Bernanos's "Diary" represents that rarest of glimses into the clerical world: a view that is utterly convincing and completely enthralling! As the author pursues the early life and career of a French provincial Abbe, he simultaneously reveals the sufferings, triumphs, and struggles of the people that the young priest serves. Parallel to the tribulations of their lives, Bernanos lovingly shows how deeply one man, one priest can empathize with those he serves. While Bernanos never became a priest himself, his early life prepared him to write this, his greatest novel. The poignancy of this small novel is one that builds gradually. The impatient reader may, at first, not "connect" with the story, but the faithful reader will soon find that he/she cannot put it down. The last 30 pages of this work are one of the 20th century's masterpieces of spiritual prosody that I can identify.