Journals, Vol. 1: 1889-1913 [Paperback]

Andre Gide (Author), Justin O'Brien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2000

Beginning with a single entry for the year 1889, when he was twenty, and continuing intermittently but indefatigably through his life, the Journals of Andre Gide constitute an enlightening, moving, and endlessly fascinating chronicle of creative energy and conviction. Astutely and thoroughly annotated by Justin O'Brien in consultation with Gide himself, this translation is the definitive edition of Gide's complete journals. The complete journals, representing sixty years of a varied life, testify to a disciplined intelligence in a constantly maturing thought. These pages contain aesthetic appreciations, philosophic reflections, sustained literary criticism, notes for the composition of his works, details of his personal life and spiritual conflicts, accounts of his extensive travels, and comments on the political and social events of the day, from the Dreyfus case to the German occupation. Gide records his progress as a writer and a reader as well as his contacts and conversations with the bright lights of contemporary Europe, from Paul Valry, Paul Claudel, Lon Blum, and Auguste Rodin to Marcel Proust, Stephen Mallarm, Oscar Wilde, and Nadia Boulanger. Devoid of affectation, alternately overtaken by depression and animated by a sense of urgency and hunger for literature and beauty, Gide read voraciously, corresponded voluminously, and thought profoundly, always questioning and doubting in search of the unadulterated truth. 'The only drama that really interests me and that I should always be willing to depict anew', he wrote, 'is the debate of the individual with whatever keeps him from being authentic, with whatever is opposed to his integrity, to his integration. Most often the obstacle is within him. And all the rest is merely accidental'.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These Journals are remarkable and wonderful books... They contain as much of the artist's heart and mind as we have any right to expect, and they will probably stand as his most complete and enduring work... [They are] a skilful and absorbing mixture of portraits and places, of drawing-room gossip and metaphysical speculation, of remarkable passages of literary criticism and moral scrutiny, of lyrical outbursts and personal revelations." -- Maxwell Geismar, Saturday Review of Literature "Andr Gide's journals admit us, with unsurpassable candor, to the intimate recesses of the mind and heart of one of the notable writers of our time." -- Lloyd Morris, New York Herald Tribune Vol I: "It is all that a Journal should be: Often thoughtful and intimate, just as often bored and gossipy, or sombre, or amused, or detached, or vivacious; instinctively well-paced (in the modulations of short and long passages and shifts of key); a mirror reflecting impeccably the artistic milieu of a stimulating period. And underneath it all, like a ground bass supporting the variations above, is a superior intelligence." -- Harvey Breit, New York Times

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; annotated edition edition (October 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252069293
• ISBN-13: 978-0252069291
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,337,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)