The Immoralist by André Gide

The Immoralist looks at the case of a guy with a wife and child, means, and a career who gets caught up in a complex web of overlapping relationships and duties. He comes to perceive his entire existence as a fake and abandons everything in pursuit of his actual, authentic, homosexual self. This was, at least potentially, the fundamental drama of Gide's life, so it's no surprise that many readers associate him with his hero.

The Immoralist is a straightforward, but deeply satirical, story in which the first-person narrator uncovers life's moral complexities through seemingly benign reminiscences. It is the narrative of Michel, who is both sensitive and careless, discovering himself at the expense of his marriage and his wife's life.

This is an interesting narrative to read since it examines the ties between French citizens and French Algerians, which is an important component of recent French history. Gide employs the first person short narrative to distract from the parallels to his own life, claiming that he is writing from the thoughts of his character rather than himself. This was crucial in the early twentieth century when publicly discussing and writing about homosexuality was frowned upon.

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