Product Description

A delicate boy growing up in Paris, Jerome Palissier spends many summers at his uncle's house in the Normandy countryside, where the whole world seems 'steeped in azure'. There he falls deeply in love with his cousin Alissa and she with him. But gradually Alissa becomes convinced that Jerome's love for her is endangering his soul. In the interests of his salvation, she decides to suppress everything that is beautiful in herself - in both mind and body. A devastating exploration of aestheticism taken to extremes, Strait is the Gate is a novel of haunting beauty that stimulates the mind and the emotions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53068 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-22
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

a powerful love story.
Perhaps the best love story ever written, it will move you beyond believe. Love is discussed in its many facets, and jealously is rife. Yet the heart of the story, the bit that will bring tears to your eyes, is the unrequited love that the protagonist has to endure.
Of Gide's work, this is my personal favourite. The Immoralist is another, more popular, novel by Gide, and if you enjoyed that book I believe you will enjoy this one just as much, though probably more. In truth, I advise you to read both books, as they go well together. One is a story about rebellion, the other a love story which engenders fidellity. Their contrast is their meeting point, like two sides of a coin.

Virtue and Love
As children, Jerome, the narrator, and his cousin Alissa, are often together, and Jerome feels that their lives will be bound up forever. He dedicates his life to God, to the twin ideals of virtue and love. As time goes on, it becomes clear that Alissa feels that Jerome will only achieve true virtue if she denies herself to him. Despite his protestations of eternal love, she continues to keep him at a distance.

In this short novel, Gide examines the role of virtue and true love in life. There are no easy answers, but the writing is fresh and direct, and the characters well-drawn in Gide’s best fashion.

Restrained classic
Gide's first novel - well, novella - written in his 40's relates the story of a child's infatuation that becomes the defining (and unfulfilled) love of his life. It is beautifully structured and full of resonances that should chime with anyone who's been speared by Cupid. It's telling that Dorothy Bussy's translation should still have such currency. It's over 80 years old and makes Gide - who used to be presented as a writer of radical sentiments - seem almost quaint. The 'existential' attack on religiosity now seems not only appropriate but understated; which makes the irony of the last page encounter seem more significant than it has been historically credited.