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saintejeanne's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
kirshach's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This book was a beautiful read.
I was fascinated by the writing style of the author, really enjoyed the characters, which were very well defined (well... at least all of the male ones), and followed their evolution with great curiosity.
Well, then why just 3.75 stars, you may ask?
The reason is - there wasn't too much of a plot. There were events happening, and the characters changed with them, but there was not a single story line you could say this book revolved around. There were so many of them, that the one which was particularly gripping to me (of someone who should probably be considered one of the two main characters of the novel), got lost in all of the others. In the middle of the book, when that particular story line stalled, I felt somewhat bored.
In the words of the author:
"And ... the subject of this novel?"
"It hasn't got one," answered Edouard brusquely, "and perhaps that's the most astonishing thing about it. My novel hasn't got a subject. Yes, I know, it sounds stupid. Let's say, if you prefer it, it hasn't got one subject ... 'a slice of life,' the naturalist school said. The great defect of that school is that it always cuts its slice in the same direction; in time, lengthwise. Why not in breadth? Or in depth? As for me I should like not to cut at all. Please understand; I should like to put everything into my novel. I don't want any cut of the scissors to limit its substance at one point rather than at another. For more than a year now that I have been working at it, nothing happens to me that I don't put into it — everything I see, everything I know, everything that other people's lives and my own teach me. . . ."
So, I guess, what I didn't like about the novel is not to be considered its bug, but a feature. However, I still think that I would've enjoyed it more, was a little more focused. Maybe I'm just too simple-minded to enjoy it the way its author intended it to be.
Do I recommend reading it though? I do.
I was fascinated by the writing style of the author, really enjoyed the characters, which were very well defined (well... at least all of the male ones), and followed their evolution with great curiosity.
Well, then why just 3.75 stars, you may ask?
The reason is - there wasn't too much of a plot. There were events happening, and the characters changed with them, but there was not a single story line you could say this book revolved around. There were so many of them, that the one which was particularly gripping to me (of someone who should probably be considered one of the two main characters of the novel), got lost in all of the others. In the middle of the book, when that particular story line stalled, I felt somewhat bored.
In the words of the author:
"And ... the subject of this novel?"
"It hasn't got one," answered Edouard brusquely, "and perhaps that's the most astonishing thing about it. My novel hasn't got a subject. Yes, I know, it sounds stupid. Let's say, if you prefer it, it hasn't got one subject ... 'a slice of life,' the naturalist school said. The great defect of that school is that it always cuts its slice in the same direction; in time, lengthwise. Why not in breadth? Or in depth? As for me I should like not to cut at all. Please understand; I should like to put everything into my novel. I don't want any cut of the scissors to limit its substance at one point rather than at another. For more than a year now that I have been working at it, nothing happens to me that I don't put into it — everything I see, everything I know, everything that other people's lives and my own teach me. . . ."
So, I guess, what I didn't like about the novel is not to be considered its bug, but a feature. However, I still think that I would've enjoyed it more, was a little more focused. Maybe I'm just too simple-minded to enjoy it the way its author intended it to be.
Do I recommend reading it though? I do.
savaging's review
4.0
"But the reader must leave me as a stone leaves the slingshot. I am even willing that, like a boomerang, he should come back and strike me." -- Gide's journal of The Counterfeiters
In the thick of this book I thought I didn't like it. I thought the navel-gazing Novel of Ideas had been spoiled for me by reading [b:Point Counter Point|5135|Point Counter Point|Aldous Huxley|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386925117s/5135.jpg|954202]. Both are novels of a novelist writing a novel about a novelist, etc. (and Gide's book has the gumption to -- apparently without irony -- condemn "onanism"!). Both are stuffed with "conversations" that should have been essays.
But Gide moves past Huxley. His characters aren't out of Pilgrim's Progress. They aren't the incarnation of Ideas. They move, they are inconsistent, they are ruined and redeemed -- or not. As Gide himself writes in the journal he kept while writing this novel: The problem for me is not how to succeed -- but rather how to survive. For some time now I have aimed to win my case only on appeal. I write only to be reread."
The characters go further than anything in Huxley to feel out the question of how to live rightly. They would like to sacrifice their wills to something higher that will make this decision for them, and yet they can't give themselves up to the Authorities. Most of them have to conclude that religion is self-delusion and a disavowal of the real world, politics is mostly lies, and the Arts are where petty and cruel people try to make a name for themselves by being increasingly bombastic to hide their small and sterile hearts.
As one character puts it, after experiencing political group-think: "It seemed to me all the young men I saw there were animated by the best of sentiments, and that they were doing quite right to abdicate their initiative (for it wouldn’t have led them far) and their judgment (for it was inadequate) and their independence of mind (for it was still-born). I said to myself too, that it was a good thing for the country to count among its citizens a large number of these well-intentioned individuals with subservient wills, but that my will would never be of that kind. It was then that I began to ask myself how to establish a rule, since I did not accept life without a rule and yet would not accept a rule from anyone else."
When I write this, it sounds simplistic. But surely someone has concluded just the opposite from this book. After all, the characters who set out to make their own rules also make a mess of it. There isn't a moral here: the book's a Rorschach test.
The best characters in the book are largely in the wings (my personal favorites are old La Perouse and young Armand Vedel. Armand, the pastor's son, always ironic and attempting wickedness in his hatred of a hypocritical virtue, feeling only hypocritically vicious. He's a hipster with a heart, probably, down there at the bottom. La Perouse is a despairing maltheist: "the devil and God are one and the same; they work together. We try to believe that everything bad on earth comes from the devil, but it’s because, if we didn’t, we should never find strength to forgive God. He plays with us like a cat, tormenting a mouse. . . . And then afterwards he wants us to be grateful to him as well. Grateful for what? for what? . . . ")
In the thick of this book I thought I didn't like it. I thought the navel-gazing Novel of Ideas had been spoiled for me by reading [b:Point Counter Point|5135|Point Counter Point|Aldous Huxley|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386925117s/5135.jpg|954202]. Both are novels of a novelist writing a novel about a novelist, etc. (and Gide's book has the gumption to -- apparently without irony -- condemn "onanism"!). Both are stuffed with "conversations" that should have been essays.
But Gide moves past Huxley. His characters aren't out of Pilgrim's Progress. They aren't the incarnation of Ideas. They move, they are inconsistent, they are ruined and redeemed -- or not. As Gide himself writes in the journal he kept while writing this novel: The problem for me is not how to succeed -- but rather how to survive. For some time now I have aimed to win my case only on appeal. I write only to be reread."
The characters go further than anything in Huxley to feel out the question of how to live rightly. They would like to sacrifice their wills to something higher that will make this decision for them, and yet they can't give themselves up to the Authorities. Most of them have to conclude that religion is self-delusion and a disavowal of the real world, politics is mostly lies, and the Arts are where petty and cruel people try to make a name for themselves by being increasingly bombastic to hide their small and sterile hearts.
As one character puts it, after experiencing political group-think: "It seemed to me all the young men I saw there were animated by the best of sentiments, and that they were doing quite right to abdicate their initiative (for it wouldn’t have led them far) and their judgment (for it was inadequate) and their independence of mind (for it was still-born). I said to myself too, that it was a good thing for the country to count among its citizens a large number of these well-intentioned individuals with subservient wills, but that my will would never be of that kind. It was then that I began to ask myself how to establish a rule, since I did not accept life without a rule and yet would not accept a rule from anyone else."
When I write this, it sounds simplistic. But surely someone has concluded just the opposite from this book. After all, the characters who set out to make their own rules also make a mess of it. There isn't a moral here: the book's a Rorschach test.
The best characters in the book are largely in the wings (my personal favorites are old La Perouse and young Armand Vedel. Armand, the pastor's son, always ironic and attempting wickedness in his hatred of a hypocritical virtue, feeling only hypocritically vicious. He's a hipster with a heart, probably, down there at the bottom. La Perouse is a despairing maltheist: "the devil and God are one and the same; they work together. We try to believe that everything bad on earth comes from the devil, but it’s because, if we didn’t, we should never find strength to forgive God. He plays with us like a cat, tormenting a mouse. . . . And then afterwards he wants us to be grateful to him as well. Grateful for what? for what? . . . ")
atinymarika's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
jlukic's review
5.0
Before french literature got dreadfully pretentious with dealing with modernity.
gosska's review against another edition
stwierdziłam, że przyszedł czas żebym oznaczyła tę książkę jako DNF
na pewno kiedyś do niej wrócę, bo podobała mi się
na pewno kiedyś do niej wrócę, bo podobała mi się
nlgeorge73's review
4.0
An original novel about deception, both literal and metaphorical. Gide focuses the story on friends Bernard and Olivier and adds supplemental characters, some of whom I am perplexed at what they bring to the table (Alfred Jarry?). Gide's alter-ego Edouard gives a unique perspective as told in the form of journal entries. The homosexuality was apparently scandalous when this was published in 1927. Very interesting read. An in-depth look at the themes and characters would make for great discussions fo a group read.
leonidasm's review against another edition
Πολλές φορές, όταν πατάω το finished σε κάποιο βιβλίο, προσπερνώ τα αστέρια. Αυτό το κάνω συνήθως σε βιβλία που με φέρνουν σε αμηχανία για το αν θα τα πρότεινα εύκολα σε άλλους.
Οι Κιβδηλοποιοί είναι ένα τέτοιο.
Είναι ένα βιβλίο που μου χάρισε στιγμές ενθουσιασμού για τον τρόπο που λειτουργεί ο αφηγητής, δεν έχω διαβάσει ξανά κάτι ανάλογο. Υπάρχει ακόμα ένας αφηγητής και ήρωας του μυθιστορήματος μέσω ημερολογίου. Υπάρχουν δύο τρεις βασικοί χαρακτήρες και αμέτρητοι ακόμα που κάνουν την συγκέντρωση σου να στάζει ιδρώτα κόπου. Είναι δαιδαλώδεις οι συνδέσεις των ηρώων, οι ιστορίες τους και αυτό μοιραία μπορεί να σε κουράσει.
Οι Κιβδηλοποιοί είναι ένα μυθιστόρημα χωρίς συγκεκριμένη υπόθεση.
Ο Ζιντ γράφει μια - δύο - τρεις - δέκα ιστορίες και στην ουσία αυτό που τον ενδιαφέρει είναι να γράψει. Να σε περάσει απ'τα στενά της σκέψης του. Να σε βάλει στη λογική της συγγραφής. Μάλλον στην φιλοσοφία της συγγραφής.
Δεν ξέρω αν είμαι σαφής. Δεν ξέρω καν αν ο σκοπός του Ζιντ ήταν να είναι σαφής και συγκεκριμένος.
Οι Κιβδηλοποιοί είναι ένα τέτοιο.
Είναι ένα βιβλίο που μου χάρισε στιγμές ενθουσιασμού για τον τρόπο που λειτουργεί ο αφηγητής, δεν έχω διαβάσει ξανά κάτι ανάλογο. Υπάρχει ακόμα ένας αφηγητής και ήρωας του μυθιστορήματος μέσω ημερολογίου. Υπάρχουν δύο τρεις βασικοί χαρακτήρες και αμέτρητοι ακόμα που κάνουν την συγκέντρωση σου να στάζει ιδρώτα κόπου. Είναι δαιδαλώδεις οι συνδέσεις των ηρώων, οι ιστορίες τους και αυτό μοιραία μπορεί να σε κουράσει.
Οι Κιβδηλοποιοί είναι ένα μυθιστόρημα χωρίς συγκεκριμένη υπόθεση.
Ο Ζιντ γράφει μια - δύο - τρεις - δέκα ιστορίες και στην ουσία αυτό που τον ενδιαφέρει είναι να γράψει. Να σε περάσει απ'τα στενά της σκέψης του. Να σε βάλει στη λογική της συγγραφής. Μάλλον στην φιλοσοφία της συγγραφής.
Δεν ξέρω αν είμαι σαφής. Δεν ξέρω καν αν ο σκοπός του Ζιντ ήταν να είναι σαφής και συγκεκριμένος.
momoyoon's review against another edition
2.0
Read for class. Clearly not my cup of tea, some things were interesting, but just...pretty boring in general and not a book that I will remember as memorable. Sorry.
louloup_reads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5