Book Review 5: A Corner Of The Veil by Laurence Cosse

In this odd little thriller, a Jesuit monk receives a handwritten document which irrefutably demonstrates the existence of God. Anyone who reads "the proof" dissolves in tears and has their lives totally changed by it.

When they first learn about it, the genuine seekers are desperate to read it. Some not-particularly-saintly punters end up reading it out of curiosity and "the proof" instantly messes up with their priorities in a big way. Others don't want to read it because they suspect that it will force them to change their lives, which they don't want to change. And there are those who haven't read it and who try to ensure that it doesn't get out because, if it did, they sense that the present social and economic order would just collapse.

Reviewers on Amazon seems to agree that the end chapter is a bit disappointing as Laurence Cosse comes up with her own crackpot theory about God: that section is just a load of nonsensical ramble! Still, A Corner of the Veil remains a well-written, funky novel full of beautiful descriptions of people and situations. What would it look like if regular people in Paris suddenly came to think that a loving God was an irrefutable reality?

Here's a link to the rather good New York Times Review and another to the Amazon Reviews. (P.S. If the NYT link does not work, here is the same in cache).