THE IMMORALIST (L'Immoraliste)
by André Gide, 1902

André Gide was an exceedingly self-conscious writer. He published his own diary, and he was always aware of himself as the author of the work he was writing, even when he used a narrative voice, and of the multiplicity of meanings that could be conveyed in a single sentence or even a single word. He set out in 1919 to write a great novel, which he called The Counterfeiters (Les Fauxmonnayeurs) and which he published in 1926; in the same year he published an account of how he wrote it. In 1947 he won the Nobel Prize, largely on account of the novel. A bright schoolboy, he had as a young man considered a career as a concert pianist, and he had written intensely lyrical, then allegorical works before. For a variety of largely personal reasons, including the discovery of his homosexuality, he turned to the literature of moral and spiritual values.

His first major work, called by Gide a récit ("narrative"), but in fact more complex than that title suggests, was The Immoralist (L'Immoraliste), published twice in 1902. Expected and intended to shock, it was published on luxurious paper with a blue cover in an edition limited to 300 copies; later the same year it was published on ordinary paper with a yellow cover and with an important preface covering the work's facade with a whitewash of moral neutrality. Everything about the book, its title, its later description as a récit, its launch, its two editions, and its preface, was carefully and, as far we can tell, accurately calculated.

Gide wrote nothing else of significance for five years. In the wake particularly of the revelations about Oscar Wilde, whom Gide had met in Paris in 1891 and who must have prompted Gide to reflect about some of the values advocated in the récit by Ménalque, the subject of homosexuality between adult and adolescent males was delicate. On the surface the three-part récit The Immoralist is about a rich, adult, atheistic male scholar who marries, is sexually disturbed by adolescent Arab boys, falls ill on a journey to North Africa, is cured ambiguously either by his wife's nursing or by her prayers, takes up invigorating pursuits like swimming in icy water, physically fights a belligerent coachman, consummates his marriage the same night, and eventually falls into a moral degeneracy. He is not present when his wife has a miscarriage, and he fails to save her from death when she falls ill.

Nothing in Gide is ever quite as simple as that. To start with, Gide's preface begins with such an absurdly affected sentence that we know that what follows is going to be a pseudonaïveté. The preliminary Psalm quotation is ironic, and the dedication to a Catholic a tease, well understood in the exclusive literary circle in which Gide was known. Michel's story of his marriage and his sexual inclinations is presented by an unidentified member of a trio of friends who had listened to the narrative. He sends his account of the narrative in a letter to an influential acquaintance to try to get Michel a job. The letter is the text of the book, so that the reader does not know whether Michel's implied moral judgment on himself is too harsh, too indulgent, correctly reported, or reasonably glossed by the letter's writer.

Since we have the work's manuscript, we can say, although not from the text as printed, that Gide toned down Michel's self-condemnation, making his moral position more ambiguous and the whole work therefore more provocative. What is left of Michel's self-condemnation is still strong enough. When his wife, Marceline, reproaches him, Michel's reaction suggests an acknowledgment of guilt.

There are other ways in which Gide has finely tuned his ambiguities, as with the blatant abuse of probability. Michel's connivance at the theft of a pair of sewing scissors from Marceline by an Arab boy is clearly depicted as an emotional betrayal of his wife for the boy; the way the scissors turn up in Ménalque's possession in Paris lifts the whole narrative near the level of fable, parable, or allegory. Then Gide deliberately blurs any dividing line the reader may bring to the distinction between moral and aesthetic values. Michel's recovery of health sharpens his aesthetic sense as well as increasing his awareness of physical sensation and the intensity of his sexual drive, so that we scarcely know how much we are being told when Michel reports his decision to shave off his beard. We do know that Michel's recovery was due to his wife's moral strength, although Michel, the atheist, leaves open the possibility that it was due to her prayers.

Michel's narrative includes a long account of an interview with Ménalque, who represents a way of life discreet enough to be socially acceptable but which is totally free of moral, or even more than trivial social, constraints. Ménalque's personal philosophy is not Michel's and not necessarily Gide's. It is impracticable but is presented as attractive. Ménalque suggests that pleasure is the only morally legitimizing aim in life, which consists solely of the present. He has money, indulges cultivated tastes, and travels, but he will not own property, write memoirs, or be circumscribed by family obligations. That is the form of happiness he has chosen, but no reference is made to its obvious limitations other than to imply its disregard for the weak. The reader is left to reflect on its inadequacies. The life of a philosopher, Ménalque says, is a form of poetry, and the life of a poet is itself a philosophy.

It is easy to link strands in Ménalque's thought with Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, or Wilde. It is not difficult to dissect the literary techniques and list the parallels, antitheses, and trivial changes in behavior that denote the clash of important and opposing moral visions in the text. Michel keeps his appointment with Ménalque on the night Marceline is symbolically delivered of their stillborn child; Michel's relationships with his farm tenants and employees, with whom he poaches his own game, mirrors his interior moral development.

Michel's story ends with the funeral of Marceline. The letter writer takes up again. Had Michel's behavior been made more acceptable by being recounted? If so, the reader, like the trio of listeners to Michel's narrative, has also connived, even by reading. The text is not a simple récit at all. It is a delicate invitation to look at the legitimacy and viability of a set of moral attitudes opposed to many of those normally accepted by various sections of the educated French public in 1902. The title The Immoralist carries an implied question mark. Gide provoked exactly the range of public reactions he counted on. He did not regard Ménalque's philosophy as sustainable or Michel's behavior as admissible, but he was mischievous and thought the reaction would be agreeable to watch. The Immoralist is much cleverer than its deceptively naive tone suggests. As a tentative exploration of the possible base for some of society's moral assumptions, it is a classic.

—A. H. T. Levi