Ejemplar de la Biblioteca Personal de Renato Pellegrini

Wonderful, but also a bit of a hot mess. The Vatican Cellars starts off as a painfully dull 19th century novel of family disagreement, roughly as entertaining as Fontane, and then, for no apparent reason, turns into a glorious farce involving a fake pope kidnapping, an egregiously intrusive narrator, a motiveless murder (well before Camus), metanarrative silliness, a beautifully executed plot resolution, and a typically excellent Gidean moral conundrum: if we judge morality based on intention, can an act be wrong if it's unmotivated? This must slot into the fake pope kidnapping in some way, but I haven't puzzled that out yet, unless those who charge this book with nihilism are right, and the point is that the very idea of intention is useless, just as the pope-as-symbol is (this book suggests) empty, given that we can never be certain that the pope is actually the pope, and not someone stuck on the throne by conspiratorially minded free masons.

All of which is great. The difficulty is getting through that god-awful opening, which Gide clearly knew was god-awful, but kept there just to make sure you realized that he was making fun of such very respectable people in the text that followed. It's intellectually satisfying, but aesthetically offensive, and certainly I'll be skipping it when I re-read this. ( )

Style adapte a l`epoque du recit, un peu vieilli, histoire de l`hypocrisie bourgeoise... ( )

A well translated novel.
A funny unique story.Good to have the old stories brought to the fore again.
I received a digital copy from the publishers via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review. ( )

The first work I have read by Gide after reading his name mentioned on many occasions. A well structured and thought-provoking novel saturated in meaning. The whirlwind pace and moments of Ripleyesque rationalized (yet motive free) criminality make this a very intense read. ( )