Music like Immoralist

The Immoralist (French: L'Immoraliste) is a novel by André Gide, published in France in 1902.

The Immoralist is a recollection of events that Michel narrates to his three visiting friends. One of those friends solicits job search assistance for Michel by including in a letter to Monsieur D. R., Président du Conseil, a transcript of Michel's first-person account.

Important points of Michel's story are his recovery from tuberculosis; his attraction to a series of Algerian boys and to his estate caretaker's son; and the evolution of a new perspective on life and society. Through his journey, Michel finds a kindred spirit in the rebellious Ménalque.

Michel was raised by both his mother and father until his mother's death, when he was fifteen. Although she had raised him with strict Huguenot values, he did not observe these values later in his life. He applied the austerity his upbringing had produced in him to his studies. By the age of twenty he was fluent in French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic. He entered academia around this time, when he wrote the "Essay on Phrygian Religious Customs". The essay was published under his father's name and gained praise. At the age of twenty-five, Michel's father was on his deathbed. To please his father, Michel hastily married Marceline.