Description
During the author's travels, he meets Menalcas, a caricature of Oscar Wilde, who relates his fantastic life story. But for all his brilliance, Menalcas is only Gide's yesterday self, a discarded wraith who leaves Gide free to stop exalting the ego and embrace bodily and spiritual joy. Later Fruits of the Earth, written in 1935 during Gide's short-lived spell of communism, reaffirms the doctrine of the earlier book. But now he sees happiness not as freedom, but a submission to heroism. In a series of 'Encounters', Gide describes a Negro tramp, a drowned child, a lunatic and other casualties of life. These reconcile him to suffering, death and religion, causing him to insist that 'today's Utopia' be 'tomorrow's reality'.
Gide wrote Fruits of the Earth in 1897, when he was suffering from tuberculosis. Addressed to the reader, 'I will teach you fervour', it is a hymn to the pleasures of life that Gide came so near to losing: travel, touch, hearing, smell, sight and, above all, taste. 20020220
About the Author
Gide was born in Paris on 22 November 1869. He had an irregular and lonely upbringing. He became devoted to literature and music, and began his literary career as an essayist, moving on to poetry, biography, fiction, drama, criticism, reminiscence and translation. By 1917 he had emerged as a prophet to French youth, and his unorthodox views were a source of endless debate and attack. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Gide died in Paris in 1951.
Book Information
ISBN 9780099437833
Author Andre Gide
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Vintage Classics
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 161g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 13mm
Gide wrote Fruits of the Earth in 1897, when he was suffering from tuberculosis. Addressed to the reader, 'I will teach you fervour', it is a hymn to the pleasures of life that Gide came so near to losing: travel, touch, hearing, smell, sight and, above all, taste. 20020220
About the Author
Gide was born in Paris on 22 November 1869. He had an irregular and lonely upbringing. He became devoted to literature and music, and began his literary career as an essayist, moving on to poetry, biography, fiction, drama, criticism, reminiscence and translation. By 1917 he had emerged as a prophet to French youth, and his unorthodox views were a source of endless debate and attack. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Gide died in Paris in 1951.
Book Information
ISBN 9780099437833
Author Andre Gide
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint Vintage Classics
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 161g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 13mm
