying for something like the Screwtape Letters (the "Devil" in the title story sounds remarkably like the demonic author in Screwtape), but it's somewhat reminiscent of science fiction in that there aren't really characters so much as mouthpieces for Hart's overwrought prose. Characters in Plato's dialogues have more personality.

I've read much worse fiction, to be sure, and if you accept that these aren't really "stories" so much as "speculative theology placed into a somewhat fictional format" then there's more value, but even there, all of these ideas are expressed more clearly, and often verbatim, in his monographs (particularly Experience of God and Beauty of the Infinite); anyone who knows Hart well has seen all of this before. MacDonald and C. S. Lewis and other theologians have managed to translate their theology into a compelling fictional format but Hart thoroughly fails at the attempt.

By far the most notable shortcoming of these stories is that Hart is completely unaware of the weaknesses of his prose-writing style. For some reason he thinks that piling on adjectives and adverbs and adding overwrought metaphors and saccharine descriptions = effective writing. It's just maddening.

Take, for example, the sentence beginning on page 56 (about two-thirds down the page) and ending on page 57 (a few lines from the top of the page). In this ONE SENTENCE, this one overwritten sentence, Hart uses 40 adverbs or adjectives: little, crepuscular, fading, dying, quiet, inner, golden, long-distant, cool, timeless, sylvan, quiet, obliviously, glassy, dim, green, dark, softly, ancient, spectral, silently, sympathetic, pained, gentle, mournfully, desolate, sagacious, ineffable, touching, profound, unutterably, wisely, dramatic, evening, bright, lovely, wordless, secret, murmurous, unfathomable. He literally does not leave a single verb or noun unmodified. I would say that it's somehow ironic or self-parodic, but his theological prose is equally overwrought.

[Dany · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Why did you frame the world thus? Did you, in fact, frame it at all, or do you merely preside over it in its brokenness, as a desolate inheritance? Did we perhaps all frame it, in a time before time, you and we together? And how did we come into it? And how can we flee home again?

Not that I expect answers. It does not matter, really; whatever the case may be, however it arose, you bind us to it with the fetters of desire, and imprison us within it behind walls of illusion. Not just tanha, though, not just the brute, impervious conatus essendi, not just the mindless will to power: none of that, by itself, could have enchanted spirits of light, or trapped them within the subtle crystal of the First Moved. Rather, age upon age, you dangle the lure of love before us to tempt us into life, to draw us from the shining, golden seas of being into the perilous shoals of birth and death, of hope and despair, of belief in the future and the venture of love. But there lies your folly too, because the sheer exorbitance of our love - its utter prodigality and extravagance and heedlessness - reminds us of what you want us to forget: that it comes from beyond, from far above the savage economies of this world, and so must inevitably subvert them. Love will always find the hidden light of the other world here below, in fugitive or captive form, in beauty; it wakens nameless memories in us; we glimpse our own transcendence within what imprisons us. The Good beyond being...” (A Voice from the Emerald World)




“I don't know what accounts for the terrific subtlety of the dreaming mind. It's something we've all experienced - in this, at least, I'm not unique - this spell it casts over us, this illusion of deep background, by which so much that isn't seen is simply presumed in the very fabric of the dream, so that it somehow feels true, like something truly remembered, so that even if one can recall that one's dreaming, one still can't help but believe in the deeper illusion on whose surface the dream floats. That's the source of the real torment our dreams can visit on us - the indubitability of all those prevenient falsehoods: someone dead is there alive again, someone living is dead, something lost is found, or the reverse, or one thinks one feels - which is to say, one feels - an ineffable tenderness for a girl one doesn't really know, or one thinks one remembers a face one's never really seen. Embarrassments, terrors, desires, memories, presuppositions, prejudices ... a whole other life, lived outside us or within us. And, while we dream, we're at its mercy; our emotions are prompted and shaped and provoked by God knows what. I suppose it's a rather elegant sort of subterfuge, really, the mind distracting us with one, fairly obvious fiction while simultaneously convincing us of the truth of another - and more elaborate - fiction, till even the most shattering or delightful lie can assume the character of plain, undeniable fact. And when one wakes, and it all vanishes, one feels as if one's played the part of a marionette. Which only goes to reinforce my point: Dreams aren't simply the residue of the day's emotional states; they generate whole worlds of sensibility and feeling out of themselves.“ (The Ivory Gate)

[Ben Lindquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had very high expectations going into this book. I very much enjoy David Bentley Hart's nonfiction works. Coincidentally, I'm sure others have gone into considerations regarding the structure of the stories and their literary merit on a deeper level than I intend to here. His writings are deeply personal for me, so this will be more of a reflection. Knowing these were to be published made me curious to see how his style of writing and also his philosophy would play into writing of another nature.

I have to confess myself rather disappointed in the former. Hart's penchant for precise language when discussing history, theology, or philosophy approach pleonasm (a word I use because he taught it to me in another o his books) in some passages and they can be arduous to get through. However, I will say that there are other passages to which this style are perfectly suited and he paints images of both setting and internal life which fairly leap off the page. I found some of his descriptions of loss and fading and estrangement to be frighteningly poignant for their familiarity.

The latter consideration gave the first two stories ("The Devil and Pierre Gernet" and "The House of Apollo") less of an impact than they may have had. However, I was happy to see their imaginative translation from the presentation of similar ideas in his nonfiction work.

Enter the last three stories ("A Voice from the Emerald World", "The Ivory Gate", and "The Other".) They stretched me, given my knowledge of his work. It is perhaps a silly endeavor, but I had to work to see how they fit in the larger scheme. This may be due to the fact that my knowledge of his works incomplete, but one can still see glimmers of these meditations on loss, struggle with the transcendent, and reality in what I have accomplished. I finished each one with a desire to sit back and reflect as opposed to my normal desire to move on. Perhaps that is because I usually feel that I have comprehended the work on a high enough level that I can examine it and, if necessary, internalize it. I found that to be a difficult task here, though not an unwelcome one.

I'm happy with my purchase here. However, I would not recommend this collection to someone looking for simple diversion.

[Matthew Wojda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book brings you on an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. Contemplating the nature of God, death, relationships, life’s monotony, and more.

Hart is also an incredible wordsmith. So every story was exceptionally intricate and super fun to read. If you’re looking for fiction with very real philosophical undertones, try this out!

[Jonathan Tobias · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this volume of short stories.

I have read Hart's other theological writing. It is an odd thing, but it just so happens that Hart frequently waxes rhapsodic in this oeuvre, but his short stories are bittersweet, if not outright melancholy.

But the sadness is beautiful, and hides a deeper hope.

The wordcraft, I admit, is the usual difficult Hart-ness. I wonder if this difficulty isn't meant to hide the wandering thought, flitting about here and there, that this anthology is more autobiographical than not.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now I truly can say I have read everything David Bentley Hart has ever published (well, unless you count every issue of his substack newsletter).

I have long enjoyed Hart’s writing and some of his theological works are among the most influential books I have read - The Experience of God, That All Shall be Saved, The Hidden and the Manifest. Yet I believe Hart truly reached a new level with last year’s delightful Roland in the Moonlight followed by Kenogaia: A Gnostic Tale. The latter is definitively a work of fiction while Roland in the Moonlight defies genre. Both tell compelling stories intertwined with philosophical and theological speculation.

Having read these two, I felt compelled to go back and read this, Hart’s earlier fiction publication. Of the five stories included, only the middle one, “The Voice from the Emerald World” hit the heights I am used to in Hart. The others were fine, if a little bloated. By bloated I mean, do we really need paragraphs that last two pages? With that statement I admit it may be personal preference.

I also wonder if Hart was trying too hard. What I loved about Kenogaia and Roland, as well as The Voice from the Emerald World (and even another selection here, The Other) was there combination of complexity and simplicity. In these stories Hart is sharing his profound musings while still telling interesting stories. The others had glimmers and, of course, sections to chew on. This is especially so in the end of The Ivory Gate with its reflection on dreams. But I never felt connected enough to the stories around these reflections to be drawn in.

I think of writers like Marilynne Robinson and George MacDonald (among others) who write such good stories you do not even realize you are getting the philosophical musings. Hart accomplished this in Kenogaia. There it was seamless. Here it was not as much.

Overall, I loved The Voice from the Emerald World. The Other and The House of Apollo were good. The Devil and Pierre Garnet and The Ivory Gate were my least favorite. If you’re a fan of Hart, these are a must. But I’d definitely read his newer work first.

[Garrett Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

If we had anything resembling a literary culture these days, this collection would be canonical. Ted Chiang (everyone's favorite short story writer today) is a pallid dwarf next to DBH and his overflowing prose. Chiang tells clever stories, Hart weaves enchantments.

"The Ivory Gate" in particular left me physically dazed after exiting the reading trance, unlike anything I've experienced before.

Yes, you will learn a few dozen new words in just the first fifty pages, but he writes in a way that you know what word you might have put instead, so the flow of reading is not maimed. And yes, these stories are cerebral, heady, aesthetic, spiritual, and whimsical all at once, as anyone familiar with DBH might expect.

I found this collection utterly mesmerizing and will be revisiting for years to come.

[Clarke Bolt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read. I’ll need a dictionary beside me if I choose to read it again. If you’ve read Beauty of the Infinite, Doors of the Sea, the Experience of God, etc..., you’ll see the same themes and messages that he is instead conveying in the form of fiction. But sometimes (maybe most of the time) fiction is better at communicating something than nonfiction.

[Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suspect most who pick up this book will be enthusiasts of Hart's theology, as I am. One's enjoyment of these stories will largely depend on one's appetite for the Baroque ("more is more") prose Hart favors, and I suspect even those who love his style will find some of these stories more appreciable than others. "A Voice from the Emerald World" moved me deeply, and "The House of Apollo" was rewarding in its evocation of the fading pagan world. But others in this collection roused little more than passing pleasure. One cannot fault the richness of the ideas Hart explores here through fiction, or his earnestness. But in many places the unsprightly, oversaturated vocabulary gets tiresome; Hart exercises little restraint in his word choice and so risks wearing down the reader's attention before his major themes are fully manifest. Effusion produces wonderful moments, but it is difficult to maintain focus through a story that is unsparingly and uniformly purple. Even "A Voice from the Emerald World," which touched me deeply at its midpoint, felt overwrought by its closing moments, weakening its overall impact. It is a pity that Hart's exceptional talents and breadth of knowledge do not translate into literary genius, but these stories are still worth browsing, and you may find one of them that resonates with you.

[John Martindale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I discovered the devil has as big of a vocabulary as David Bentley Hart, who would have thought? :) This book resulted in well over 100 words added to my vocabulary builder on my kindle and those were only the ones I looked up. It was a bit obnoxious. The worst part was reading his descriptions of the physical surroundings; he would occasionally carry on and on, and well, it was rather hard to visualize; since I would need to look up every other word to even know what he was describing or the definition of adjectives being used to color objects known.
But with those complaints aside, there was much beauty, emotion and depth within these pages. The "A Voice from the Emerald World" completely wrecked me, when I finished my cheeks were wet with tears and I walked through my house in a daze. "The Ivory Gate" actually resulted in the following nights being filled with dreams more vivid and rich. Every story Hart wrote stirred within me the desire to write something myself.

[Kristofer Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is mostly a book of speculative fiction. If you are familiar with David Bentley Hart's non-fiction writing and his numerous speeches available on video, you will be familiar with the subject matter. However, when presented in story form, the ideas take shape and become more real. Whatever that means to you, I don't know, but it makes sense to me.

I'll not attempt to describe each story, but rather the impression they made in their entirety. Ultimately, the collection is about the mundane and the various ways in which a higher and deeper reality sometimes breaks through the veil. Most of us are familiar with this. I personally have had a few such events which I reflect upon now and again. Even at my worst, when all seems dark, dismal, and futile, the remembrance of those overabundances keeps me from despair.

Each of these stories has its own raison d'être. The stories are the means by which the themes are explored. In a sense, the themes are more real than the stories that tell them, which is entirely the point of the book. There is a higher, deeper, wilder, stranger, and more abundant reality that is just outside our grasp, a reality that calls to us, waits for us, and sometimes the membrane tears just enough to give us a foretaste.

We know this. Young children often see what we cannot, but lose that capability about the time they learn to speak. The dying often speak of the barrier between life and death becoming opaque and even seem to be more there than here. Dying Alzheimer's patients, their brains ravaged by the disease, sometimes open their eyes and, just before dying, recognize their loved ones. We pretend none of this exists. We pretend that scientific materialism explains everything, and then ignore the evidence that tells us life actually has a meaning, a purpose, a destination.

This has become more an essay than a review. Sorry about that. If you've made it this far, do yourself a favor and buy this book. You won't be disappointed.

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a deep track for super-fans. It does not serve as a great introduction to Hart's work. Fiction only further obscures the clarity of his theological positions. But here, he trades stronger argument for emotional conviction. Whereas reading his other theological works feels dry and cerebral, a few of these stories feel devastating.

The story that names the collection is one of his strongest–but my favourite tale was "A Voice from the Emerald World". Here, Hart strikes at the deepest suffering and loss imaginable–and makes converts to his theological positions through the persuasion of experience. As you read about this family, you find yourself coming to the only possible moral conclusion about the possibility of an afterlife.

The trick is simple, though: you have to be able to read his tricky, verbose writing style. Reading Hart is like listening to the rock band "Rush": it's an acquired taste, it's all very technical, and most of the tracks never make the radio.

"The Devil and Pierre Gernet" is a daunting little book. But it's a beautiful addition to his other writing, if you're already a familiar fan.

[Zachary Waltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my ranking of the stories in the collection which most affected me.

1. “The Ivory Gate” credibly describes dreams within dreams as well as the unveiling of a long-term relationship that only exists in the character’s dreams. But it raises the question: does that make the relationship any less real?

2. “A Voice from the Emerald World” is a poignant story of the love and loss of a neurodiverse child. It succeeds in showing the gnostic perspective.

3. “The Other” relates a man waiting for someone who has never come for over thirty years. This revelation at the end haunts me.

4. “The House of Apollo” shows a priest of Apollo during the age of Julian witness the last appearance of the gods before their vanishing.

5. “The Devil and Pierre Gernet” describes the narrator sharing a drink with a devil as the latter shares a tragic love story in fin-de-scièle France. This novella-length tale overstays its welcome, but the devil is quite a raconteur, and some of the dialogue is exquisite.

[W Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bentley Hart is one of the most brilliant theologians living today. It would normally seem wise for a theologian to keep away from writing fiction, but Hart is a happy exception to the rule. This novella and the short stories that accompany it are not only extremely well-written (Hart is a master wordsmith with a command both of literature and the dictionary), they are also engaging, intelligent, profound, and devastatingly melancholically beautiful. They are also deeply theological and philosophical, albeit in a sort of tangential way; they all deal in some way or another with the nature of time both terrestrial and eternal. Hart's spiritual vision is hopeful and beautiful despite (or perhaps because of) his pervasive melancholy - I was reminded at times of George MacDonald, albeit transposed to a much more sophisticated key. To say much more would be to ruin some excellent stories - so all I can do is say that I highly recommend this book!

[Kendall Furlong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow. The Devil and Pierre Gernet seems more about the author showing off his exceptional vocabulary than the story. Indeed, his vocabulary IS exceptional.

[Zachary Mays · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very pleasurable read. I think I enjoyed "The House of Apollo" and "A Voice from the Emerald World" the most, but all of the stories have their merits. If you could fault these stories as stories, it would only be that sometimes the characters talk for pages and pages, and mostly they just sound like David Bentley Hart, which can perhaps ruin the illusion. But since I like what David Bentley Hart has to say... it's never really a bad thing. I look forward to reading Roland In Moonlight next week.

[Kevin Staley · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories read like novels of a more classic style. If you had not read any other works of Hart's, you might think his writing a bit pretentious given his frequent use of "uncommon" words. However, it does bring an elegance, especially to a novel, that reminds one of the writing styles of bygone eras.

I also enjoyed the subtle treatment of perspectives on life found in these stories. Beautifully written!

However, possibly betraying an unrefined palette when it comes to my appetite in novels, I would not read such works on a regular basis. I enjoy them in bite size portions such as those in this work :-)

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently became aware of David Bentley Hart in reading an essay of his in First Things magazine. As soon as I finished his essay, I searched the online magazine for other essays by him, found and read several, and was much impressed with his erudition and with his writing style, both of which reminded me a bit of David Foster Wallace. He is not Wallace, lacking his playfulness for one thing and not having quite the same mastery of vocabulary (although a very, very impressive one), but he is at least in the same universe.

So, wanting to see what his fiction would be like, I purchased this book and enjoyed it a great deal. I especially enjoyed The Ivory Gate, as it was not only stylistically satisfying, but also caused me to do a good bit of thinking. I'll definitely re-read it. Perhaps periodically even. The other stories, though well written, didn't really make me pause to think. They just left me sort of empty.

The book is also, to my way of thinking, way overpriced. It's probably the last time I'll pay more than 9.99 for an ebook, with this one being close to twice that amount. It's certainly not worth almost twice what Infinite Jest cost, and it's not half the book (nor close to half) that Infinite Jest is. This might not be the fault of the author as the price of ebooks seems to be going up. I did make the mistake of paying an overpriced amount for one of his other books, but I have finally learned my lesson (as if I ever really learn a lesson).

[Lee Bertsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author's skill with words was most impressive. Sometimes I would pause and admire the beauty of a sentence or phrase. The short stories were about longing and dying but developed in settings and in characters rather atypical. I enjoyed the 179 pages but probably would have set it aside if it went much beyond that.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm really not smart enough for this book. But I did glean what I could off the surface. A theologian, historian or philosopher might have an easier time.... But it is beautifully written!

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

The narrative - if I can call it that - is a little fragmented and discontinuous. Still, Hart's prose is always a joy to read.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this with reading group. Didn't finish all the stories, but I found them interesting. I noticed some Orthodox ideas and traditions, and later found out the author is Orthodox.