Strait Is the Gate (La Porte Etroite)

There can be many different ways of enjoying this book, for example, as an agonizing love story of two young people with some predicaments resembling those of Virgin Mary and Joseph, in which case, a very intense romance/dedication with impossibility of their union, however, leading to preoccupation, what I would simply call--I want it, but I shouldn't, so I won't, but I will forever think about it--syndrome. But I read it more as constant dialogues/disputes inside of a thinking person---about the meaning/purposes/pursuit of virtues, about the existence of retraints through religious framework, about the existence of freedom both for emotions/intellect and self effacement, and all those unanswerable questions... The point, may be not in the answers, but in the pursuits which also present dangers and agony of self denial and ultimate demise, "I felt strange contentment that filled my whole being in your presence; 'a contentment so great' you said, that I desire nothing beyond!' Alas! that is just what makes me uneasy...." then doubting, "why do you tear off your wings?", another doubts "Sometimes I doubt whether there is any other virtue than love...to love as much as possible and continually more and more...But at other times, alas! virtue appears to me to be nothing but resistance to love. What! shall I dare to call that virtue which is the most natural inclination of my heart? Oh, tempting sophism! Specious allurement! Cunning mirage of happiness!...........charms so great can be surpassed only when virtue teaches us to renounce them". A profounly philosophical book!

I was happy to receive my order with no problem. Thank you. I am beginning to understand the procedure.

In this largely epistolary novel, Gide unfolds the life of childhood as it is cleaved by the demands of love, society, and faith. Falling in love with his cousin after several visits to their country home, Jerome is plunged into a reality bereft of clear signposts to follow. Through careful psychological consideration of sacrifice, its pain and redeeming properties, is constructed primarily through letters with Alisse. I am less interested in Gide’s specific beliefs here than in his deep excavation of his character’s interior lives. Concise and yet expanding beyond its own horizon, this is prose that demands many returns.

I read it in Korean some times ago and recently again,and in English in this time, I like it. I became to know more about author Andre Gide. This book's title seems from the Bible.(Mathew 7-13-14) Sung K. Moon

I first heard about André Gide, I believe, while reading one of Boyle's short story. It was some off handed reference but I found myself picking up Strait is the Gate and the book the proceeded to live on my shelf for quite some time before I read it. The plot is intriguing but somewhat generic: two sisters fall in love with the same man. Some interesting twists occur, the man is rejected by both women, and the book ends developing both of the sister's positions in the relationship (otherwise the book is narrated by the man). However, the book increasingly became annoying as the relationships floundered for no apparent reason. Even by the end of the novel once reasons of sacrifice and a hire calling are pursued one still stops and wonders: say what? Strait is the Gate is filled with a misogynistic tendency of consistent and regular female sacrifice for the higher calling of a man. It's interesting in its fashion and a short read but the constant referencing of the childlike love is very true - it's a very immature and over romanticized love that blossoms.

"Now that I have found you again, life, thought, our souls-everything seems beautiful, adorable, inexhaustibly fertile" This is one of the most complex, heart wrenching books I've ever read. Its beautifully written too, almost poetic. I won't get into the plot, but it goes much, much deeper than religious piety; if thats all you got out of it you weren't reading close enough. It's the first and only book I've read by Gide; I'm afraid to read others in case they don't live up to the expectations this book gave me.

Subtle; powerful. The limited point of view demands much patience, but the work ends with a searing revelation of the lie that is Romanticism, in all its guises, whether it is Jerome's saintly idealization of Alissa, or Alissa's self-alienating and eventually suicidal devotion to a God that is really an aspect of her own unloved Self.

A reviewer said earlier that he became physically ill as he read on. I felt something similar. The story gripped me in my throat, and there were moments when I think I stopped breathing. The story of utmost purity and self-sacrifice (utter foolishness to cynics) cut so close that I think it tore my heart. The image painted at the end of the story was so sublime that the reader will find himself unable to utter a single word, and at the same time, a strange emptiness wells up within...

just as described. excellent produce, excellent service. I LOVE the novels of Gide. Read them when young, and just as good now I'm old!!