Product Description

'It's only after our death that we shall really be able to hear' 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125601 in Books
• Published on: 1990-07-26
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

All work and no play in Gide's heavy classic.
This was the only book written by Gide which the man himself classed as a novel. The story centres around diarist and aspiring novelist Edouard and his interest in two boys, Bernard and Olivier. This is not mere innuendo... It has been described as a love story and an adventure story, but Gide's work defies simple categorisation. He deals with several themes from religion to identity to sexuality and one is left wondering whether there is any kind of lesson to be learned at all. Bernard is a bastard child, a status strangely regarded as privileged by Edouard who develops an attachment to this boy and follows his progress as a budding journalist and schoolboy. There is a big shock at the end and the mysterious counterfeiters of the title remain menacingly in the background. Few writers demand to be read and re-read quite as much as Gide, who sews a rich fabric of the fictional elements necessary for a challenging and intellectual reading experience.