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Immoralist

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The Immoralist is straightforward in language and easy to read, but more complicated, more complex are its themes: Man's sense of morality towards society, family, himself. What happens when man's values conflict with those of society's? Whose interests should be served? Gide explores these themes through one man's odyssey of self-discovery. The protagonist is the learned and conflicted Michel who yearns for something more than the stable, predictable, familiar life he has always known, but no longer finds tolerable. It is after a life-threatening bout of tuberculosis that these feelings rise to the surface, intensify, and are more keenly felt.

This hunger, still unidentified, takes him on a journey, both literal and figurative, where his search for self-awareness, or self-truth, carries him to distant and exotic locales. New experiences and mysterious encounters give way to a new aestheticism in which weakness, constraint, and life's banalities play no role. Heightened senses, unsuppressed impulses erode age-old human values that were once accepted blindly.

A life less checked, though, can have consequences, as is the case for Michel, and for so many others like him. As Michel becomes stronger, his wife becomes weaker. Indeed, society becomes weaker. How can the newly strong fail to quash the weak in their path? The question one must ask, then, and Gide does, is whether a life without restraint has value. Is there something admirable in the old adage, "To thine own self be true"?

One of the novel's most inspired moments is found in its ending. Without giving anything away, it is the last passage, after the reader has come full-circle, where Michel's journey seemingly ends. Will Michel embrace his new truth? The reader is left to wonder. The Immoralist is told in narrative, in Michel's own voice. It is self-confessional literature at its highest, and should be read by anyone who reads to think and be moved.

I saw there was a Dover thrift edition for 2 dollars. Hard to argue with the price, but this translation is erudite and has a force of language that seems to me like it must mirror Gide's own impressionist force, despite my personal weakness with the French language. Gide was famous for his ability to invoke a single moment, a single image or feeling that puts the reader inside the existence of a character, even if only for a short time. This ability is translated quite well into this edition, and I must conclude (based on a fairly small sample of reading from both) that it is a superior translation.

Who could fail to find some reflection of themself in the deathbed confessions of the protagonist Michel? The premise is that he is speaking in the first person to his good friends, and as the reader it feels like you have known this character for quite some time. His voice is unspecifically familiar, as if you might suspect one of your real-life friends to one day give you a similar account. You feel you have known this man for a long time, and you can't help but be fascinated by both the content of his story and in the loving, precise, and ecstatic way that he tells it.

Up against this tone is a story that ends in depravity and woe, without any redemption for the character. To me, this is understandable and realistic. Life is not always an endless succession of learning experiences. At times it is the realization that some compromises cannot be avoided, and that true catharsis of ethics, morality, or emotion is only possible within very short time frames. Why not explore the life of a character who does not learn from his actions, or even repent of them at the end? He accepts his own frailties, his own limitations, and in this respect he continues to dig deep inside of our psyche for hidden insights that might have otherwise escaped us.

I almost always prefer first person novels to those that occur in the third person. We live our life in the first person, and an objective narrator is always, at a certain point, a necessary fiction. This book stands with Nabokov's Lolita as a perfect example of the power that is sometimes unleashed by exploring a character through the eyes of the character himself.

This is an original and well-written work, breathtaking in its use of language. Highly recommended.

Many readers of this book are inclined to compare it with the works of Camus. I grant that The Immoralist does suggest existential questions but, unlike Camus' La Chute (for instance), it simply presents the life and actions of the anti-hero without his actual and deliberate existential questioning. This is the subtle richness of Gide's writing. The Immoralist presents a unique disparity in the lavishness in description of setting, and the relatively spare characterizations. Gide does not glorify, chastise nor condemn his Michel. Michel is simply what he is, what he has become. This novel is filled with brilliant writing, lines of which one can't help but memorize. For instance, "The capacity to get free is nothing; the capacity to be free, that is the task." and also, "You cannot be sincere and at the same time seem so." Having read both Bussy's pioneer translation and Howard's later one, I much prefer the latter. It's a far more exact translation.

A rare book that makes the physical form of man an important thematic element. In the time between nihilistic prophetizing and post-WW dread, Michel (a nerd) experiments with complete freedom after being given a second chance in life. Stripping off the pretense of European scholarship, he tries to gain health in a life free of artificial restrants. Striving towards his goal, but never quite giving up the fear coniditoned into him by his station in life, Michel succeeds only in seeing the possibilities of this life. He is a vanguard for the potentials of freedom. Where Gide leaves us, with confusion and a new burden, Camus and Sartre pick up. This is a very well written novel and should be read slowly (the temptation being to breeze through it).

"Knowing how to free oneself is nothing; the difficult thing is knowing how to live with that freedom"- this is the ultimate lesson that Gide gives in "The Immoralist", even though as he himself has said "I refrained from passing judgement". As a result this novel will always be open to interpretation, as it presents the classic universal problem of individual freedom, identity, and what constitutes 'life'.

Michel, the novel's main character is awakened from his life-long "lethargy" with a fierce desire to change his mask, or rather to find his real self hidden behind the layers of adopted morality, education, and social obligations. He used to be a strict young scholar interested only in "ruins and books". Now he wants to be free of all obligation and inhibition to fully experience the pleasure and sensuality brought about by his late homosexual awakening. To do so, he sacrifices wife, career, and wealth. The conflict within Michel is not only that of morality v. sexuality, but mostly that of thought v. emotion, or more simplistically brain v. heart. When he sees his awakened sensuality mirrored in the beauty of nature to which he now becomes aware, Michel discovers that "what was the point of thinking? I felt extraordinarily..."

What constitutes "life"? This is another important question raised in "The Immoralist". Michel is reborn when he begins questioning his life: "after all what did I mean by `living'?" Even here the flaws in Michel's philosophy are apparent. The Christian doctrine of "blessed are the poor" goes against Michel's doctrine of a leisurely, sensuous life and that "poverty makes slaves of men", and yet he strives to get rid of his possessions...

Who am I? What do I want? These are the kind of questions the reader will ask himself while reading "The Immoralist". The author is too wise to give definite answers to such great questions. Neither does Gide encourage the reader to decide who is wiser, Marceline, or Michel? Thus Gide succeeds in being more truthful and believable in the presentation of the problem, in the "drawing of the picture". As to the answers, who knows anyway, this novel makes you inquisitive about the meaning that is created...

I acquired Andre Gide's The Immoralist from a pile of free books set outside a used book store that was closing for good. I brought it home and set it aside for about a month before reading it.

The 170-odd pages were very easy to digest, in terms of time and complexity. But the ideas filling them were intriguing, at least at first. A man marries, develops tuberculosis, convalesces, and decides to live life more deliberately, more fundamentally, and expose himself, his emotions, his experiences, down to their very foundation. He embraces the pain of sunburn for it's capacity to make a person feel, for the sensation it produces. He strips away all layers of clothing in the outdoors to plunge into an icy pool of water, to expose himself completely to the elements and the world around him. He gives up his scholarly pursuits to run a family farm, and experience a completely different type of life and industry.

But here the intrigue of the premise becomes mired in an obviously closeted gay man (not uncommon for the turn of the 20th century) torn between duty to wife and honesty of desire. The second half of this brief novel is merely an endless parade of boys and men that draw Michel's attention and ardor. The desire to experience all in its most basic, honest form is lost in the lie that Michel obviously lives in suppressing his hidden desires and perpetuating his sham marriage.

While Gide's concept was initally enough to draw me in and press me to read on, the latter half of the book left me apathetic to my inceptive appreciation of a very promising idea. I found the character of Michel to be hypocritical at best, and failed to feel any sympathy for his longing after the neverending parade of males that slip through his fingers, and his fickle interest in them. I felt some sympathy for Marceline, Michel's wife, but his narrative portrayal of her as more of an impedence and a nuisance gave me more cause to pity her than feel empathy for her eventually contracted case of tuberculosis, no matter how frail she grew; the author always managed to make her more of an annoyance to Michel than anything else, and her character never really has an opportunity of true definition.

Gide has a very accessible way with prose, but not a very clear and concise focus on his story with this book, which is the first of his works that I have read. All in all, this book suffers from "When Harry Met Sally" syndrome...and disproves its initial 'thesis'. I would not recommend this book to others, save for anyone interested in examining the conflict of a closeted gay married man at the turn of the 20th century.

...it has to be made to measure.
Gide's 1902 novel makes a strong statement on individualism.
A `simple' story, told in simple straight language.
Rich young nerd (Michel) without interest in women (or in men, so far) marries to please his dying father. Goes on honeymoon trip to North Africa, falls ill with tuberculosis, barely survives, and then, during reconvalescence, learns to live, to appreciate life, finds a new self, which leads him away from old habits and old convictions. This is a strong part, but it must be said that there is a distinct, if not explicit pedophile strain in Michel's revival.
On the way home via Italy he comes closer to his wife, who has been nursing him loyally during his illness, without much attention by the patient. She even becomes pregnant, so that they look forward to a `normal' life. They spend time on their farm in Normandy, then in their Paris apartment, but Michel drops out: he has lost the ability to function in his old role. He quits his lecturing job; he sells his farm after bouts with low lives.
The wife falls ill, has a miscarriage, they travel again; finally back to Tunisia... happiness is not to be found. Michel's tendency to drift off to darker worlds becomes stronger. After his wife dies, Michel reaches the end of his tether. Knowing how to free oneself is nothing; the difficult thing is knowing how to live with that freedom.

Structurally, the narration is first person by Michel, but wrapped in a fiction that he tells his story and his predicament to some friends of his, who come to see him in Tunisia.
I was motivated to try Gide again (after over 40 years, hadn't read him since high school, and did not keep such great recollections) by his friendship with Conrad. However similarities in narrative style or content are negligible.
The Penguin edition that I read has this to say on the back: A frank defense of homosexuality and a challenge to prevailing ethical concepts...
Hmm. Is it possible that even Penguin editors don't read the books that they praise? Where is the `frank defense'? There is nothing frank in this book, probably with good reason. It was 1902 after all. There is no explicitness. We need to guess what Michel is doing. What we see is this: his new found attitudes don't seem to make him happier.
That is not a criticism of the novel, but of the simplifiers.

While reading this, I was torn between respect for the man's struggles, his attempts to be decent, i.e. not all that much of an immoralist, on one side, and rejecting his spineless lack of direction on the other. The man is a pushover. Once he drops out of his world of respectability, he loses solid ground under his feet.
A strong novel about a weak man.

When I first read this book (at the age of 17), I was ripe for change and this book changed me. When I read it now, I still marvel at its classical perfection and at its core --- the "arduous task" of deciding what to do with one's freedom... This is an excellent book that deserves good readers. It is a book about freedom, courage, cruelty and loneliness. The enchanted atmosphere of 19th century North Africa makes one hungry for beauty and freedom... Gide's own youthful journey to Tunisia, his sickness and his meeting with Oscar Wilde cast obvious shadows in his book... A jewel in the history of literature!

Gide's book is profound in impact: it's a lesson, futile in its portrayal of Michel, but vital in understanding Nietzsche's overman and Gide's presentation of Michel as a person not to be. A good dose of this book will prepare readers for another good read, THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH, which includes Menalque and illustrates Gide's philosophy more clearly. THE IMMORALIST is merely juvenile when compared to FRUITS OF THE EARTH.

"The Immoralist" is the narrative of a dazzling hedonist. He is a self-centered aesthete, narcissistic, exploitative, self-indulgant, and wholly inconsiderate. He marries to please his father, as if marrying were no more an obligation than selecting a particular outfit to wear for a special occasion. During his marriage, he will treat his wife like fine china, with delicacy, but as if placed on a shelf behind glass, like a porcelain doll, displayed for benefit, but never held or interacted with. After marrying, he escapes plebian, boring France for exotic North Africa, and becomes sick, probably with tuberculosis. (At the time of this narration, TB was considered a disease of the destitute, such as in the opera "La Boheme", which was modernized as the play "Rent", and the disease modernized to Aids. His disease may indicate that he slept with prostitutes, or generally consorted with unsavory people.) His new wife cares for him deeply, but he whiles away his time following the lives of the local Arab children, not least the little boys, especially one whom he considers especially cunning.

They return to France, and he oversees his inherited estate. He takes more interest in the goings-on of some young men who work on and around the estate, and the intruiges of a poaching problem, than in the actual running of the estate. He fails to even deliver the lectures he promised the local university he would do. He quickly bores of this spot, and his wife contracts sickness as well, so they travel to Switzerland for their mutual health. After two months, he bores again, and they travel to Italy, where he hates Naples, embraces Italian boys, travels more, and this time loves Naples. He picks flowers, but his ill wife is sensitive to their fragrance, so he picks them at night. Bored again, he desires to return to Africa, where his wife sickens further. He finds his local children again, but being two years later, he does not enjoy their company any more, except his favorite boy, and now joining the picture, the boy's older sister. The story continues from there, and concludes soon thereafter.

This book concerns a vile creature, but we can read it with great interest nonetheless. This is a great credit to the skill of its author, and is also because we are genuinely interested, as fellow humans, to follow the course of the wife's illness and recovery. Andre Gide has written a masterpiece of a monster, with beautiful language and rich narration.

"The Immoralist" is a morality play, not an existential meditation. This is demonstrated by the narrator's treatment of his wife. As for playing with little boys and neglecting hereditary estates, one can say yes, the narrator is not a great person, but he is living to the best of his ability, and living true to himself within his psychological limitations, even if the results are distasteful. His disdainful treatment of his wife, however, puts the story in a new light, giving us a strong moral touchstone to stand upon, and a compass with which to clearly judge our protagonist. Other existential novels might ask you to understand their protagonist despite their distastefulness, but in order to understand the protagonist of "The Immoralist", we must understand his treatment of his unhealthy wife, a kindly woman to whom he passed his "street disease" in the first place, and we are justified in judging how he chooses to resolve the story at its end. This book can be recommended to anyone with a taste for good literature.