Dialog on Gide

Me: When are you going to start to read Counterfeiters? I've been waiting to start it myself. Let me know.

JP: Was finally able to get a copy of Gide's Counterfeiters. It took me two months.

JP: Why did it take me so long to get to this guy? He's absolutely compelling! Not a bad page in any of his book so far!

Me: Yes indeed. Shades of petty criminality and juvenile delinquency in the beginning. Depicting the shady underside of respectable petit bourgeois professional class being infiltrated by corrupting artistes, the corruptors of youths. Yes, the undertones are riveting. Not like Balzac with his straight forward social commentary. Kind of almostRussian, right? He liked the Russian novelists.

JP: Yes, perhaps so. You might say that he is what Conrad- when not writing about the south seas - might have been had he a brain besides his rhapsodic pretensions.
When comparing him to Balzac keep in mind that when Balzac was writing that way of life, the petit-bourgeois, was still in its youthful vibrancy. By the time Gide got there it was beginning to crumble.
Gide is marvelous!

Me: Marvelous and memorable. Characters such as Passavant and Edouard would not be encountered in Am. lit. Gide writes with such pointed irony. I'll let you catch the allusion, but there is a poignant short little scene between two characters that alludes to an English novelist, I'll leave it at that. I only picked it up after reading Gide's journals where he tells of his reading in English lit. and poetry. (This is my second attempt at reading the novel, the first time I only got halfway thru.) And then his knowledge of Shakespeare, each character has a foil. It makes me realize how I should never attempt to write a novel!

JP: The allusion: would it be Dickens, that ol' repressed pederast? I do not pretend to know a lot about homosexual men, but I am aware that no one hates pederasts more than committed homosexuals. Probablythey feel the urgency to separate themselves from those ailing individuals. I have given some thought to what you have said and must agree with you, one can see Crime And Punishment, A Raw Youth, and The Devils all over the place. In fact Edouard might be Gide's StephanTriofovich (Forgive me, I do not have the last name quite right and am too lazy at this moment to dig through my books) of The Devils. I am presently on the chapter, The Evening AtRambouillet (my god! why can't WE live like that?) The opening paragraph is pure Goethe, his philosophy of natural history, almost verbatim. I can't help but wonder if the character, Robert, is Gide himself, his examination of himself. This novel could never be mistaken for anything but a modern novel, as he shares with Mann the usage of creation for vigorous self-examination.

Me: I knew you would enjoy this novel. You catch theRussian allusions that I wish I could, not having read the great Russians. What a master Gide is. When, before the evening at R.., Bernard and Edouard go out into the corridor of Laura's hotel room there is a brief little interplay btwn the two that reminded me of Fagin and the artful dodger in three chapters before Evening at R. pp. 132-33 in my book. A bit of a comic note.
What American could come near him? Henry Miller perhaps? Americans can only write good picaresque novels like Kerouac. But Miller is definitely not an aesthete, he's too much of a preacher on a soap box, as Luongo put it, though he admires Miller immensely.
Wait'll you get to the chap. Theory of the Novel. I just recalled that I did read this novel when I was in high school because I remember quite well not understanding the chap. Bernard and the Angel whether he actually grappled a real angel. I was a Francophile then and remember reading Steegmuller's great bio. of Cocteau. (Now it comes out, my early youth, a more refined Anderson character, Columbus not being as oppressive as a small town in Ohio where my mother hailed from.)
Yes, why can't we live like that? Where did it go wrong? Gide did indeed form his life thru literature and writing, this he writes about in his journals.
I think Edouard is Gide, at least the homosexuality of Gide. What about this Passavant? Another aspect of his homosexuality? Edouard seems more repressed than Passavant or at least just coming out at a late age, he's 38 at the time of the narration, you know.

JP: So it is Dickens! I couldn't think who else it might be.I haven't read Dickens since HS. I just don't care for his work. I will grant that he had a fecund imagination, and his awareness of the economic underpinnings of life's situations must have had some appeal to both the Marxists and Pound (an indirect influence on Joyce also...?) Even so I can't read him. He's too wordy for my tastes.
What I like about Gide, at least one of the things I like is his penetration of character and motive, might do it the best after Dostoyevsky. It is definitely a homosexual novel, but then to a certain extent so is Magic Mountain. A writer can only write about one knows and, let's face it, it easier to fathom one's own sex. Even so his understanding of women seems pretty good also. In fact I would have to say that the 'healthiest' character in the book so far is Lilian, whatever I actually mean by that. Vincent may be brilliant, but he strikes me as being something of a dud. Am I right about him? I guess I will see. I think one thing a really superior novelist does is that he forces his reader to evaluate his own awareness of things. Gide does this for me, as does Dostoyevsky and Mann.

Me: I think Vincent is mainly a catalyst for the action, the brother of Olivier who becomes the editor of Robert Passavant's literary journal, which is more important to the story. Like the older brother who makes the initial foray into life and who is followed by his sibling. His brilliance in natural history will act as a a kind of comment on Robert's character, who will exploit it for his own ends, you'll see. Vincent reminds me slightly of the main character in Balzac's Lost Illusions, the debutant poet in Paris. But he's a mere small time gigolo. What I like aboutGide is that he allows the reader to fill in the character himself according to the knowledge he brings to the reading.
Yes I have to admit too that Dickens would bore me now, haven't read him since HS. Liked Oliver Twist for its atmosphere. Bleak House I haven't read but it's too daunting, longer than Lost Illusions I think, which I didn't make thru to the end.

JP: Yes! Dickens was definitely a master of atmosphere. Of course the cinema has largely killed off the necessity for that. ( Most current novels, regardless of the author's intentions, read like movie scripts. I suspect that even 'serious' writers now have that in the backs of their gourds, whether they care to acknowledge it or not!)
I think I do sense already that Vincent is more tool of technique than anything else, but - as you say - I will find out. Am reading the theory of the novel now. Why do the post-modies never discuss this book? It seems right up their collective alley! I feel that Robert might have a bit of Gide in him also, as near the beginning of the book Edouard comments in his journal about his (Robert's) work. He calls him a juggler, if I recall right. The Counterfeiters itself seems like something a balancing act.

Me: Robert a bit of Gide but I think Edouard is just as much if not more. Interesting the quartet of men paired off, Bernard and Edouard (though Edouard loves Olivier) and Robert and Olivier. It is the ancient figure of the quincunx with Gide the narrator making it five, only I happen to know thisbecause Jonathan is reading about Roman history and the military and the quincunx was used as a military formation, and Graves mentions it as a mystical figure.
Yes the modies would not include him because he is not really innovative technique-wise because he does nothing that was not been done or accomplished by the French epistolary novel (what was it, Liaisons Dangereuses?, my French lit. background is still lingering back there in my memory of university days at O.S.U.) He's too steeped in the literary tradition, thank God. An actual counterfeit coin does crop up, one that is made of glass with a gold outer layer, think of all the implications of that! Counterfeit, yet transparent!!

JP: Interesting that you should bring up Liaisons because it is ever so apparent that his true model is the 18th cent novel. I was going to write that to you even before reading your email. For me the author reviewing his characters nails it. Also the author introducing himself, very 18th cent. but post-modie too! On certain levels I feel that the post-modies unwittingly are searching for the 18th cent novel. That is why I made that statement.
It is true: there is more of Gide in Edouard than Robert. But I suspect that certain key aspects of Gide are in Robert. I think that there may be a blanket[ed] confession there (am I reading too much into Robert?)
You may remember that Durrell's last major work that he called the Avignon Quincunx. Like Graves he too was a student of the mediteranean world. I triedto read one volume some years ago, but found it inferior to the Alexandria Quartet. The book I read only came alive during those passages where the protagonist flashed back to his days in Egypt! (It takes place in Southern France and Switzerland) Egypt must have meant a lot to Durrell. I am getting off the subject. I intended to openmy email to you today by saying that The Counterfeiters is, I feel, one of the best novels I have ever read - ever!

Me: Yes, Durrell tried to repeat himself. Funny how Luongo is enamoured of Egypt also, the Alex. Quartet one of his favorites.
I don't know, I just get the impression that Edouard is more like Gide but then maybe I'm not reading enough into Robert because Edouard gets more print from his journal entries and so I think Ed. is more like Gide simply because of his getting more attention from Gide.
I'm glad to have turned you on to Counterfeiters. Do you have the Mod. Lib. edition? It has useful supplements to throw light on the novel.

JP: No. I agree with you that Edouard is the character most similar to Gide himself. But Edouard does talk about Robert's writing style. I think it was Gide criticizing how he perceived himself, that's all.

JP: You know, the deeper I get into this book the more I see the influence of The Possessed, though of course it in no way diminishes The 'feiters. Also when reading the various dialogues it becomes obvious that Gide was also a playwrite. They often have the feel of playwriting, as if he thrashed it out in his mind to make a play of it or parts of it. I really love this book.

Me: I must read The Possessed.
Racine and Moliere are to the French as opera is to the Italians.

JP: Yes. But also I am seeing more and more of Dickens in him also. The way he colors certain characters seems more like Dickens. The Argonaunts dinner seems to have a bit of both. Jarry comes across as that buffoon in The Possessed. I forget his name. Was Jarry really like that? What a fool! Olivier is one of those unique young men who is teetering. Fall one way and he would be a saint, the other, a girl. He appears to be heading in the direction of the second. He is a less elevated Alyosha (The Brothers Karamazov). He at times almost has some of A's saintliness, or would if he were able to free himself from ambition. Is it that some women are drawn to gay men because they see that potential in them, or at least some women do? I have wondered that. Unfortunately very few homosexual men are so elevated, and almost none in this time of self-interest. Ah, yes; as with Dostoyevsky christianity underscores this book too.

Me: Yes, I think Gide probably in Counterfeiters is struggling with the perceived immorality of homosexuality that in our times is accepted by most liberals as not immoral but merely an alternative lifestyle whatever that empty term means, but Gide was trying to fit it into some kind of transcending Christianity that was mystic at the same time as not puritanical, not dogmatic. Hence his attraction to Protestantism and its propensity towards self-redemption rather than thru the Church and its teachings.
I think Gide was intrigued with youth and the"delicate psyche" of the male youth, very Greek I suppose and their notion of the union of intellectual love that was not sexual but nevertheless homosexual. He tries to redeem Edouard's love for Olivier as a fatherly love that is accepted by Olivier's mother. Yes, Oscar Molinier is a putz (my Yiddish escapes me) as far as a father goes (but what father isn't) and not the father Olivier was seeking, the "father"that was the real father in the adopted father of Bernard, the latter finally realizing that a real father could be one not of your blood (an ancient custom I've just read about in the Golden Bough). This is where Gide loses veracity perhaps, but then he says at one point thru Edouard that fiction does not really reflect the unresolved happenings of real life. In short, how would a mother ever accept that her son found a lover and father wrapped into one? Well, who knows? (There's a short story in itself.)

JP: Well, obviously, in Ancient Greece that wouldn't have been a problem, as women were for having children. The american indians, or at least certain tribes would have a boy come under the guidance of a man other than his biological father. That makes sense, as there is often in a boy too much that is like his father. It must make it very difficult for a man to raise his own blood with any astuteness.