JOURNALS OF ANDRE GIDE: Vol. III

In this third installment of the Gide Journals, covering the period from 1928 to 1939, we meet the finally mature man in his sixties. The period of storm and stress is over; the militant homosexualism is past; the war in his heart between Catholicism and Protestantism is in abeyance; most of the fevers of the flesh and soul have died down. What we get here is Gide at his critical rather than creative best, and many of his jottings about books and people are memorable. This is the period of Gide's interest in politics and above all in Communism and in these years he took his famous trip to Russia. His friendships continue, some ripen- notably with Martin du Gard and Valery. He becomes more and more philosophical, but- as he ages- he retains his vital power ... Taken altogether this is a monumental work and an inimitable record of those fifty final years of western individualism from 1890 to 1940. It is one of the great literary records of all time and the market has been established by the first two volumes.