COUNTERFEITERS

'It's only after our death that we shall really be able to hear'. The measured t
one of hopeless nihilism that pervades "The Counterfeiters" quickly shatters any
image of Andre Gide as the querulous and impious Buddha to a quarter-century of
intellectuals. In sharp and brilliant prose a seedy, cynical and gratuitously a
larming narrative is developed, involving a wide range of otherwise harmless and
mainly middle-to-upper-class Parisians.



But the setting could be anywhere. F
rom puberty through adolescence to death, "The Counterfeiters" is a rare encyclo
pedia of human disorder, weakness and despair.