decemberthirty | Entries tagged with andre gide

I woke up this morning and it was cold and breezy and the sky was bright, clear blue. From the first moment I was awake, everything about the day told me that it was finally fall here, and I instantly began craving everything I associate with autumn. I wanted to go hiking by the Wissahickon, I wanted to go apple picking, I wanted to wear sweaters, I wanted to drink tea and hot cider, I wanted to rake leaves in my parents' huge yard, I wanted to sit by a fire, I wanted to bake muffins and apple pie and apple-caramel cake, I wanted to cook soups and stews and dishes with squash and legumes and all the other hearty stuff I avoid all summer. The amazing thing about all of this was how suddenly it all occurred. Less than a week ago it still felt like full summer here, and the things I wanted to do were summer things. Now, in space of a single crisp morning, my entire frame of reference has shifted. It's supposed to be hot again tomorrow, and I'm so sad about that...

In other news, I finished The Counterfeiters on the plane last night. A fascinating book. I'm still not entirely sure what to think about it. Perhaps another long essay will be forthcoming, but I'm not sure when I might be able to get to it. I had it with me down in North Carolina and my dad told me that he had read it, but that it was too long ago for him to be able to talk about it with me. I was disappointed; I would have been very interested in what he thought about it.

This morning I started reading Set This House In Order by Matt Ruff, the third and final book that I got on my trip to the library a few weeks ago. I took out Free Love in Utopia and The Counterfeiters, and this was meant to be my trashy pick (not really trashy, of course, I'm far too snobby for that, but sort of literary-trashy). Anyhow, I've only read about a chapter and a half, so perhaps it's too early to judge, but the book seems to be of better quality than I thought it was going to be. It's rather strange, and utterly intriguing... I'll say more once I've read more.

And now I absolutely must go work on the book. Yes, I must. Now. Right now.

The Counterfeiters is a very strange book... Gide seems to have no concern whatsoever for conventional plot and character development. Characters that seemed significant in the early part of the book have been all but forgotten now that I've reached the second half. Storylines appear briefly only to disappear again a few chapters later. The whole things seems rather more like a collection of subplots than a unified novel, and reading it is a little bit like looking into a murky pond, watching as different bits and pieces float to the surface and then sink again... It's entirely possible that Gide may yet do something to tie all the strands together, to bring back all the incidents and characters that have passed through the story, but I doubt that's going to happen.

As if it weren't difficult enough simply to keep track of all the people who wander in and out of the story, The Counterfeiters also engages in some postmodern trickery and self-referentiality worthy of Jonathan Safran Foer. One of the main characters is a novelist in the process of writing a book; the book is called (what else?) The Counterfeiters. Halfway through the book, Gide abandons all pretense of narrative and writes a chapter in which he, in his own voice, goes over all of his characters, reviewing their personalities, discussing the mistakes he made in crafting them, and concluding, "If it ever happens to me to invent another story, I shall allow only well-tempered characters to inhabit it." As I mentioned in an earlier post, this authorial voice also breaks through the narrative at many other points, offering opinions on the characters and the action.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the chapter in which Edouard, the novelist character, explains the theories behind his version of The Counterfeiters. He is trying to create a novel that dramatizes the conflict between reality and the desire to make reality into art. Edouard is very dismissive of the realist novel and of writers whose aim is to capture a "slice of life." He explains that by localizing and specifying, writers restrict themselves and, by extension, restrict the scope and power of their work. He wants to make a strong statement against the naturalist school of thought, so he plans to write a book whose protagonist is a novelist who wants to abandon reality in his art yet finds himself constantly brought face to face with reality by events. Sound familiar? Gide wants to abandon reality, so he writes a novel about Edouard who wants to abandon reality, so he writes a novel about a novelist who wants to abandon reality... Welcome to the twilight zone.

It is tempting to take Edouard's literary theories as Gide's, and they would indeed seem to explain a lot about why the book is plotted and structured the way it is, but I'm not sure that I can say with any confidence that Gide really believes the words he put in Edouard's mouth. I don't trust Gide enough at the point; it seems too likely that he is spoofing Edouard, spoofing himself, spoofing his own book as he writes it. We've gone beyond the realm of the unreliable narrator and into the territory of the unreliable author. Perhaps it was by inserting himself into the text so much that Gide opened himself up to charges of unreliability. If the authorial voice wasn't always popping up with little asides about the characters, if he hadn't written a whole chapter analyzing his own characters, I wouldn't have the sense that perhaps he's just playacting, that the authorial voice is not Gide's own, but that of some other character he has invented. I may be making it too complicated, but I don't know. I just feel like I can't trust this guy to play straight with me...

The edition of The Counterfeiters that I'm reading includes at the back the journal that Gide kept while he was writing the book, and I am hoping that perhaps there will be some answers there.

All in all, I would say that at this point I'm very impressed with the book and it is (obviously) giving me a lot to think about, but I'm not finding it terribly enjoyable. I'm frustrated by the way the different threads of plot get dropped so often. I think I see why Gide is doing it, but I still find it annoying that as soon as I get interested in something it disappears and is replaced by some other subplot. It will often reappear later in the book, but by that time I'm interested in something else. I feel like Gide keeps pulling the rug out from under me, and I don't care for it. I also find that many of the characters are pretty repugnant, which always makes it harder for me to enjoy a book. I do love Olivier, though. It's so painful to watch as, again and again, he's unable to express the depths of his feelings and so gets hurt over and over again because the people around him have no idea how much is going on under his surface.

I had a very lovely long weekend. It's amazing what a difference a rocky beach; a late afternoon sun; and a vast stretch of shallow lake, the water cold and clear to the sandy bottom, can make. And I got lots and lots of sun, so I'm finally, finally tan. Not nearly the way I used to be, but more than I have been for the past few years. Still, I have the foolish sense that it's Too Late: the summer is over, I have no one to show it off to...

In addition to mourning my lost youth in the form of my lifeguard's tan, I also finished Free Love in Utopia while at Lake Ontario. It was a bit of a strange read. The majority of the book was composed of letters and journals and other records kept by members of the Oneida Community. Reading these first hand accounts was fascinating because they provided exhaustive detail about exactly what life was like in this strange commune/cult. The depth of detail meant that parts of the book were completely captivating, but other parts were just deadly dull. I wound up skimming or skipping sections on the finances and accounting practices of the Community, the plowing of the back field, and things like that. The most remarkable thing about reading the correspondence and the personal writings of these people was how intensely earnest they all were. These people really did believe that what they were doing was right, that they were working toward a more perfect way of living, that it was their role to create god's kingdom on earth. And maybe it's just that their earnestness is persuasive, but I'm not entirely sure they were wrong. Their only mistake was pitting themselves against all of human nature...

And now, on the recommendation of the lovely

joy_hulga, I am reading Andre Gide's The Counterfeiters. I'm not very far along yet, so it's a bit early for me to make any statements about its quality. The story is certainly intriguing so far, although I can tell that it's the kind of book that takes a little getting into. The first chapters are full of so many names and different characters and widely divergent story lines, and I can tell that soon I will feel myself to be wrapped up in the world of the book and it will cease to be confusing, but I'm not quite there yet. One strange thing about the book is that I cannot seem to locate the narrator. There is an omniscient voice that relates all the action and the inner thoughts of all the different characters, yet that voice sometimes breaks through with 'I' statements that are somewhat jarring, such as "Lillian irritates me rather when she puts on this affectation of childishness." I don't dislike the effect that this creates, I just can't quite figure it out...

i'm a very very complex person

i try to improve but you see how i worsen

Entries tagged with andre gide

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