PositiveNew York Review of BooksDifficult and diffuse it certainly is, for it is not easy to group the diverse elements of his literary production into a coherent structure. It is also, for all its diversity, a curiously narrow work. Yet within the limited area it stakes out for itself, it is genuinely revealing ... He is not concerned with the moment of complete inner self-realization, but rather with the moment at which he reaches out for other people, in a gesture prompted by a combination of curiosity and interest. Drama in his life as well as in his work originates in conflicts between the incompatible responses awakened by his involvements with other people. He has himself interpreted his entire destiny as determined by his relationship with his wife, not however in the sense that an authentic relationship would have determined his outlook, but in the very different sense that this relationship, by its very inadequacy, always drew him outside of himself, oriented him forever towards other people and society and made his entire experience an interpersonal one ... From the point of view of the writer, this all-consuming curiosity directed towards other human beings is by no means a weakness ... For the early Gide—and this remained true throughout his career—no real conflict exists between an aesthetic and a moral commitment. Both are united by the same overriding attraction towards other people or society.
