Madeleine

by André Gide

Madeleine is the story of a great writer's marriage, a deeply disturbing account of André Gide's feelings towards his beloved and long-suffering wife. It was a relationship which Gide exalted―he termed it the central drama of his existence―yet deliberately shrouded in mystery. This was no ordinary marriage. Madeleine Rondeaux, two years older than her cousin André Gide, became his wife after Gide's first visit to Algeria. In his Journal, Gide refers to her as Emmanuèle or as Em. Only in this book, published a few months after his death, does Gide call her by her real name and painfully reveal the nature of their life together. All of Gide's vast work may be viewed as a confession, impelled by his need to write what he believed to be true about himself. In Madeleine this act of confession reaches a crowning point. It is a complex tale by a complex man about a complex relationship. “Ranks among the masterpieces of Gide's vibrating prose. It is also the most tragic personal document to have emanated from Gide's pen.”― New York Times .

Genres: Fiction, France, Novels

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Diaries and novels, such as The Immoralist (1902) and Lafcadio's Adventures (1914), of noted French writer André Gide examine alienation and the drive for individuality in an often disapproving society; he won the Nobel Prize of 1947 for literature.

André Paul Guillaume Gide authored books. From beginnings in the symbolist movement, career of Gide ranged to anticolonialism between the two World Wars.

Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide exposes the conflict and eventual reconciliation to public view between the two sides of his personality; a straight-laced education and a narrow social moralism split apart these sides. One can see work of Gide as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritan constraints, and it gravitates around his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of full self, even to the point of owning sexual nature without betraying values at the same time. After his voyage of 1936 to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the same ethos informs his political activity, as his repudiation of Communism suggests.

Chinese 安德烈·纪德

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a literary pamphlet
on how not to base a marriage.
"One of her tears weighs more...
than the ocean of my happiness."

[Jim Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gide obviously felt very badly about the way he'd treated his wife over their long marriage. After she died, he wrote this, perhaps to help assuage his guilt. While beautifully written, the book never makes Madeleine a real person. She is a Victorian "Angel of the Home" that he can worship without making her a real human being.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it in parts. My only problem is his constant reassertion of his devoted love, and how it contradicts his depiction of Madeleine. I still believe he was in love with her, but he doesn’t provide enough examples to trust him. His portrait of her, at least defined here (I haven’t read anything else of his), is of someone constantly whining and repugnant. One of the best parts of this thing occurs in his journal, when he references a letter she wrote him:

“Oh, if only you were invulnerable, I should not tremble. But you are vulnerable, and you know it, and I know it.”

That is lovely; there is not enough of that. It’s a very imbalanced memoir of love. I’d still recommend it, though. There is certainly a lot to enjoy.

[Linus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gide wouldn't have created so many good works without his wife, cousin, Madeleine even though Gide regarded his works as unsatisfying from his diary.

[Heidi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Full disclosure, I gave up on this about half way through because it was uninteresting and honestly pretty whiny.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andre Gide's controversial life included a desire of and marriage to his first cousin, Madeleine. Appearing in his novels under different names, the characters Madeleine inspired embody the lifelong fascination Gide had for his cousin and the pedastal he placed her on since childhood.

Madeleine is a "letter" written by Gide to his wife after her death. He insisted the letter be published after his own death in 1951. The work is part-memoir, part-love letter to his cousin. In parts he knocks her off of her pedastal while in others he finally publicly admits to many of his secret demons - some of which Madeleine was aware of (such as his homosexual tendencies).

A short book (87 pages) Gide packs enough of this history of their relationship and marriage to show the intensity and complications surrounding their existence. He describes in some detail how their different sorts of lack of self-esteem drove them together as well as tore them apart, and how they could live only for each other despite their destructive tendencies.

[Cailin Deery · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had much more respect for Andre Gide before reading this memoir about his stifled, cloistered (and unconsummated!) marriage. These are the pages of his journal that he stashed away later published as "Et nunc manet in te" about his older, Puritanical (I think she might have been a Calvinist but it doesn't matter) cousin, Madeleine, who he married. She crushed his spirit, destroyed his love letters, and went her whole life without acknowledging his work. Normally Andre Gide is lovely - he likens his life to the systole-diastole pumping of the heart and says, "my senses and soul are stampeding," but with Madeleine he's gravitated towards maudlin sentimentality: "one of her tears weighs more ... than the ocean of my happiness." This "crowning confession," as it's called, left me disappointed in Gide the man and mournful of the writer that he could've been without his infectious wife.

[Amanda K · Rating 2 out of 5]

For this review, I am deeply torn. I don't think I agree with the way the translator put together the sections of this book and I don't think most of his informative footnotes are necessary. I especially don't think I agree with the way bits & pieces of Gide's journal were plucked to create an extrapolation he did not necessarily intend.

That being said, Gide writes in flowering, exaggerated language about a relationship with his wife & cousin, Madeleine, that deeply maimed and inspired his spirit. At times, he perfectly defines the ails of love while in other moments, it seems his love was based solely on indefinable factors (they never consummated their marriage nor seemed to speak about personal matters). Nevertheless, Gide's account is soaked in an emotion that many heartbroken and heartstruck shall identify.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I no longer have any heart for anything, and all the light in my heaven is extinguished."

Ugh, 85 pages of this insufferable whining. And yet I thank God it was only 85.

[Jin Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe it's all lies, but even if it were the case, sometimes lies betray sincerity. People who judge the book based on whether they approve of the author's character are missing the point.

[Bardha · Rating 4 out of 5]

"ET NUNC MANET IN TE"(ajo jeton brenda teje-lat.)

[Brandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful pouring out of one mans soul.

[Liam Lalor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part confession. Part homage. Hindsight is never clearer than with love.