André Gide Books

Franklin Library André Gide books

The Counterfeiters - Greatest Books of the Twentieth Century - 1979

 

The Counterfeiters

A young artist pursues a search for knowledge through the treatment of homosexuality and the collapse of morality in middle class France.

Originally published in 1925, this book became known for the frank sexuality of its contents and its account of middle class French morality. The themes of the book explore the problem of morals, the problem of society and the problems facing writers.

The measured tone of hopeless nihilism that pervades The Counterfeiters quickly shatters any image of André Gide as the querulous and impious Buddha to a quarter-century of intellectuals. In sharp and brilliant prose a seedy, cynical and gratuitously alarming narrative is developed, involving a wide range of otherwise harmless and mainly middle-to-upper-class Parisians. But the setting could be anywhere. From puberty through adolescence to death, The Counterfeiters is a rare encyclopedia of human disorder, weakness and despair.

Gide's modern classic deals with the issue of the original and the copy, both on a material and a a human level. It's ground-breaking style won it few friends at first, but critical acclaim developed as the style of writing became better understood.