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THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH by Andre Gide

THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH

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Pub Date: Sept. 20th, 1949
Publisher: Knopf

A self-styled ""manual of escape, of liberation"", these Fruits of the Earth were published originally in 1897, early in this writer's career, and attracted only a very limited reading public. In song, and rhapsodic prose pieces, Gide preaches a sensual revolt and fervor, a ""harrowing life"" rather than a quiet one, a nomadic pursuit of pleasure and a pagan hedonism. In the Later Fruits of the Earth (1935), included here, a note of restraint and renunciation replaces that of abandon; there is a strong pre-occupation with God- although one which denies the Christian hypothesis; a concern for others, rather than self; a faith in man's progress and evolution. The interest created by the Journals will still not carry these beyond the more devoted devotees of this writer.