Lafcadio's Adventures : A Novel (Vintage International (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: Much more here than meets the eye
Review: Gide's _Lafacdio's Adventures_ is much more than a book about a young man who commits a senseless crime. It is also far more than just a couple of mascarading crooks who concoct a story of the kidnapping of a high church official as a means of bilking a naive gentleman of his money. Gide has written a marvelously twisty-even slightly twisted-and often hillariously funny crime novel. What places _Lafcadio's Adventures_ far above that genre is its emphasis on the meaning of friendship, loyalty, genuine caring and a real sense of responsibility for another human being that can and often does transform people. Gide takes an interesting look at a social outsider in a fresh and humane way. The result is a truer and far more complex and sympathetic picture of such an individual. Even if I could not quite make out his motivations there is still much to think about in Gide's brilliant study of saints and sinners.

Rating:
Summary: Much more here than meets the eye
Review: Gide's _Lafacdio's Adventures_ is much more than a book about a young man who commits a senseless crime. It is also far more than just a couple of mascarading crooks who concoct a story of the kidnapping of a high church official as a means of bilking a naive gentleman of his money. Gide has written a marvelously twisty-even slightly twisted-and often hillariously funny crime novel. What places _Lafcadio's Adventures_ far above that genre is its emphasis on the meaning of friendship, loyalty, genuine caring and a real sense of responsibility for another human being that can and often does transform people. Gide takes an interesting look at a social outsider in a fresh and humane way. The result is a truer and far more complex and sympathetic picture of such an individual. Even if I could not quite make out his motivations there is still much to think about in Gide's brilliant study of saints and sinners.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into the mind of a self-fascinated murderer
Review: Gide, the novelist's novelist, tends to his wicked garden of amoral flowers in this multi-leveled satire. Defying the formulaic strictures of his day, Gide skewers the pomposity of the French and Italian gentry while soaring above them with gleeful snobbery. My parents forbade me to read Gide, and so of course I did, in secret, only to have "Lafcadio" snatched from my precocious twelve-year-old hands before I could finish the novel--but memories of Lafcadio lay buried for years until they ultimately emerged to flower anew in the mystery/ adventure: "Into the Deep--The Haven" . . . both a companion and handshake to Gide's examination of the motiveless crime. V.E. Rosswell.