Biography

- 1869: Born to a Huguenot and Norman family in Paris; grandson of a Protestant minister

- 1947: Nobel Prize in Literature

- 1882: Falls in love with Madeleine Rondeaux

- 1891: Literary debut: LES CAHIERS D'ANDRÉ WALTER (pub. anonymously)

- 1894: Marries Madeleine Rondeaux

- 1895: Meets Oscar Wilde, acknowledges homosexuality

- 1897: Supports Capt. Dreyfuss

- 1902: The Immoralist

- 1908: Dostoevsky through his Correspondence

- 1909: Launches literary magazine, Nouvelle Revu française

- 1914-16: Works at the Foyer Franco-Belge (for Belgian refugees)

- 1919: The Pastoral Symphony

- 1922: The Counterfeiters written and published anonymously but not for sale; lectures on Dostoevsky

- 1923: Has a daughter with another woman; book on Dostoevsky

- 1924: CORYDON defends homosexuality

1926: Les Faux-Monnayeurs and Journal des Faux-Monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters) for sale

- 1927: If It Die: An Autobiography

- 1936: RETOUR DE L'U.S.S. marks his break with Communism

- 1942-45: Lives in North Africa

- 1951: Dies in Paris

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	Profitendieus	Molinier	Passavant	Lady Lilian Griffith	Vedel-Azaïs	Edouard	La Pérouse	Odd  schoolmates
Name	profiter = to profit; profit = profit a nouveau riche, one whose only goal in life is to climb up the social ladder by any means		Name: passer (to pass, to go) + avant (forward)		Related now, by marriage, to the Douviers family		Perugia: A city of central Italy on a hill overlooking the Tiber River north of Rome. An important Etruscan settlement, it fell to the Romans c. 310 B.C. and became a Lombard duchy in A.D. 592 and a free city in the 12th century. Perugia was later the artistic center of Umbria and is today a commercial, industrial, and tourist center. Population: 143,698.	Victor Strouvilhou Boarded at Azaïses;  Visits Passavant
Family / Profession	Bernard (graduating student); little Hamlet? (81) M. Albéric Profitendieus (55 y.o., lawyer), Mme. Marguerite Profitendieus Caloub Céline	M. Oscar Molinier (Président de chambre), Mme. Pauline Molinier Vincent (doctor, 92) Olivier (graduating student, beg. writer [33]) George	Robert recently became Count/Comte b/c his father died;  Wrote a book, The Horizontal Bar (66-7) Gontran (brother)	Has a husband “mislaid . . . in England” (52); Grew up in San Francisco (62)	Laura (Vedel) Douviers Friend of Edouard (67-8) Married to Felix (professor in Cambridge, ) Her grandfather, M. Azaïs, runs a boarding school (92); Father = Protestant pastor:  Prosper Vedel and Mélanie Vedel Rachel (elder sister) Sarah (younger sister) Armand (brother) ; brother Alexander losing money in the colonies (243-44)	Half-brother of Mme. Pauline Molinier (and therefore uncle of Olivier) Writing a novel, The Counterfeiters Normally lives in England (73-4)	M. and Mme. La Pérouse Deceased son Illegitimate grandson	Lucien Dhurmer
Friends / Acquaintances	M. Profitendieus works with M. Molinier; Bernard is friends with Olivier, steals Edouard's suitcase	M. Molinier works with M. Profitendieus; Olivier has a special relationship with his uncle; Vincent is Laura's lover	Robert loans Vincent money and attempts to get Olivier to work for him; previous relationship with Lilian	Friend of Robert; seduces Vincent	Almost everyone knows her grandfather on account of his boarding house	Advised Laura to marry Douviers (94)	Connected, via education, with most characters (?); Edouard visits
Main Characters	Bernard	Olivier	Robert	Lilian	Laura	Edouard	La Pérouse	Victor Strouvilhou
Trauma	Found out he's the product of his mother's affair	Vincent's near-death experience	His father died	Survived the Bourgogne	Pregnant from an extramarital affair	Encouraged Laura to marry Felix	Son died and estranged from  his grandson, product of an extramarital affair
Secrets / Counterfeits	homeless "bastard;" Hamlet	Love for Edouard	Talented author	Vincent's lover?	Edouard's "friend"	Author of The Counterfeiters; Original novelist	An abused father

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Counterfeit from Dictionary.com:

v. tr.

1. To make a copy of, usually with the intent to defraud; forge: counterfeits money.
2. To make a pretense of; feign: counterfeited interest in the story.

v. intr.

1. To carry on a deception; dissemble.
2. To make fraudulent copies of something valuable.

adj.

1. Made in imitation of what is genuine with the intent to defraud: a counterfeit dollar bill.
2. Simulated; feigned: a counterfeit illness.

n.

A fraudulent imitation or facsimile.

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[Middle English countrefeten, from contrefet, made in imitation, from Old French contrefait, past participle of contrefaire, to counterfeit  : contre-, counter- + faire, to make (from Latin facere. See dh- in Indo-European Roots).]

Lingering Mysteries in Counterfeiters

1. The identity of Bernard’s father
2. 9 minors subject to some charge regarding prostitutes/orgies at the courts
3. Will Laura’s husband and family find out about her condition?
4. Does he love me (Bernard, Olivier, Edouard)?
5. Who loves [and can trust] whom (Vincent, Lilian, Robert)?
6. What kind of “children’s League of Honor” have the schoolboys formed (107)?

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2. What is Edouard’s theory of the novel (cf. 179-193)?  How much is it like Gide’s novel? Is Edouard writing an authentic novel if his characters are derived from others' writings? (156, 188)
3. Who is Boris, and how does he relate to larger themes in The Counterfeiters? (155, 171, 174, 177)


Bonus question: How do sexual identity, promiscuity, homosexuality relate to counterfeiting in Gide’s novel?

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Discussion L. 18
In 1908 Gide wrote a monograph about Dostoevsky’s letters, and in 1922, when he finished writing The Counterfeiters, he delivered a series of lectures on Dostoevsky.

How is Gide similar to Dostoevsky? Consider narrative style, the "division of personality" (of Bernard, the narrator, and others [271]), "Russian" characters, and Rachel (236-45). What are the crimes of The Counterfeiters and how are they punished (or not)?
1. Which character experiments the most with his evolving “self”? What are the results?
2. Does Boris’ trauma explain his behavior? What’s the significance of the Swiss setting for this portion of the book?

3. What’s disturbing about Olivier’s letter to Bernard?

4. What do we learn about the anonymous narrator?

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Discussion: Counterfeit Sexuality?

1. Has Bernard really ceased his "division of the personality" because he fell in love (Gide 271)? What has he learned from his literature exam? Cf. also 258-59, 262-63.
2. In what ways do the children’s counterfeit activities mirror their parents’ practices? Cf. Moliniers (229, 232, 262, 302), Strouvilhou, Boris (254, 257, 267).

3. What rules about gender and sexuality do characters encounter and rebel against? How do these practices compare to the portrayal of the gendered world in Steppenwolf?

Lilian, Laura, Rachel Vedel (235, 285), Sarah Vedel, Madame Vedel (238)

Edouard, O. Molinier, Pauline Molinier (227, 229, 232, 233, 238, 275)

Robert Passavant (300), Olivier (301, 302)

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1. What is the function of literary criticism/review (Passavant, Strouvilhou, Armand) and interpretation (Edouard, George, Pauline) at the end of the novel? (cf. 333, 362-66, 372)

2. What role does suicide play in the novel? How does it compare to the role of suicide in Hesse’s novel? (cf. 250, 273-4, 310, 321-2, 382-93)

3. What issues resolve themselves by the end of the book, and which ones remain unresolved? (cf., perhaps, 314, 326, 336, 377)  How similar is this ending to that of Hesse? (cf. 344) What is the purpose of the open end, do you think, in Gide (and Modernist literature)? (cf. 320, 335, 337)

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Fictional Letters:

In The Counterfeiters, characters share in secrets, while simultaneously playing a game to disguise their motives. What would Edouard, Bernard, Olivier, Passavant, and their parents say to each other if they really communicated? Using the text for your guide as to how Gide’s characters communicate, write a fictional addendum to the book. In other words, you get to “play” specific character roles in order to discover their speech patterns and reestablish secrets. The following are imagined conversations that each group should create in writing. Style should match/try to approximate Gide’s and also reflect your interpretation of characters:

Scenario #1: Passavant writes a letter to Olivier (cf. 136-41, 323-34)

Scenario #2: Bernard’s father, M. Profitendieu, writes Bernard a letter (cf. 3-35)

Scenario #3: The author reviews Lilian Griffith (218-22, 326)

Scenario #4: La Pérouse writes to Boris (116-25, 157-65, 174-80, 246-53)

Scenario #5: Olivier writes Edouard or Bernard a letter (166-73, 273, 301-22)

Scenario #6: Laura writes to a member of her family (Armand, Rachel, Sara, etc.) (99-113, 235, 312-16)

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Journals, Book Reviews, and Newspaper Articles

This exercise not only prepares you for writing creatively about The Counterfeiters for their final writing project, but it also allows you to appreciate the complicated narrative style of the novel (preparing you to answer the question: What is the modern / Modernist European novel?).

#1: Write a new ending to The Counterfeiters in Edouard’s journal style.     Examine the style and content of Edouard’s journal (69-75; 94-115; 193-94; 205-211; 226-52). For ex.: What subjects does he cover in journal style? Do other characters’ voices come across clearly when he writes about them in journal form?

#2: Write a new ending in Gide’s journal style.     Examine a few of Gide’s journal entries (405-51). What subjects does he cover, and how does he write?

#3: Write a book review of The Counterfeiters. Your audience is readers of The Montclarion in 1928, when the book first appeared in English. At that time, most students at Montclair were largely bound for or already associated with the elementary and secondary teaching profession (cf. Normal College or Montclair College).

#4: Invent or rewrite an episode from The Counterfeiters as a newspaper incident.    As a basis for comparison, look at the newspaper clippings upon which some events in The Counterfeiters are based (455-57). You must carefully define your parameters (newspaper, year, audience, etc.). 

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Translations

French-isms:

Thou = formal "you" (vous, vs. the informal you, tu)

Alphabetical from French

à propos (241) = by the way, timely, fitting

Armand—p. 283: L’atmosphère d’un cher réduit = The atmosphere of a dear nook

- baccalauréat/ bachot  = cumulative national exam at the end of high school (used for entrance into French universities) 

 Bon mot (147) = witticism

-    Centime (82) = cent (one hundreth of a franc)

- chef d'oeuvre (191) = masterpiece

- confrères (226) = colleagues, accomplices

en attendant (332) = at the moment

- En brosse = crew cut

-    Entracte (136) = intermission

-    Entresol (116) = mezzanine

- esprit de suite (337) = consistency

- état-civil (186) = civilian record

grand miroir / De mon désespoir (326) = large mirror of my despair

idée fixe (314) = fixed idea

juge de instruction (338) = prosecutor / examining magistrate

laisser aller (326) = to give way, to yield

-    lycée = academic high school

-    M. = Monsieur / mister

-    Mot d’ordre (74) = motto

-    Monsieur le Pasteur (103) = pastor, minister 

qui vive (229) = live and let live

-    Raison d’être (139) = reason for being

- tête à tête (170) = face to face (meeting)

viva voce (312) = oral exam

Epigraphs and Longer Passages

Fontenelle—p. 36

Mon père était une bête, mais ma mere avait de l’esprit; elle était quiétiste; c’était une petite femme douce qui me disait souvent: Mon fils, vous serez damné. Mais cela ne lui faisait pas de peine.

My father was a beast, but my mother had spirit; she was quiet; she was a small soft woman who often said to me: My son, you will be damned. That would not grieve her.

 

Sainte-Beuve—p. 46

C’était une âme et un corps où n’entrait jamais l’aiguillon.

It was a heart and a body where the sting never entered.

Chamfort—p. 66

Il faut choisir d’aimer les femmes ou de les connaître; il n’y a pas de milieu.

It is necessary to choose to love women or to know them; there isn’t a middle ground. 

Vauvenargues—p. 116

On tire peu de service des vieillards.

One gets little out of old men. (i.e.: they are not useful anymore).

Paul Bourget (passim)—p. 123

“La famille . . . cette cellule sociale.”

The family . . . this social cell.

La Rochefoucault—p. 116

Il arrive quelquefois des accidents dans la vie, d’où il faut être un peu fou pour se bien tirer.

There are sometimes situations in life when it is necessary to be a little insane to manage well.

Sainte-Beuve (Lundis/Mondays)—p. 205

C’est ce qui arrive de presque toutes les maladies de l’esprit humain qu’on se flatte d’avoir guéries. On les répercute seulement, comme on dit en médecine, et on leur en substitue d’autres.

 That which happens [to us as a result of] with almost all the diseases of the human spirit is that we flatter ourselves to have been cured [of them]. We only refract them, as one says in medicine, and we substitute them with others.

La Rochefoucault—p. 212

Il y a de certains défauts qui, bien mis en oeuvre brillent plus que la vertu même.

There are certain defects which, well displayed, shine more than the virtue itself.

Flaubert: L’Education Sentimentale (Sentimental Education)—p. 225

Son retour à Paris ne lui causa point de plaisir.

His return to Paris did not bring him any pleasure at all.

Fénelon—p. 260

Il ne faut prendre, si je ne me trompe, que la fleur de chaque objet . . .

If I am not mistaken, one should take only the flower of each object . . . (that which is the best of the object/thing in an extended sense)

La Fontaine--p. 261

Papillon du Parnasse, et semblable aux abeilles

A qui le bon Platon compare nos merveilles,

Je suis chose légère et vole a tout sujet,

Je vais de fleur en fleur et d’objet en objet.

Butterfly of the Parnassus, and similar to the bees

To which the good Plato compares our wonders,

I am a light thing and steal some from every subject,

I go from flower to flower and object to object.

Pascal—p. 312

Rien n’ est simple de ce qui s’offre à l’âme; et l’âme ne s’offre jamais simple à aucun sujet.

Nothing is simple about what the heart is asked to deal with (literal traslation: what is offered to the heart); and the heart that never offers itself is in a simple, uncomplicated way to anything/anybody.

Armand on his ‘masterpiece’ (chef-d’oeuvre)—p. 375

Mon mal vient de plus loin

My evil comes from afar

Cob-Lafleur in the fictional journal—p. 377

Il faut se rendre à l’èvidence;

Car, dans ce bas monde, la danse

Précède souvent la chanson

One needs to go to evidence;

Because, in this vile world, the dance

often precedes the song

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Reviews of Gide's Work:

1. Contemporary Reviews from British newspapers of The Counterfeiters (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader; go to Les Faux-Monnayeurs):

1.1 Anon., from Times Literary Supplement (31 May 1928):

The Counterfeiters "is in the manner of Dostoevsky, but the overwhelming speed, the breathless haste at which the Russians live is slowed down. Nevertheless, there is the same method of viewing life.

A strange and terrible incident is contrasted with a  strange and meaningless incident, thus proving one does not know what, perhaps some philosophy of life. We feel that something very important is being shown to us, and we cannot see why it is important" (411)

1.2 Anon., from The New Statesman (18 Feb. 1928):

"The Counterfeiters is a novel about a novelist writing a novel called The Counterfeiters; we see the characters through a series of receding mirrors, the nearest reflection being all that we get of their real selves.

The novelist is Gide, or a novelist's idea of Gide, and we see him, noble, understanding, helpless, brewing indecision and distress all round. His countertype, or Anti-Gide, is another novelist, de Passavant . . . . modernised, so as to be a caricature of the rich, slick, amateur, fashionable writer whose book The Horizontal Bar--whose epigrams ("what is deepest in man is his skin") point very much to the leaders of the motion for motion's sake, wagon-lit, dancing dervish school . . .

There is a large amount of profound criticism and irony scattered through the book, as well as many true observations on the novel itself" (595).

1.3 From Richard Arlington, The Observer (1928):

"The object is not to enetertain with a mere tale, not to provide a slice of life, but to convey an experience of life.

It is utterly different than the spontaneous urge and rush of Balzac's imagination; it is all calculated, arranged, "retors" [twisted, stylized] with intentional vagueness, baffling surprises, almost like a Picasso picture . . .

M. Gide's style here is delightfully limpid--his style is not always so--and that at least can be praised unreservedly" (42).

2. From the Presentation of Gide's Nobel Prize in Literature 1947:

" Behind the strange and incessant shift in perspective that Gide's work offers to us . . . we always find the same supple intelligence, the same incorruptible psychology, expressed in a language which, by the most sober means, attains a wholly classic limpidity and the most delicate variety.

Without going into the details of the work, let us mention in this connection the celebrated Les Faux Monnayeurs (1926) [The Counterfeiters], with its bold and penetrating analysis of a group of young French people.

Through the novelty of its technique, this novel has inspired a whole new orientation in the contemporary art of the narrative" (Österling 1947).

Österling, Anders. "Nobel Prize Presentation Speech." Nobel Lectures. 2004. http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1947/press.html Accessed Nov. 2004.

3.1 Scholastic / Academic Sources on Gide:

3.1 O’Brien, Justin. “Gide’s Fictional Technique.” Yale French Studies 7 (1951): 81-90.

3.1.1 Movement: Symbolism

Belonged to generation of young symbolists in 1890s who in reaction to excesses of naturalism rejected everything that smacked of life

3.1.2 His First Self-acknowledged "Novel"

“In an ironic and unused preface for [The Counterfeiters Gide] claimed that he had not classified his earlier works as novels for fear they might be accused of lacking some of the essentials of the genre, such as confusion, for instance” (85).

3.1.3 Admiration for and Similarities to Dostoevsky

“Rereading the great Russian, he noted certain similarities between Dostoyevsky and himself; he found the same type of irresolute, half-formed, contradictory characters to which he has always been drawn himself; he recognized his own familiar themes: the relation of the individual with himself or with God, the demoniacal role of the intelligence, the challenge to conventional ethics and psychology, the value of an audacious deed, the opposition of thought and action and of carnal and emotional love, the influence of convention in counterfeiting us.

He became aware that Dostoevsky, too, invariably expresses ideas in relation to individuals, depicts the particular to achieve the general, intentionally interrupts action at its most intense, and creates a painting with a specific source of light rather than a lifeless panorama” (85, my emphasis).

3.2 Brée, Germaine. “Form and Content in Gide.” The French Review 30.6 (May 1957): 423-28.

3.2.1 General Critique and Review of Gide in the late 20th century

“Gide’s experimentation with the novel form reached its climax with The Counterfeiters . . .

One may feel that Gide’s works lack imaginative and emotional range; that his characters and their relationships are drastically circumscribed; that the overall significance of the tale is thin, the form contrived; in short that Gide fails to engage the reader fully in his fictional world.

And yet to the bafflement and sometimes anger of the critics who have attacked Gide’s work quite vociferously—particularly since his death—Gide’s novels seem to have a certain literary resiliency: they refuse to be done away with” (423).

-    “Essentially each of Gide’s tales, whatever its form, is an adventure in psychological awareness, and to this adventure Gide subordinates all other elements” (424).

-    “The Gidian character is always seen in a certain perspective . . . he is like a player engaged in a game with many other players, a game for which he earnestly equips himself and which he plays according to given rules, the rules of the basketball shall we say, and he remains throughout—or almost—unaware of the fact that he is really engaged in a game of football.

What interests Gide is the player’s relationship to the game. Seen from within, as in the [story], he is pathetic—almost but not quite tragic—and latently ridiculous. Seen from outside as in the [tale] he is ludicrous and yet latently pathetic. The two perspectives are integrated in The Counterfeiters. But however carefully a human being plays he cannot encompass the whole span of the game, he cannot grasp all its rules nor see in its entirety the pattern formed. For, by definition, he is inside, not outside the game . . .

The Gidian character, once on the road of psychological awareness can only follow three paths though in a multitude of ways:

 he can renounce all further attempt at coming to terms with his experience;

he can formulate a coherent evaluation as to the nature of his experience and stick to it;

or he can, somewhat like a Pirandello character, continually create and discard successive selves.

These may be ‘counterfeit’ selves empty forms. But if they evolve in relation with that ‘never limited and never complete’ stuff of experience of which life is made they are a sign not of frustration but of growth” (425).

-    “We can only grasp the sense and value of Gide’s work if we forego some of our habits as novel-readers. Once we have read ourselves into Gide’s novel as if it were a novel by Dickens for example, Gide requires us to step right out of it again, to look at it from the outside as the construction of the author’s—which after all it is—standing midway between the formless, unlimited material of an experience we all share and the author whose own Promethean idea has, momentarily, ‘informed’ the material, given it significance by giving it form” (426).

-    The Counterfeiters “raises the very problem of the organic function of an idea in the transformation of reality into fiction. Edward the novelist moves within the framework of the world created by Gide, much as Gide suggests any novelist moves within a certain milieu, in a certain place.

His aim as novelist is to ‘disengage,’ ‘disembroil’ some unifying aspect of that reality and hence write his novel. For Edward, the ordering theme is that of counterfeit. But Gide is not Edward and his novel, unlike Edward’s is there for us to look at” (427).

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Gide and Woolf


1. Individual topic—Gide/Woolf

Formulate your own comparative topic on Gide’s The Counterfeiters and Woolf’s Orlando based on close reading(s) of motifs, symbols, and narrative techniques. Some of these general questions might prompt you to design a focused topic: What do these two authors reveal about the purpose of the modern European novel? How and why do these authors simultaneously question and bolster their novels’ literary “realism”? Against which laws and practices surrounding gender or class does the modern European novel rebel (successfully or unsuccessfully)?

2. The Limits of Language:

Compare the tension between the multiple “writers” in The Counterfeiters and Orlando. Which author, Gide or Woolf, has better success in portraying the complexity of writing the (experimental) self in Modernist literature? You might investigate, for example, the competing narratives of Edouard, Bernard, Olivier, and/or the anonymous narrator to the weaving of the narrator/“biographer” and Orlando. Why does this particular genre, the modern novel, succeed (or fail) to narrate the journey of the modern self? How does it compare to other genres discussed within the novels? Another focus might center on the role that private writing and reading play in the two novels. What are the limits of language and writing? How does literary voyeurism in the fictional worlds of Gide and Woolf relate to the modern reader’s experience? 

3. A Critical World:

What is the function of literary criticism in The Counterfeiters and Orlando? How do these portrayals of modern European criticism relate to the ways in which the reader is invited to interpret the text? Why does the modern European novel deliberately question the verity of comprehending identity and private experience?

4. Gender Benders

Compare and contrast the role sexuality plays in Gide and Woolf’s novels. What does the fluid nature of “masculinity” and “femininity” allegorize? Which novelist is more “successful” in making sense of gender? Why is gender bending a common theme in the modern European novel?  

5. The Comparative World

Compare Woolf to another work of British literature written before 1930 and examine intertextual references in Orlando. How does Woolf’s novel position itself in the historiography of English literature? Does Woolf characterize this dramatized history as truly “authentic”? Who are the stock characters and what are the parodied themes of the English canon? How does this compare to Gide’s positioning of his novel in the French tradition? What does this anxiety about literary tradition say about the value of the modern European novel to the Western canon? You might also (or alternatively) consider the comparative worlds within these novels. For example: How do characters’ international travels break down (or affirm) homogeneous national identity? (Though aspects of this topic allow you to incorporate materials from other courses, I trust you will be writing original material; this crossover has been approved by Prof. Greenberg and Prof. Matthew.)

6. Death

Orlando claims that all “ends in death” yet lives for centuries (Woolf 44/46). Gide’s characters preach about experiencing life to its fullest; yet the novel records at least three deaths and even more suicidal attempts. What does the ambiguity of death signify in the modern European novel? What does (free-willed) death mean? How do the tensions between nihilism, on the one hand, and the will to survive, on the other, inform modern identity? Why does the modern European novel, as a genre, excel (or fail) in depicting this paradox? 

7. Technology and Nature

Gide and Woolf’s novels juxtapose urban environments (the metropolis) with the countryside, while their protagonists are inspired, sometimes in equal measure, by modern technology and nature. What do these seemingly conflicting worlds symbolize? How is the fate of the modern individual, according to these novelists, determined by mechanization, on the one hand, and uncontrollable nature, on the other? Why are these two settings diametrically opposed to each other (or are they)? What does this phenomenon say about the experimental self (and the modern novelist’s challenges in writing about it)?
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Wendy C. Nielsen. "Andre Gide." WCN Home. <http://chss.montclair.edu/~nielsenw/gide.html> November 2004.