Aspects of the Novel

main fragment concerns a young man called Olivier⁠—a charming, touching and lovable character, who misses happiness, and then recovers it after an excellently contrived dénouement; confers it also; this fragment has a wonderful radiance and “lives,” if I may use so coarse a word, it is a successful creation on familiar lines. But it is by no means the centre of the book. No more are the other logical fragments⁠—that which concerns Georges, Olivier’s schoolboy brother, who passes false coin, and is instrumental in driving a fellow-pupil to suicide. (Gide gives us his sources for all this in his diary, he got the idea of Georges from a boy whom he caught trying to steal a book off a stall, the gang of coiners were caught at Rouen, and the suicide of children took place at Clermont-Ferrand, etc.) Neither Olivier, nor Georges, nor Vincent a third brother, nor Bernard their friend is the centre of the book. We come nearer to it in Edouard. Edouard is a novelist. He bears the same relation to Gide as Clissold does to Wells. I dare not be more precise. Like Gide, he keeps a diary, like Gide he is writing a book called Les Faux Monnayeurs, and like Clissold he is disavowed. Edouard’s diary is printed in full. It begins before the plot-fragments, continues during them, and forms the bulk of Gide’s book. Edouard is not just a chronicler. He is an actor too; indeed it is he who rescues Olivier and is rescued by him; we leave those two in happiness.

But that is still not the centre. The nearest to the centre lies in a discussion about the art of the novel. Edouard is holding forth to Bernard his secretary and some friends. He has said (what we all accept as commonplace) that truth in life and truth in a novel are not identical, and then he goes on to say that he wants to write a book which shall include both sorts of truth.

“And what is its subject?” asked Sophroniska.

“There is none,” said Edouard sharply. “My novel has no subject. No doubt that sounds foolish. Let us say, if you prefer, that it will not have ’a’ subject.⁠ ⁠… ‘A slice of life,’ the naturalistic school used to say. The mistake that school made was always to cut its slice in the same direction, always lengthwise, in the direction of time. Why not cut it up and down? Or across? As for me, I don’t want to cut it at all. You see what I mean. I want to put everything into my novel and not snip off my material either here or there. I have been working for a year, and there is nothing I haven’t put in: all I see, all I know, all I can learn from other people’s lives and my own.”

“My poor man, you will bore your readers to death,” cried Layra, unable to restrain her mirth.

“Not at all. To get my effect, I am inventing, as my central character, a novelist, and the subject of my book will be the struggle between what reality offers him and what he tries to make of the offer.”

“Have you planned out this book?” asked Sophroniska, trying to keep grave.

“Of course not.”

“Why ‘of course’?”

“For a book of this type any plan would be unsuitable. The whole of it would go wrong if I decided any detail ahead. I am waiting for reality to dictate to me.”

“But I thought you wanted to get away from reality.”

“My novelist wants to get away, but I keep pulling him back. To tell the truth, this is my subject: the struggle between facts as proposed by reality, and the ideal reality.”

“Do tell us the name of this book,” said Laura, in despair.

“Very well. Tell it them, Bernard.”

“Les Faux Monnayeurs” said Bernard. “And now will you please tell us who these faux monnayeurs are.”

“I haven’t the least idea.”

Bernard and Laura looked at each other and then at Sophroniska. There was the sound of a deep sigh.

The fact was that ideas about money, depreciation, inflation, forgery, etc., had gradually invaded Edouard’s book⁠—just as theories of clothing invade Sartor Resartus and even assume the functions of characters. “Has any of you ever had hold of a false coin?” he asked after a pause. “Imagine a ten-franc piece, gold, false. It is actually worth a couple of sous, but it will remain worth ten francs until it is found out. Suppose I begin with the idea that⁠—”

“But why begin with an idea?” burst out Bernard, who was by now in a state of exasperation. “Why not begin with a fact? If you introduce the fact properly, the idea will follow of itself. If I was writing your Faux Monnayeurs I should begin with a piece of false money, with the ten-franc piece you were speaking of, and here it is!”

So saying, Bernard pulled a ten-franc piece out of his pocket and flung it on the table.

“There,” he remarked. “It rings all right. I got it this morning from the grocer. It’s worth more than a couple of sous, as it’s coated in gold, but it’s actually made of glass. It will become quite transparent in time. No⁠—don’t rub it⁠—you’re going to spoil my false coin.”

Edouard had taken it and was examining it with the utmost attention.

“How did the grocer get it?”

“He doesn’t know. He passed it on me for a joke, and then enlightened me, being a decent fellow. He let me have it for five francs. I thought that, since you were writing Les Faux Monnayeurs, you ought to see what false money is like, so I got it to show you. Now that you have looked at it, give it me back. I am sorry to see that reality has no interest for you.”

“Yes,” said Edouard: “it interests me, but it puts me out.”

“That’s a pity,” remarked Bernard.5

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