If It Die - André Gide

by André Gide

 If It Die...   by André Gide is a profound exploration of personal identity, moral ambiguity, and the human experience. Through this autobiographical work, Gide reflects on his formative years, offering an intimate portrayal of his journey from adolescence to adulthood. The narrative delves into his struggles with religion, sexuality, and societal expectations, portraying his inner conflict with refreshing honesty. 

 In If It Die..., Gide confronts the rigid moral structures of his upbringing, particularly the influence of his Protestant faith. He presents a nuanced depiction of his search for authenticity, as he grapples with questions of desire and identity in a society that demanded conformity. Gide's writing is both introspective and candid, offering readers an unvarnished look into the complexities of his emotional and spiritual development. 

 The book is not merely a personal reflection, but a critique of the social and moral constraints of late 19th and early 20th-century France. Through his narrative, Gide explores themes such as the tension between personal freedom and societal norms, as well as the hypocrisy inherent in conventional morality. His experiences, particularly his travels and encounters with different cultures, broaden his perspective and deepen his understanding of human diversity. 

Genres: France, Biography, Nonfiction, Autobiography, French Literature, Classics, Memoir

333 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Diaries and novels, such as The Immoralist (1902) and Lafcadio's Adventures (1914), of noted French writer André Gide examine alienation and the drive for individuality in an often disapproving society; he won the Nobel Prize of 1947 for literature.

André Paul Guillaume Gide authored books. From beginnings in the symbolist movement, career of Gide ranged to anticolonialism between the two World Wars.

Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide exposes the conflict and eventual reconciliation to public view between the two sides of his personality; a straight-laced education and a narrow social moralism split apart these sides. One can see work of Gide as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritan constraints, and it gravitates around his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of full self, even to the point of owning sexual nature without betraying values at the same time. After his voyage of 1936 to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the same ethos informs his political activity, as his repudiation of Communism suggests.

Chinese 安德烈·纪德

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gideiana & the Money Shot : 1947 Nobel winner Gide, after recalling childhood, schooldays and aesthetic growth among friends Pierre Louys and Mallarme, delivers. "My joy was unbounded...I cannot imagine it greater, even if love had been added." Never confuse, as do many, desire with love. That little Arab boy left him in a state of "passionate jubilation."

Published in 1920, two decades after "The Immoralist," Gide offers his back-story. Gide, a founder in 1909 of the influential Le Nouvel Revue Francaise, was disarmingly frank in a world where hypocrisy reigned. Though some of the writing and memories here are clotted, you appreciate his candor and erudition. You also appreciate his personal and literary audacity.

Coming from a strong Protestant background, he says God himself would surely loathe a uniformity of nature and any teaching that tried to subdue it. He required his "mind's assent" to the wishes of his body. As for memoirs, which this is: "Everything is always more complicated than one makes out."

[Conor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find the whole genre of biography and autobiography fairly boring, but this was kinda fun. The first half was pretty dry, but really established Gide's character as a child (dreamer). The second half was a lot more interesting. I knew from checking wikipedia (after infering it from my read of the Immoralist) that Gide was into boys, but it's quite another thing to read about him picking them up with Oscar Wilde.

[S. Hm · Rating 3 out of 5]

در واقع کتاب اتوبیوگرافی ست اما نه یک اتوبیوگرافی کامل. ژید مقطعی از زندگی خودش رو به صورت وقایعی که بعضا ترتیب وقوع اونها رعایت نشده نشون داده که این برای من کسل کننده بود انقدر که فکر میکردم اگه در مورد زندگی آنا خدمتکارشون مطلبی میخوندم برام جذاب تر بود.

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this volume in my possession for decades, but have only just recently read it — very slowly.

Naturally, I started at the end, reading about Gide's trips to Algeria and his encounters with Oscar Wilde and "Bosie", and then started from the beginning and read it all the way through — very slowly. (Note: this volume has "omitted portions").

There are beautiful sentences here, sublime and wrenching. Gide's approach to memoir gives one the impression of great insight, self-abasement (and self-aggrandizement), as well as a soul-baring honesty which is both brave and foolish.

[CharlieSadNerd · Rating 3 out of 5]

certified yapper, wakacje z Wildem top tier content

[Gerbrand · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na het lezen van de dagboeken en herinneringen van Roger Martin de Gard was dit autobiografische boek van zijn vriend André Gide (1869-1951) wat teleurstellend. In tegenstelling tot Kijken door een sleutelgat van RMG handelt dit boek over de jeugdjaren. Het geeft een mooi inkijkje in het leven van de rijkere klasse eind 19e eeuw. Gide schrijft aan het eind van deel 1:

“Roger Martin du Gard, aan wie ik deze memoires heb laten lezen, heeft erop tegen dat ze niet openhartig genoeg zijn en de lezer met een onvoldaan gevoel achterlaten.”

Misschien de reden dat Gide deel 2 heeft toegevoegd. In dat deel is hij zeker openhartig. Het gaat over zijn reis naar Tunesië en Algerije eind 19e eeuw waar hij langere tijd verblijft. Daar accepteert hij voor het eerst zijn homoseksualiteit hoewel hij later toch zal trouwen met zijn nicht. Heel bijzonder is de ontmoeting met Oscar Wilde en Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas. Deze laatste krijgt in dit boek een flinke veeg uit de pan. Gide wist terwijl hij dit deel schreef al welke dubieuze rol Bosie had gespeeld in het proces tegen Wilde.

Si le grain ne meurt, de originele titel, kwam in Frankrijk uit in 1924. Het is een citaat uit de bijbel : als de graankorrel niet sterft kan zij geen vrucht dragen. In Nederland is gekozen in deze vertaling 2006 voor een wat aantrekkelijker titel.

De reden dat ik wat minder enthousiast ben komt mede door het grote aantal noten met vooral Franse schrijvers en dichters uit de 19e eeuw die mij totaal onbekend zijn.

Deel 1: 3 sterren
Deel 2: 4 sterren.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andre Gide is an author’s author. Winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature, and a favourite of notable scribes like Yukio Mishima and Donald Richie, Gide is one of the fathers of the modern confessional autobiography, but outside of the academy and academia, this doesn't make him an interesting read.

If It Die is concerned to the point of myopia with the triviality of life. Fleeting thoughts, grasped at impressions, the flotsam and jetsam of waking consciousness, If It Die is akin to reading several hundred pages of a diary written after the fact; a post-dated stream of consciousness journal rather than a conscious literary work.

Of interest certainly in a few places -- Gide’s meetings with Oscar Wilde of particular note -- it is hard nonetheless to recommend this to anyone without a purely academic or literary interest.

If It Die is an account of the years before Gide became an accomplished author, an in all honesty, in these pages nothing much is accomplished.

[Rachael Stephen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Possibly the most boring and self indulgent thing I've ever read. And I read the whole damn thing as well. The bits about botany are cool, and some of the stuff in Africa, but apart from that...bleuch.

[Ivy-Mabel Fling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this is quite lengthy and Gide's affairs would be seen as somewhat dodgy these days, I found this book useful as background to L'Immoraliste and the novellas. Worth reading if you are interested in Gide's other writings.

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and thought it pretty interesting, especially the parts where Gide talks about his homosexuality and mentions famous literary personages who I am familiar with (chiefly Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas). The prose was very beautiful and picturesque, especially his descriptions of nature and of his emotional state.

I did end up taking a break of a week or so at about the 75 page mark, as I got a bit bored sometimes during that period describing his early childhood, before much anything interesting happened to him; he wasn’t into literature yet, he wasn’t very smart (he himself said he was dull in his childhood), and there was no one I recognized mentioned. In the end, the prose pulls through, though, and his childhood does have merit on its own as the life of a (rather) wealthy and introspective French boy in the 19th century with a strong conscience – though conscience may not be the right word.

I was quite surprised by how intensely religious he was. Not as a child but as a teenager and young adult, and it seems that element stayed in his life past that, in a weaker form, though there were periods where he read the Bible every day, and always had a copy of the New Testament on his body (or was it the Gospels? The Gospels were his favorite, in any case). He was a Protestant, by the way. Not that I’m very well-versed in the distinctions between different types of Christians, but I’m learning a bit more about Catholicism from some of my reading (Oscar Wilde dabbled in Catholicism), so I’m noting it here chiefly to remind myself that he wasn’t Catholic.

There’s a long passage near the end of the book that recounts Gide’s meeting with Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas in France, much of which I was familiar with from Gide’s book Oscar Wilde, but there were a few sections in it which were new, and, afterward, there was a long section with Douglas (Wilde was absent) that was completely new to me and interesting. Basically, Douglas had eloped with an Arab boy and wanted Gide’s company, because neither could really speak each other’s language, so they spent some time together on vacation. Some interesting things happened in that segment. And some disquieting. Douglas heard rumors that Ali (the boy) had slept with Meriem, the prostitute who was kind of Gide and his other friend’s friend, and then he found a photo of Meriem in Ali’s luggage, and he got so angry at him that he horse-whipped him (and Gide could hear Ali’s screams) and then banished him and sent him back home. This was a 15 (maybe 16 at this point) year old boy, by the way. Ali had also a dalliance there with some boy his age, but Douglas didn’t care, since that one was male. Shocking, isn’t it? The horse-whipping, chiefly. I am providing the actual quotation below this review, so look for it if you’re interested in the exact details.

In terms of disappointment/negative aspects, I was a little ticked off by how often Gide solicited the use of prostitutes, male and female; male, because he desired it, female, because he was pushed into it by the men he was in the company of, or because he wanted to test himself or prove something to himself. He also seems to try to justify a type of…hmm, temple prostitution (sort of but not really) in…somewhere African or Arabic. Sorry, it seems I didn’t mark the section. He describes a place he went to on vacation, where most young women prostitute themselves once, or for one year, and then use the money they earn for their dowry when they marry, and it’s considered normal and non-dishonourable by everyone all around. He slept with one such girl, who was 16, I think he said. And he was 21, maybe. Of course, this was all very common for the men of his time period, so perhaps it’s too critical to look at him with moral condemnation when he’s not from the twenty-first century, but I don’t necessarily think so. Sex is not a commodity to be bought. Especially not from underage individuals. I won’t give a whole tract here, since that’s not what this review is for, and Gide really wasn’t so bad about this as others of his peers were, but it was disappointing. And it kept happening!

Also, the book cut off very abruptly, so much so that I had to look it up to see if there was a sequel (if it were two volumes, like Ethel Smyth’s), but it was not so. There’s no epilogue or postscript of any sort, and there’s no feeling of being settled at the end or things being wrapped up. Gide mentions his engagement to his cousin Emmanuele, and then…nothing! This annoyed me, as I wanted to learn more about his life history, and things had really started to get interesting with his adulthood.

But back to a positive: At times, it was quite funny and witty. Some of the descriptions of his private tutors and schoolmasters made me feel like laughing, such as the one who would always complain about his marriage troubles to Gide (who was maybe 13 at the time!).

I think that about concludes my thoughts on this book. A good book. Not a flawless one—it meanders a lot, and skips over things, then goes back and mentions them, scrambled and disordered, or mentions things without fully explaining them (I just remembered I was thinking this while reading, so, this is another negative), but it does make sense, as it’s a memoir, not fiction, and he’s talking about real people, some of whom are still alive. Also, he’s working from his memories and trying to be very honest, without making anything up – he says so himself. Anyhow, I do recommend this. It’s interesting, especially if you have any curiosity about Andre Gide, or the people of the French literary circle during his time, or gay history. Or Oscar Wilde.


Quotations:

“There was one boy for whom I had conceived an absolute passion. He was a Russian. I must look for his name some day in the school books. How I wish someone would tell me what became of him! He was delicate and extraordinarily pale; he had very fair, rather long, hair and very blue eyes; his voice was musical and his slight accent gave it the quality of singing. Poetry of a kind breathed from his whole person; the reason if twas, I think, that he felt he was weak and wanted to be loved. The other boys looked down on him and he rarely took part in any games; as for me, one glance from him made me feel ashamed of playing with the others and I remember some recreations in which I suddenly caught his eye and then and there left the game to join him. The boys used to chaff me about it. I longed for someone to attack him so that I might fly to his defence. During the drawing-lessons, when we were allowed to talk a little in a whisper, we sat beside each other; he told me his father was a celebrated man of science; I did not dare question him about his mother nor ask him how he came to be in Paris. One fine day he stopped coming to school and no one was able to tell me whether he had fallen ill or gone back to Russia; some kind of shyness or shame prevented me from asking the masters, who might perhaps have given me news of him; and I shut away in my secret heart one of the first and deepest griefs of my life.” (70-1)

“As soon as I entered the ball-room, I saw at a glance that there were at least a score of ‘little pastry-cooks’—in fact a regular school of them. The saucepan was too big and got terribly in my way; and to add to my confusion, I suddenly fell in love—yes, positively in love!—with a small boy a little older than myself, who has left me a dazzling recollection of slimness, grace and volubility.
He was dressed as an imp or a clown, that is, his slender figure was perfectly moulded in black tights covered with steel spangles. As people crowded round to look at him, he jumped and pranced and gambolled, as if success and pleasure had gone to his head; he looked like a sylph; I could not take my eyes off him. I longed to make him look at me, and at the same time feared to, because of my ridiculous get-up; I felt ugly and wretched. He stopped to take breath between two pirouettes, went up to a lady, who must have been his mother, and asked her for a handkerchief, with which he proceeded to mop his forehead—for he was dripping with perspiration—after having fist undone the black band with which his two little kid’s horns were fasted on to his forehead. I went up to him and awkwardly offered him some of my biscuits. He said ‘Thank you,’ took one carelessly and at once turned on his heel. I left the ball soon after with a broken heart, and when I got home I had such a fit of despair that my mother promised to let me go next year as a ‘Neapolitan lazzarone.’ Yes, I thought, that would be something like a fancy-dress; perhaps the imp would think so too… So I went to the next ball as a ‘lazzarone’—but the imp was not there.” (73)

“And so it was that Monsieur de Bouvy imparted his sorrows to me. Monsieur de Bouvy, the principal usher of the school, never began a lesson without a preliminary sigh. He was a flabby little man, black and bearded. I cannot exactly remember what he taught me, and I hardly suppose I learnt much, for the lesson had barely begun before Monsieur de Bouvy’s eyes would grow dim; his sighs became more frequent and his words soon ceased to follow them. While I was repeating my lesson, he would wag his head pensively, murmur a series of melancholy ‘oh’s’ and ‘ah’s’ and then suddenly interrupt me:
‘She locked me out again last night.’
Monsieur de Bouvy’s sorrows were of the conjugal order.
‘What!’ cried I, more, I fear, in amusement than pity; ‘you spent the night on the staircase again?’
‘Oh, so you think it’s intolerable too, do you?’
He gazed into the distance. I think he had ceased to see me and forgotten he was talking to a child.
‘Especially,’ he went on, ‘as it makes me the laughingstock of the other people in the house. They don’t understand the situation.’
‘Couldn’t you force your way in?’
‘When I do that, she beats me. Put yourself in my place.’
‘In your place, I should beat her.’
He gave a deep sigh, raised his cow-like eyes to the ceiling and said solemnly:
‘The man who lifts his hand against a women . . .’ and then muttered below his breath: ‘Especially when she isn’t alone’ . . .
Monsieur de Bouvy was soon succeeded by a Monsieur Daniel, who was a dirty, ignorant, boozy individual reeking of the pot-house and the brothel, but who at any rate did not confide in me; he was followed by someone else I have totally forgotten.” (168-9)

“At certain hours of the day, Paul left me to go and paint; but I was not so poorly as to be unable sometimes to go and join him. For that matter, during the whole time of my illness, I did not keep my bed, nor even my room, for a single day. I never went out without taking a coat and rug with me: as soon as I got outside, some boy would appear and offer to carry them. The one who accompanied me on that particular day was a young brown-skinned Arab whom I had already noticed on the previous day among the troop of little rascals who loitered in the neighbourhood of the hotel. He wore a czechia on his head like the others and nothing else but a coat of coarse linen and baggy Tunisian trousers that stopped short at the knee and made his bare legs look even slenderer than they were. He seemed more reserved or more timid than his companions, so that as a rule they were beforehand with him; but that day, I don’t know how it was, I went out without any of them seeing me, and all of a sudden it was he who joined me at the corner of the hotel.
The hotel was situated in a sandy district on the outskirts of the town. It was sad to see the olive-trees, so fine in the surrounding country, half submerged here by the drifting sandhills. A little further on one was astonished to come upon a stream—a meagre water-course, springing out of the sand just in time to reflect a little bit of sky before reaching the sea. A gathering of negresses squatting over their washing beside this trickle of fresh water was the subject Paul had chosen before which to plant his easel. I had promised to meet him there, but when Ali—this was my little guide’s name—led me up among the sandhills, in spite of the fatigue of walking in the sand, I followed him; we soon reached a kind of funnel or crater, the rim of which was just high enough to command the surrounding country and give a view of anyone coming. As soon as we got there, Ali flung the coat and rug down on the sloping sand; he flung himself down too, and stretched on his back, with his arms spread out on each side of him, he looked at me and laughed. I was not such a simpleton as to misunderstand his invitation; but I did not answer it at once. I sat down myself, not very far from him, but yet not very near either, and in my turn looked at him steadily and waited, feeling extremely curious as to what he would do next.
I waited! I wonder to-day at my fortitude . . . But was it really curiosity that held me back? I am not sure. The secret motive of our acts—I mean of the most decisive ones—escapes us; and not only in memory but at the very moment of their occurrence. Was I still hesitating on the threshold of what is called sin? No; my disappointment would have been too great if the adventure had ended with the triumph of my virtue—which I already loathed and despised. No; it was really curiosity that made me wait . . . And I watched his laughter slowly fade away, his lips close down again over his white teeth and an expression of sadness and discomfiture cloud his charming face.
‘Goodbye, then,’ he said.
But I seized the hand he held out to me and tumbled him on to the ground. In a moment he was laughing again. The complicated knots of the strings that served him for girdle did not long trouble his impatience; he drew a little dagger from his pocket and severed the tangle with one cut. The garment fell, and flinging away his coat, he emerged naked as a god. Then he raised his slight arms for a moment to the sky and dropped laughing against me. Though his body was perhaps burning, it felt as cool and refreshing to my hands as shade. How beautiful the sand was! In the lovely splendour of that evening light, what radiance clothed my joy! . . .
In the meantime it was getting late. I had to join Paul. No doubt my countenance bore traces of my rapture and I think he guessed something; but as—out of discretion, perhaps—he did not question me, I said nothing.” (245-7) Surprisingly candid. And a very beautiful passage of a mutually desired and happy sexual encounter.

“Every time since then that I have sought after pleasure, it is the memory of that night [when Wilde hired(?) an Arab boy named Mohammed to have sex with Gide] I have pursued. After my adventure at Sousse, I had relapsed wretchedly again into vice. If I had now and then snatched a sensual joy, in passing, it had been, as it were, furtively; one delicious evening there had been, however, in a boat on the lake of Como, with a young boatman (just before going to La Brevine) when my rapture was encompassed by the shining of the moon, the misty magic of the lake, the moist perfumes breathing from its shores. And after that, nothing; nothing but a frightful dessert, full of wild unanswered appeals, aimless efforts, restlessness, struggles, exhausting dreams, false excitement and abominable depression. At La Roque, the summer before last, I had been afraid of going mad; I spent nearly the whole time I was there shut up in my room, where I ought to have been working, and where I tried to work in vain (I was writing Le Voyage d’Urien), obsessed, haunted, thinking to find perhaps some escape in excess itself, hoping to come out into the fresh air on the other side, to wear out my demon (I recognized his wile), when it was only myself I wore out, expending myself crazily to the point of utter exhaustion, to the verge of imbecility, of madness.” (281)

“This idyll came to an abrupt end. Although it was with some amusement that Bosy saw Ali was beginning to carry on a somewhat suspicious intrigue with a young shepherd of Fontaine-Chaude, he flew into a violent rage when it dawned upon him that he was quite capable of being touched by the charms of the Oulad, and in particular by Meriem’s. He could not endure the idea that Ali perhaps went to bed with her; he was not sure that this had actually taken place (for my part, I had not the smallest doubt of it), angrily demanded confessions, regrets, promises, and swore that if these were broken, he would dismiss Ali on the spot. I felt Douglas was not so much moved by real jealousy as by pique. ‘Boys,’ he declared; ‘yes, boys, as much as he likes; but I will not endure his going with women.’ For that matter, I am not at all sure ALi really desired Meriem; I think it was rather that he felt flattered and thought he would put an end in this way to the accusations of impotence he heard muttered about him; I think he liked giving himself airs, imitating his elders and appearing grown up. He pretended to submit, but Douglas had lost confidence. One day, in a fit of suspicion, he took it into his head to search Ali’s trunk, and discovered under the clothes a photograph of Meriem, which he proceeded to tear to pieces… It was tragic; Ali was soundly horse-whipped and his howls created a tumult among the people in the hotel. I heard this uproar, but considered it wiser not to intervene, and remained shut up in my room. Douglas appeared at dinner that night with a livid face and steely eyes; he told me Ali was returning to Blidah by the first train, that is to say, the next morning. He himself left Biskra two days later.” (287-8)

[Zane Neimane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Izkopta valoda, atklātība saturā. Cienījami. Atgādināja Prusta daiļradi, kas gan ir poētiskāka un man patīk vairāk. Iedvesmojos izlasīt kādu Žida gabalu. Tādu latviešu valodā ir nepiedodami maz.

[Lyuba Boyajyan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Անդրե Ժիդի այս գիրքն ինքնակենսագրական է։ Ժիդին չէի ճանաչում, իր գրելաոճն ինձ անծանոթ էր։ Ինձ համար գիրքը շատ խառն ու թերի է մի տեսակ։ Ժամանակագրական հերթականություն, ինչպես հեղինակն է նշում, չկա, իսկ ինչ վերաբերում է թերի լինելուն շատ խառը դեպքեր է պատմում, որոնք կիսատ են, ինչի համար էլ գրքում նշում է, որ չի կարող ամբողջությամբ պատմել։

Գիրքն իր խոստովանություններով է հարուստ, և հեղինակի խոսքով խոստովանության մեջ էլ մի սահման կա, որից հետո սկսում է արհեստականությունը։ Միգուցե թարգմանությունն էլ շատ հաջող չէ։ Այս գրքից ավելի շատ կարելի է ճանաչել Ֆրանսիան 19-20-րդ դարերում, տեղացիների նիստուկացը, մասամբ մենթալիտետը։

Մեկ կարևոր փաստ եմ ուզում նշել գրքի մասին. Ժիդը չնայած ամուսնացել էր իգական սեռի ներկայացուցչի հետ, բայց իրականում եղել է համասեռամոլ ու իր ցանկությունների, ունեցած հարաբերությունների մասին էլ է խոսում, այդ թվում նաև իր կրքի, մերձեցումների մասին...

Գիրքն ի սկզբանե շատ է քննադատվել` որպես անպարկեշտ ստեղծագործություն, բայց հետո մեծ հաջողություն էլ է ունեցել։ Գրքում շատ ժամանակ ներկայացված են հոգևոր ու մարմնական ցանկությունների, գայթակղությունների պայքարը, քրիստոնեական բարեպաշտության պատճառով ստեղծված դժվար կացությունը Ժիդի կյանքում...

Եթե ինքնակենսագրականը հետաքրքրում է Ձեզ, ճիշտ կլինի նախ Ժիդի ստեղծագործություններից կարդալ, ապա` ինքնակենսագարականը։

Իմ կարծիքով «Եթե հատիկը չմեռնին» ավելի շատ գրականության ոլորտում ուսումնասիրություններ անողների համար է, նրանց համար, ում հետաքրքրում է բացահայտել Ժիդին, նրա հոգեբանությունը։

[Christophe Marinier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voilà tout le talent de Gide qui s’étend: toute l’enfance serait ennuyante et sans intérêt dans la bouche d’un autre, mais devient ici douce et christique. Et le jeune adulte qu’il est parvient à un équilibre sublime entre le vulgaire et le beau avec un courage explosif (ou une naïveté?) pour l’époque.

[Zemeshir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Divisé en deux parties, ce récit présente la vie d'André Gide au fil de son enfance et de sa jeunesse en un premier temps, puis de la découverte de son homosexualité pendant son voyage - presque mystique - en Afrique en un deuxième, jusqu'à ses fiançailles avec sa cousine Emmanuèle (voir, Madeleine). Le style de Gide, c'est toujours le style de Gide: clair, lumineux, évident. En particulier dans la deuxième partie du livre, il se fait absolument lyrique dans les images d'une Afrique voluptueuse, débauchée et profondément tendre.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The events described wouldn't be nearly as interesting if written by a mediocre writer, but gide isn't that. He goes about his story, descibing his life by impression and memories, in no particular order other than how important they were to him at the time. It reads beautifully. It's worth reading steadily through, if you want the full impression. Otherwise, it's easy to lose track of what he's been expanding on.

[Mike Arrr · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is at the bottom of the pile of what Gide published. If it Die… has subjects and instances already covered in his major works, like Wilde, Immortalist and the journals. it took two attempts but i finished it. read the autobiography if you ran out of Gide material. but Gide does have good books concerning autobiographical instances. his Congo travels and book concerning his wife, i cannot recall the title, are worth reading. not this book though.

[emil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I WANT TO CRYYYYYY

[Jesten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book got extremely interesting towards the end. I only wish it would have been a bit sooner.

[Giovanni Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfecto.

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quelle idée bizarre de commencer la lecture d'un auteur par ses mémoirs ! me disais-je, en lisant ceux de Gide, un écrivain dont je ne connaissais qu'un seul titre auparavant (Les fameux "Faux-Monnayeurs") et le scandale qui s'accocie à son nom, comme on connait tout scandale : sans être informé de près.
Cela pour exprimer ma surprise face à l'absence de ce que je désignerais d'emblée comme scandaleux. Ou peut-être m'aurais-je dû m'étonner de ma propre indifférence ? Je peux lire comment un jeune Arabe 'invite' Gide aux rapports intimes (dans les dunes, en plus) sans qu'un sentiment morale s'éveille en moi. Le temps où la littérature en soi fait scandale est passé, c'est vrai ; mais nous vivons un retour de l'irritabilité où les zones d'ombre de la moralité sont de plus en plus remises en question. A moi de m'opposer au texte de Gide ?
Je pense que pour la plupart de mes amis se pose la même question, et si on n'est pas offensé par le texte, c'est aussi grace à sa sincérité, qui naît de beaux passages comme le suivant :

"Même le chien qui dévore un os trouve en moi quelque assentiment bestial. Mais rien n'est plus déconcertant que le geste, si différent de d'espèce en espèce, par quoi chacun d'eux obtient la volupté. Quoi qu'en dise M. de Gourmont, qui s'efforce de voir sur ce point, entre l'homme et les espèces animales, de troublantes analogies, j'estime que cette n'existe que dans la région du désir ; mais que c'est peut-être au contraire dans ce que M. de Gourmont appelle 'la physique de l'amour' que les différences sont les plus marquées, non seulement entre l'homme et les animaux, mais souvent d'homme à homme, – au point que, s'il nous était permis de les contempler, les pratiques de notre voisin nous paraîtraient souvent aussi étranges, aussi saugrenues et, disons : aussi monstrueuses, que les accouplements des batraciens, des insectes – et, pourquoi chercher si loin ? que ceux des chiens et des chats.
Et sans doute est-ce aussi pour cela que sur ce point les incompréhensions sont si grandes, et les intransigeances si féroces.
Pour moi, qui ne comprends le plaisir que face à face, réciproque et sans violence, et que souvent, pareil à Whitman, le plus furtif contact satisfait, j'étais horrifié tout à la fois par le jeu de Daniel, et de voir s'y prêter aussi complaisamment Mohammed." (p. 345-6)

Je conseille fortement la lecture ! Ce qui, dans la première partie, peut ennuyer, est plus que compensé par la deuxième.

[Carlos Mock · Rating 1 out of 5]

If it Die... by André Gide Translated from French to English by Dorothy Bussy

"Gide was born in Paris on 22 November 1869, into a middle-class Protestant family. His father was a Paris University professor of law who died in 1880, Jean-Paul Guillaume Gide, and his mother was Juliette Maria Rondeaux. His uncle was the political economist Charles Gide. His paternal family traced its roots back to Italy, with his ancestors, the Guidos, moving to France and other western and northern European countries after converting to Protestantism during the 16th century, due to persecution.

Gide was brought up in isolated conditions in Normandy and became a prolific writer at an early age, publishing his first novel, The Notebooks of André Walter (French: Les Cahiers d'André Walter), in 1891, at the age of twenty-one.

In 1893 and 1894, Gide traveled in Northern Africa, and it was there that he came to accept his attraction to boys.

He befriended Oscar Wilde in Paris, and in 1895 Gide and Wilde met in Algiers. Wilde had the impression that he had introduced Gide to homosexuality, but, in fact, Gide had already discovered this on his own."

If It Die...is Gide's memoir, written in the first-person point of view. Published in 1924, it's a long, slow-paced, boring narrative of Gide's early days: his schooling, his friends, his love for Emmanuelle, his cousin, and the person that Gide longs about in Strait is the Gate (Alissa).

The book has two parts, the first and longest part is the most boring. The second part consists of Gide's travels to North Africa (1919) in which he meets with Oscar Wilde. Wilde introduces Gide to Arab boys for sale: Ali and Athman. Later on, he has sex with Mohamed. Right after Mohamed, Gide declares: "For a long time after Mohammed had left me, I remained in a state of passionate jubilation, and though I had already achieved pleasure five times with him, I renewed my ecstasy again and again, and when I got back to my room in the hotel, I prolonged its echoes until morning." P. 308.

Sadly, after his return to France Gide decides to be engaged to Emmanuelle. Perhaps the reason they never married is that Emmanuelle knew better...

Not recommended!

[Narjes Seghatoleslam · Rating 2 out of 5]

آنها بودند که سبب شدند تا حقیقت این حرف نیچه را حس کنم: " هر هنرمندی نه تنها هوش خود را، بلکه هوش دوستانش را نیز در اختیار دارد."
" پیوسته باید این امکان وجود داشته باشد که کار یک مولف را در یک فرمول ساده خلاصه کرد. هر چه آسانتر این کار انجام گیرد، احتمالا بیشتر باقی خواهد ماند. آنچه را نتوان در یک فرمول جای داد، محکوم به نابودی است".
" خوب، پس فرمول چیست؟ زود باشید! همه چیز بستگی به آن دارد."
با صدایی ناشی از عصبانیت شدید، با لکنت گفتم:
" ما همه باید نقشمان را بازی کنیم."
اگر توضیحی درباره ی فرمولم نمی دادم، واقعا احمق به نظر می آمدم. فکر برتر من در آن هنگام و فکر هر چه حاکمانه تر من ناشی از تازه ترین عشقم بود. فکر می کنم آن قانونی که تاکنون طبق آن زندگی می کردم، و احساس مبهمی نسبت به آن داشتم، اخیرا جای خود را به آن بخش از زندگیم داده بود که غنی تر، متنوعتر، و رنگین تر می نمود. رفته رفته برایم روشن می شد که شاید وظیفه برای همگان یکسان نیست، و احتمالا حتی خداوند نیز از یکسانی و یک جور بودن که تمامی طبیعت نسبت به آن در تضاد است، نفرت داشته باشد. اما در نظر من وقتی این یکسانی قصد مقهور کردن طبیعت را داشت، کمال مطلوب مسیحیت به سویش متمایل بود و سر بر آستانه اش می سایید. اکنون من تنها اخلاقیات فردی را که گاه ضرورتا با اموری که مورد مخالفت قرار می گرفتند، می پذیرفتم. بر این باور شدم که هر کسی- یا دست کم هر برگزیده ای- کاملا دارای همان نقشی است که در جهان بازی می کند، جهانی که متعلق به خود اوست و شباهتی به جهان دیگر ندارد؛ با توجه به این اندیشه، هر کوششی در گردن نهادن به قانون عمومی در نظرم خیانت به شمار می آید؛ آری خیانت، و من آن را به گناه بر ضد روح القدس تشبیه کردم " گناهی نابخشودنی" گناهی که فرد مفهوم دقیق و بی عوض خود را از دست می دهد، " نشانی که به او بازگردانیده نمی شود.
اکنون از تنوع زندگی که ابتدا برایم طلیعه ای بود، سرمست شده بودم، و از این نه آنی مطبوع خود سخت هیجان زده.
این کتاب را در مورد زندگی نامه خود ژید می باشد. اگر دانه نمیرد را یکی از دوستان بمن معرفی کرد هنگامی که از مرگ دختر عمه ام ( صمیمی ترین دوست و به گونه ایی خواهرم) رنج می کشیدم.
کتاب بسیار کسالت آوری بود فقط شاید یک صفحه ایی که در بالا آورده ام برایم جالب بود.

[Cyrille Honoré · Rating 1 out of 5]

Je ne dirais pas que j’ai lu tout Gide mais presque une dizaine de ses œuvres. J’ai adoré les Faux-monnayeurs, trouvé du génie dans Paludes, de la clairvoyance dans Retour de l’URSS. Mais d’autres choses me déplaisaient qui se révèlent parfaitement dans ce livre - son autobiographie. Et dans le cas d’une autobiographie, il est naturellement impossible de séparer l’œuvre de l’auteur.
La première partie est une suite d’anecdotes terriblement ennuyeuses. Les problèmes d’un petit bourgeois qui s’invente des maladies pour pas aller à l’école. Et son puritanisme consternant.
Dans la deuxième partie, l’ennui, le puritanisme et toute morale disparaissent mais c’est le dégoût qui enchaîne. Car, tout aussi moderne que Gide aime penser l’être et tout aussi moderne qu’il a pu être considéré à son époque, les mœurs et la société ont évolués (et heureusement). Et en 2020, soyons honnête, la lecture de ce livre amène à la conclusion implacable que Gide est pédophile, colonialiste et raciste. Et c’est gênant. J’ai dû m’accrocher pour terminer le livre car l’enchaînement des pages est dur sur la fin : 80 pages à acheter ou kidnapper des enfants (qui n’ont aucune valeur à ses yeux puisque arabes) pour en abuser (en feignant d’imaginer qu’ils sont consentant en plus), c’est violent. Heureusement, il y a son puritanisme qui veut qu’il jouisse au moindre effleurement mais son attitude prédative et possessive envers les enfants et particulièrement ceux originaires des colonies, est intolérable. Gide en 2020 croupirait dans une prison algérienne ou tunisienne et n’aurait aucun support de la France. Et c’est bien en défendant ce genre de livre qu’on a ouvert la porte aux Matzneff et autres écrivains pédophiles.

[ALEARDO ZANGHELLINI · Rating 4 out of 5]

An autobiographical account of the author’s childhood and earlier adulthood. I felt particularly transported by the part describing Gide’s early childhood and adolescence, less for what it revealed about him specifically, than for the window it opens onto the atmosphere in France in the last few decades of the 19th century. The theme of same-sex attraction, hinted at the beginning, becomes predominant in the last part of the book, after the author comes of age, with cameo appearances by Oscar Wilde and an insufferable Lord Alfred Douglas (as well as Pierre Louis, of Chansons de Bilitis fame). This part is at times quite atmospheric in its own right, particularly the portions of the narrative that show the author’s investment in the myth of the Orient (however, the pacing here is much brisker, which inevitably dampens the effect). The treatment of same sex desire is tantalising: although there are early passages in the book that can be interpreted as a latter-day, religiously-motivated repudiation of homoeroticism, by the time we reach the end a much more complex picture is gestured at, in which the author alludes to some personal reconciliation of same-sex desire with the Christian faith, once shorn of super-imposed dogmas. It doesn’t get any more specific than that, but it’s all handled with enough nuance that the apparently heterosexual denouement (rather a precarious affair, in any case)* doesn’t really confirm the sort of repudiation I had initially feared. On to Corydon next?

[*Though the book doesn’t say it, the marriage went on to stay unconsummated.]

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

Citaat : Ik ben een mens van dialogen, alles in mij is innerlijk tegenstrijdig en met elkaar in tegenspraak. Memoires zijn altijd maar half eerlijk, hoe graag men ook de waarheid wil vertellen: alles is altijd ingewikkelder dan men zegt. Misschien benadert men de waarheid zelf het dichtst in een roman.
Review : André Gide (1869 – 1951) kreeg in 1947 de Nobelprijs literatuur toegekend. Dat was in die dagen niet zo evident, want André Gide was net als de verguisde Oscar Wilde, tijdgenoot en vriend, openlijk homoseksueel. Hij heeft daar eveneens over geschreven, ook al moet hij er zich soms voor geschaamd hebben. Uiteraard komt dat door zijn christelijke achtergrond. De jonge Gide werd dan ook volgens puriteinse Frans protestantse normen opgevoed.


Het is een zéér mooie autobiografie over zijn kindertijd en de stap naar de volwassenheid waarin hij zich als artistiek mens, want hij schrijft graag maar speelt ook vol overgave piano, een plaats in de wereld tracht te veroveren. Het boek verscheen voor het eerst bij Gallimard in 1924 onder de titel Si le grain ne meurt en het moet toch voor heel wat mensen in die tijd een schok geweest zijn dat hij zo openhartig over zijn seksuele ontmoetingen met Arabische jongens spreekt.

Deze autobiografie zal voor sommigen misschien een smaakmaker zijn om zijn fictiewerk te lezen.

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a great deal, even though a lot of it was already familiar to me from having read both Gide’s Journals and the excellent biography by Alan Sheridan. Gide was, like most of us, morally flawed, and it is hard to understand or forgive what to me is the most troubling of his moral failings – his marriage – which he knew would cause deep unhappiness to himself and his family as well as his wife. But, from a literary point of view, this is not as important as the thought that without his writings the world would be a poorer place.

As a youth I holidayed in Morocco and, although I hadn’t read Gide yet, I did cast a curious eye on a blue eyed native who attached himself limpet like to our party in the hope of financial gain. My mother favoured both me and the Arab boy with a hostile glare which certainly preserved my innocence. Had Madame Gide accompanied her son to Morocco, his experiences would no doubt have been as innocent as mine. This would have been a great relief to Madame Gide – and a great loss to world literature.

[Ali Nazifpour · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a memoir which follows Andre Gide from childhood to marriage to his cousin. The book is an uncomfortable read because Gide comes across as an awful person. The book is very confessional and honest so it's not like he's trying to present a flattering image of himself but it seems that he's still not aware of the depth of his depravity. He openly talks about his relationships with underage Arab boys in his trips to Algiers and he really treats the women in his life awfully and creepily. But from a literary perspective, it's a great book. The narrative is fantastic and the characters are complicated and interesting. If this was a novel, one could easily imagine the narrator to be a flawed unreliable narrator that we're not meant to sympathize with, but this kind of mental compartmentalization is much difficult in a memoir. Anyway, a great book about a terrible person.

[Jerry Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really more a memoir than an autobiography, and in it Gide takes a look back at his life from childhood to an adult of forty-six years. The majority of the book is dedicated to his philosophical meanderings, his protestant upbringing and the important people that would contribute to his ultimate artistic development. With the publication of his Cahiers, Gide had made his way into Parisian intellectual and artistic circles and became friends or associated with a veritable who's who of French cultural icons. Pierre Louys, Mallarme, Gauguin and Marc de la Nux all make an appearance and are brilliantly described.

The much shorter and more famous second part of the book centers around his travels in Algeria and Tunisia and his becoming aware of his pederasty proclivities. These events would form the nucleus of L'Immoraliste, the novel that would launch his literary career. During this period he became friends with Oscar Wilde and his companion, Bosie Douglas, and shared in their cruising the night time streets of Algiers looking for boy prostitutes.

Even after these exploits, and understanding that he was a pederast, he insisted on marrying Emmanuele (the real life Madeleine Rondeaux) because of his "secret desire to set my nature at defiance." This marriage, never consummated, would naturally end in disaster and disrupt the life of his wife.

Gide's writing is, as expected, excellent; his descriptions of the Algerian countryside are first rate, and there is humor (something not usually encountered in his works) as well as a good deal of self-deprecation. A word about the translation: it was excellent. Dorothy Bussy, the translator, was good friends with Gide for many years and had a good understanding of his thought processes and his character, something which shows in her translation.

[Marie Bouteille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Je me rappelle m'être ennuyée en lisant la Symphonie Pastorale mais j'ai été passionnée par Si le grain ne meurt. Il faut absolument faire abstraction de l'auteur ! Son écriture est magnifique, certaines tournures sublimes. Il nous emmène dans des souvenirs, des atmosphères, les ambiguïtés de certaines situations, ses sentiments, ses premiers émois, des évènements qui l'ont à jamais marqué et c'est un peu ça la vie, une succession de souvenirs. Grâce à lui, on côtoie un instant Pierre Louys, les Laurens, Mallarmé et d'autres mais surtout Wilde et son amoureux Bosy, juste avant la dramatique chute du Génie. Alors oui, c'est autobiographique quand même, il révèle ainsi ses tendances pédophiles mais quel dommage ce serait de passer à côté d'un tel écrivain.

[John Bowis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobel Literature Laureate André Gide I knew mainly from wading through his La Porte Etroite for French A Level many years ago. This book is his memoir of his early life from childhood to marriage. He comes across as a somewhat repressed child and youth, who breaks out , not least in his short friendship with Oscar Wide. His is a story of family, friends and fantasies peppered with references to great ancient and modern (of his circle) authors, poets and artists. If nothing else it reminds one how much more remains in one's 'to read' list. It is an engaging book and above all an honest one, seeking truth and flouting conventions.