The story of an elaborate swindle involving the alleged abduction of the Pope. The plot is further complicated by means of a bizarre coincidence when Gide’s amoral antihero, Lafcadio Wluiki, spontaneously decides to commit an unmotivated murder by pushing a man out of a moving train. In the novel, Gide utilizes a series of character types - the stuffy, aristocratic author, the atheist turned devout by a miracle cure, the lowlife con artists of Rome and the perennial whore with a heart of gold. Overall light and humorous, one can assume that this picaresque novel raised some eyebrows upon its French publication in 1914. A quick and enjoyable read.

If Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" were to suddenly become earnest and subtle in addition to being keen and tightly-knit, then it might feel something like Lafcadio's Adventures. Gide's character introductions are charming, witty and delectable, but when he starts stirring up the plot and you begin to see how every twist draws more threads into the tapestry, its impossible not be be swept up.

Billed as Gide's most elaborate exploration of the "gratuitous act" or "unmotivated crime", that aspect of the work is only the nucleus around which spiral a varied cast of characters. Just as the theme of "Adaptation" percolates through the film of the same name, the theme of senseless action caroms between the players in this short novel set at the tipping point between staid 19th century European tradition and the thrill of life in the age of technology. ( )

The first part is the best and most interesting: the story and conversion of vivisectionist and atheist Anthime Armand-Dubois. Lafcadio is an interesting idea, not fully developed: the man who commits a crime for no reason at all - the perfect nihilist murder. An interesting development could have been the discovery that the Pope really had been kidnapped and replaced with a fake Pope. [May 1991] ( )

I usually hate farce, and 'Lafcadio's Adventures' is definitely that, but this is not one I struggled with. Gide's book is a serious philosophical musing on the nature of guilt and justice, and poses the question that if crime is committed in the absence of motive, how can we judge the punishment? It preceeds the growth of existentialism by a couple of decades, but is definitely a marker on the road leading from writers like Dostoevsky to Satre and Camus. The farcical storeyline actually helps to remove a lot of the weight from the reader so that, although important issues are being addresed, we are allowed to have a bit of fun in the process. Like all farces, it stretches the narrative a bit far, relying on a series of unlikely coincidences and chance meetings to drive the plot, which always irritates me. Lafcadio is a classical rogue and the victims of his swindlings are dunces to an almost embarrassing degree (embarrassing for Gide, not them), but somehow the book as a whole just worked for me. I read it quickly and easily, absorbing the message while enjoying the plot, and will be looking for more Gide in the future.

What a slog! This was a prize winner and perhaps it was considered risque and advanced when it was first written, but I found it deadly dull and hard to plow through. What was the point?