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The Counterfeiters (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Counterfeiters is a 1925 novel by French
author André Gide
, first published in Nouvelle Revue Française
. With many characters and crisscrossing plotlines, its main theme is that of the original and the copy, and what differentiates them – both in the external plot of the counterfeit gold coin
s and in the portrayal of the characters' feelings and their relationships.
The Counterfeiters is a novel-within-a-novel
, with Edouard (the alter ego of Gide) intending to write a book of the same title. Other stylistic devices are also used, such as an omniscient narrator that sometimes addresses the reader directly, weighs in on the characters' motivations or discusses alternate realities. Therefore, the book has been seen as a precursor of the nouveau roman
.
The novel features a considerable number of bisexual or gay
male characters – the adolescent Olivier and at least to a certain unacknowledged degree his friend Bernard, in all likeliness their schoolfellows Gontran and Philippe, and finally the adult writers Comte de Passavant (who represents an evil and corrupting force) and the benevolent Edouard. An important part of the plot is its depiction of various possibilities of positive and negative homoerotic or homosexual relationships.
Initially received coldly on its appearance, perhaps because of its homosexual themes and its unusual composition, The Counterfeiters has gained reputation in the intervening years and is now generally counted among the Western Canon
of literature.
The making of the novel, with letters, newspaper clippings and other supporting material, was documented by Gide in his 1926 Journal of The Counterfeiters.
– discovering he is a bastard and taking this as a welcome pretext for running away from home. He spends a night in Olivier's bed (where they discuss sexuality with Olivier recounting a recent visit to a prostitute and how he did not find the experience very enjoyable). After Bernard steals the suitcase belonging to Edouard, Olivier's uncle, and the ensuing complications, he is made Edouard's secretary
. Olivier is jealous and ends up in the hands of the cynical and downright diabolical Comte de Passavant, who travels with him to the Mediterranean.
Eventually, Bernard and Edouard decide they do not fit as well together as anticipated, and Bernard leaves to take a job at a school, then finally decides to return to his father's home. Olivier is now made Edouard's secretary, and after an eventful evening on which he embarrasses himself grossly, Olivier ends up in bed together with Edouard, finally fulfilling the attraction they have felt for each other all along but were unable to express.
Other plotlines are woven around these elements, such as Olivier's younger brother Georges and his involvement with a ring of counterfeiters, or his older brother Vincent and his relationship with Laura, a married woman, with whom he has a child. Perhaps the most suspenseful scene in the book revolves around Boris, another illegitimate child and the grandson of La Pérouse, who commits suicide in front of the assembled class when dared by Ghéridanisol, another of Passavant's cohorts.
In some regards, such as the way in which the adolescents act and speak in a way beyond their years and the incompetence of the adults (especially the fathers), as well as its motives of developing and confused adolescent sexuality, the novel has common ground with Frank Wedekind
's (at the time scandalous) 1891 drama Spring Awakening
. The Counterfeiters also shares with that play the vision of homosexual relationships as under certain conditions being "better" than heterosexual ones, with the latter ones leading inevitably to destructive outcomes in both works.
graph shows how the most important characters in The Counterfeiters are related to each other:
, Olivier to Marc Allégret
, and Laura to Gide's cousin and eventual wife Madeleine.
Alfred Jarry
is also present in the party scene under his real name and his Ubu Roi
is mentioned, meaning that the plot must be set between 1896 (the premiere of Ubu Roi) and 1907 (Jarry's death). Édouard's journal entry in chapter 12 of the third part, which makes mention of a 1904 vintage wine, seems to confirm this supposition with a more specific range of time in which the novel is likely to be set.
, starring Melvil Poupaud
as Edouard X., Maxime Berger as Olivier, and Dolores Chaplin as Lady Lilian Griffith. The film premiered on France 2
on January 5, 2011. Originally Jacquot, who is also the screenwriter, had planned this project as a 180-minute two-parter, but this was later reduced to a 120-minute telefilm.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
author André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, first published in Nouvelle Revue Française
Nouvelle Revue Française
La Nouvelle Revue Française is a literary magazine founded in 1909 by a group of intellectuals, including André Gide, Jacques Copeau, and Jean Schlumberger...
. With many characters and crisscrossing plotlines, its main theme is that of the original and the copy, and what differentiates them – both in the external plot of the counterfeit gold coin
Gold coin
A gold coin is a coin made mostly or entirely of gold. Gold has been used for coins practically since the invention of coinage, originally because of gold's intrinsic value...
s and in the portrayal of the characters' feelings and their relationships.
The Counterfeiters is a novel-within-a-novel
Story within a story
A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...
, with Edouard (the alter ego of Gide) intending to write a book of the same title. Other stylistic devices are also used, such as an omniscient narrator that sometimes addresses the reader directly, weighs in on the characters' motivations or discusses alternate realities. Therefore, the book has been seen as a precursor of the nouveau roman
Nouveau roman
The nouveau roman is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the title in an article in the popular French newspaper Le Monde on May 22, 1957 to describe certain writers who experimented with style in each novel, creating an essentially new...
.
The novel features a considerable number of bisexual or gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
male characters – the adolescent Olivier and at least to a certain unacknowledged degree his friend Bernard, in all likeliness their schoolfellows Gontran and Philippe, and finally the adult writers Comte de Passavant (who represents an evil and corrupting force) and the benevolent Edouard. An important part of the plot is its depiction of various possibilities of positive and negative homoerotic or homosexual relationships.
Initially received coldly on its appearance, perhaps because of its homosexual themes and its unusual composition, The Counterfeiters has gained reputation in the intervening years and is now generally counted among the Western Canon
Western canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...
of literature.
The making of the novel, with letters, newspaper clippings and other supporting material, was documented by Gide in his 1926 Journal of The Counterfeiters.
Plot summary
The plot revolves around Bernard – a schoolfriend of Olivier's who is preparing for his bacBaccalauréat
The baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was introduced by Napoleon I in 1808. It is the main diploma required to pursue university studies...
– discovering he is a bastard and taking this as a welcome pretext for running away from home. He spends a night in Olivier's bed (where they discuss sexuality with Olivier recounting a recent visit to a prostitute and how he did not find the experience very enjoyable). After Bernard steals the suitcase belonging to Edouard, Olivier's uncle, and the ensuing complications, he is made Edouard's secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
. Olivier is jealous and ends up in the hands of the cynical and downright diabolical Comte de Passavant, who travels with him to the Mediterranean.
Eventually, Bernard and Edouard decide they do not fit as well together as anticipated, and Bernard leaves to take a job at a school, then finally decides to return to his father's home. Olivier is now made Edouard's secretary, and after an eventful evening on which he embarrasses himself grossly, Olivier ends up in bed together with Edouard, finally fulfilling the attraction they have felt for each other all along but were unable to express.
Other plotlines are woven around these elements, such as Olivier's younger brother Georges and his involvement with a ring of counterfeiters, or his older brother Vincent and his relationship with Laura, a married woman, with whom he has a child. Perhaps the most suspenseful scene in the book revolves around Boris, another illegitimate child and the grandson of La Pérouse, who commits suicide in front of the assembled class when dared by Ghéridanisol, another of Passavant's cohorts.
In some regards, such as the way in which the adolescents act and speak in a way beyond their years and the incompetence of the adults (especially the fathers), as well as its motives of developing and confused adolescent sexuality, the novel has common ground with Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
's (at the time scandalous) 1891 drama Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening, 1891
Spring Awakening is the German dramatist Frank Wedekind's first major play and a seminal work in the modern history of theatre. It was written sometime between autumn 1890 and spring 1891, but did not receive its first performance until 20 November 1906, when it premiered at the Deutsches Theater...
. The Counterfeiters also shares with that play the vision of homosexual relationships as under certain conditions being "better" than heterosexual ones, with the latter ones leading inevitably to destructive outcomes in both works.
The characters and their relationships
As the novel unfolds, many different characters and plotlines intertwine. This social networkSocial network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
graph shows how the most important characters in The Counterfeiters are related to each other:
Possible identification of characters with real-life persons
Besides bearing the character traits of Gide himself, some of his characters have also been identified with actual persons: in this view, Comte de Passavant is seen as alluding to Jean CocteauJean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Olivier to Marc Allégret
Marc Allégret
Marc Allégret was a French screenwriter and film director.Born in Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, he was the elder brother of Yves Allégret. Marc was educated to be a lawyer. Allégret became André Gide's lover when he was fifteen and Gide was forty-seven...
, and Laura to Gide's cousin and eventual wife Madeleine.
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry
Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....
is also present in the party scene under his real name and his Ubu Roi
Ubu Roi
Ubu Roi is a play by Alfred Jarry, premiered in 1896. It is a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd and Surrealism. It is the first of three stylised burlesques in which Jarry satirises power, greed, and their evil practices — in particular the propensity of the complacent bourgeois to abuse the...
is mentioned, meaning that the plot must be set between 1896 (the premiere of Ubu Roi) and 1907 (Jarry's death). Édouard's journal entry in chapter 12 of the third part, which makes mention of a 1904 vintage wine, seems to confirm this supposition with a more specific range of time in which the novel is likely to be set.
2010 film adaptation
In 2010, a French TV film based on the novel was directed by Benoît JacquotBenoît Jacquot
Benoît Jacquot is a French film director who has had a varied career in European cinema.Born in Paris, he began his career as assistant director of Marguerite Duras films including Nathalie Granger, India Song and also actor in the 1973 short film La Sœur du cadre.He turned to writing and...
, starring Melvil Poupaud
Melvil Poupaud
Melvil Poupaud is a French actor.He was named after Herman Melville by his screenwriter mother. At the age of ten, he launched into acting with a role in La Ville des Pirates , directed by Raul Ruiz. At the age of 15, he was nominated for a César...
as Edouard X., Maxime Berger as Olivier, and Dolores Chaplin as Lady Lilian Griffith. The film premiered on France 2
France 2
France 2 is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4, France 5 and France Ô...
on January 5, 2011. Originally Jacquot, who is also the screenwriter, had planned this project as a 180-minute two-parter, but this was later reduced to a 120-minute telefilm.
Further reading
- André Gide: The Counterfeiters. ISBN 0394718429
- André Gide: Journal of The Counterfeiters.
See also
- Le Mondes 100 Books of the CenturyLe Monde's 100 Books of the CenturyThe 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....