knig's Reviews > The Immoralist

Absolutely stunning portrayal of a French Catholic repressive confronting his (homo) sexuality at the turn of last century. I deliberately write ‘confronting’ rather than ‘journey of discovery’, ‘development’ or any other word which might imply a process of evolvement leading to clarity or even acceptance, for this is singularly missing. What unravels instead, is a sublime subconscious, torturous confrontation, an unwanted, unspoken clash of instinct and reason. And this is what makes the fibre so compelling: the very fact that this turbulent vortex of personal cataclysm simmers hidden in the subconscious strata, with the subtlest of surface manifestations: a bit like watching soporific bubbles crenulate the surface of a hot spring: we know its a harbinger of molten ferment which will erupt in volcanic spew, science classes posit that at this exact moment tectonic grinding is churning beneath, but for a few moments, before a supernova of lava excretes from the mouth of the epicentre, we have only these little ruptures to go by. This is the feel of this novel: a suggestion of immense reconfiguration as elicited by the the minutest, most fractional, ephemeral of manifestations.

I seriously do not believe anyone else could have written a more plausible, eloquent and lyrical account of sexual awakening. In this roman a clef, protagonist Michel commences asexual, evolved in his studies and if not exactly religious, than combobulated of religion.

I don’t think, apostate, secular and produced via the ‘religious studies ’modules of modern education as we are in Europe now, we can appreciate just how this religious combobulation might have worked in 1902. The only analogy I can think of even remotely to hint at the ‘tribal affiliation and upbringing’ of Michel is the old Irish joke about somebody in Northern Ireland who responded to a survey question about religious affiliation by declaring himself an atheist. ‘Would that be a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?’ came the insistent reply. Can there be any atheist raised in a Christian country that does not understand this? The fact that renunciation of faith is almost a futile endeavour when the rest of the fabric: tradition, culture, norms and conditioning, remain. The combobulation, hence, at your service. You can run, but you can’t hide.


Michel marries a woman, and due to ill health does not consummate the marriage for a long time : (much like Gide, who married his cousin and stayed in an unconsummated marriage for 27 years). During a honeymoon convalescence in Biskra, his wife befriends some of the local children. And this is where the subtle suspirro of innuendo begins. Michel starts to notice the outlines, fleshy composition and grace of these teen boys. This slow, understated cognisance is so delicate and protracted that its hard to pinpoint the exact moment when casual inflection rearranges into a purposefully orchestrated pattern of involuntary but prescient mis en scenes of allusion. It is painfully, breathtakingly beautiful to observe this accretion of subsensual imagery, a layering of sense-data which eventually overwhelms not just Michel, but me as well. Talk about an excruciating build up. For those of us, mind you, who like our thrills in the realm of unrealised potentiality.
So why is this not a journey of self discovery? Which it is not. Even at the end, Michel, sleeping with a woman, (not his wife who dies) covets her little brother (yes, I’m a little concerned about paedophilia). We leave Michel as convoluted as ever. But why?

Clearly, no one knows why. I can only transpose my own interpretation on this cauldron of mess up. Fear of sexuality. Not religious fervered, morally attributed fear, but intellectual. For those for whom this is a resolved issue in its essence, regardless of sexual preference, Michel’s quandary will seem alien, and the whole book a mismanagement. But for some, where easy doesn’t come into it: ease of it, I mean, then this confrontation will ring true. This subconscious tension of a voracious instinctual yearning forever tempered and extinguished by a resolute, no irresolute, conscious inability to progress...this thing. Being sexuality, whatever it means to each and everyone of us.