Andre Gide
By HERBERT READ
GENIUS is sometimes difficult to transplant, and among modern instances there is none so striking as Gide's. In France his influence pervades every section of intellectual life. The review he founded twenty-five years ago, La Nouvelle Revue Pranfaise, has been the organ of all that is vital in contempor- ary French literature, and the only school of thought that stands apart—the Catholics tmder Claudel and Massis—has to a large extent been goaded into action by Gide's success. The only comparable figure in this country is Mr. Bernard Shaw, but a comparison of the two would only serve to show how superficial and naive a moralist must be to succeed with us. It is true that Mr. Shaw has, even ostensibly, dealt with " un- pleasant " themes, but they are of the kind that require social remedies ; they do not involve moral dilemmas. And yet there is something so essentially Protestant in Gide, and his problems are so much the problems of the redeemed puritan, that obviously his work should provoke great interest in a community where this type is the rule rather than the excep- tion. Perhaps the explanation lies in fortuitous facts : six of Gide's most important books appeared in English transla- tions between the years 1928 and 1930, and then their pub- lisher went out of business. But I do not remember the books making any particular stir at the time, and no doubt we must look for a more convincing explanation of Gide's lack of appeal to English readers. As a guide we could not do better than take M. Pierre-Quint's study* which has just appeared ; it is a complete survey of Gide's work by a critic who is sympa- thetic and who has personal knowledge of his subject.
" Gide's work as a whole," writes M. Pierre-Quint, " may be regarded as a prolonged debate on the subject of morality." Gide himself would admit as much, and seek the explanation in his origins and early upbringing. His father was a professor of jurisprudence from the Cevennes ; his mother a rich heiress from Normandy. They were devout Protestants, and Gide was brought up in an atmosphere of sheltered bourgeois respectability. His father died when he was eleven, and his mother acquired a very complete dominance over his affec- tions. Already in his boyhood he betrayed neurotic sym- ptoms; on account of his precocious sexual instincts, he was expelled from his first school. In Si is Grain ne incur: his early development is related with complete frankness ; but there is a passage in that book where, seeking to explain his personality in terms of heredity, Gide unconsciously betrays his limitations. He has been speaking of the extraordinary difference between the two families from which he sprang, and between the provinces to which they belonged—contradictory influences joined in him : " Often I feel that I was forced to create a work of art because only in that way could I harmonize those elements which otherwise would have continued to war within me—or at least to debate. There is no doubt that the only people who are capable of positive achievements are those who can prolong the line of their heredity in a single direction. On the other hand, I believe that eccentrics and artists are recruited from among the offspring of cross-breeding, in whom contradictory forces co-exist, and multiply, and neutralize each other."
For proof Gide appeals to history, but complains that his dictionaries and biographies never tell us about the maternal origin of great men. If they had, it might have been necessary to amend his generalization, for it is not borne out by the facts, so far as we know them. The facts, for example, classified by Mr. Havelock Ellis in his Study of British Genius, show that, out of 1,030 persons included in the inquiry, only 133 were of mixed British, or mixed British and foreign origin. But the point I wish to make is that
* Andre Gide. By Leon Pierre-Quint. Translated by Dorothy M. Richardson. (Cape. 78. 6EL)
the very reason given by Gide as the probable explanation of his development as an artist is really the explanation of why he is such an imperfect artist. I believe it could be shown that the artist is never a moralist ; that there is an inconsistency between the " judging " attitude and the " creative " attitude, for the latter is essentially sym- pathetic. But it is perhaps sufficient to point out that in none of Gide's books, with the possible exception of Le Reim- de I' Enfant Prodigue, has the author betrayed that sense of form which is essential to the work of art. We should note with suspicion how often his books take the form of a journal—that most inartistic mode of literary expression. Gide's works, in fact, are one long Agenbite
of Inwit self-examination of a conscience-stricken moralist. Gides importance is primarily ethical and socio- logical ; he is a writer of excellent prose, but that in itself is a proof of no more than craftsmanship.
Even when we calmly consider his work from this point of view, we have to admit that he has been preceded by a greater figure, whose achievement overshadows Gide's, and of whom Gide is but a humble follower—I mean Nietzsche. Nietzsche and Dostoevski are Gide's masters, his work a dilution and extension of theirs (just as Mr. Shaw's work is a clever exegesis of Butler, Ibsen and Marx). In a sense, however, it is misleading to trail these names across Gide's track, because Gide has neither aimed at the consistency of a philosophy, nor at the creation of an epic. His work is personal, and the best part of it is introspective—a fact well brought out in M. Pierre-Quint's analysis. Above all it is the problem of personal sincerity that has exercised Gide's mind, for he has seen clearly enough that the problem of sincerity is the key to aesthetic as well as moral values.
" This irritating problem [he once wrote] is everything to me. To know whether I feel what I believe myself to be feeling ; whether I am my single self or double, or triple, or nothing ; whether I flow from my consciousness or am coincident therewith ; if beneath the continuous deterioration of body and soul, anything of me remains constant."
Absolute sincerity, Gide concludes, is only possible in the act of creation ; that is to say, when the reason retires and " truth speaks for itself and prevails by virtue of its imme- diacy." It will be obvious how directly such a theory leads to individualism in ethics. What is more difficult to see is how it leads to communism in politics.
The somewhat sinister quality in Gide's reputation is due to his attitude towards homosexuality ; he is the first modern writer of any status who has openly condoned inversion ; he has done more, for in Corydon he has idealized it. To what extent his attitude can be justified on scientific and historical grounds is perhaps a moot point ; Mr. Mont- gomery Belgion, who discussed the question at some length in the study of Gide included in his book, Our Present Philosophy of Life (a thorough criticism of Gide which does not appear in M. Pierre-Quint's bibliography), came to the conclusion that in our present state of knowledge no scientific basis for Gide's attitude was possible. But there is no doubt that Gide is justified in lifting the taboo which has hitherto suppressed any sane discussion of the subject. But now the furore he raised on that score is subsiding before the greater 'scandal of his communism. M. Pierre- Quint traces Gide's increasing preoccupation with social pro- blems, and shows how his experience has forced him to consider them. We are told that today Gide appears to believe that he has finished his imaginative work. If so, it is the final
proof of his inward indifference to aesthetic values ; for the true artist never surrenders his sword.
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