Cornell, Carl. “Un aller simple, or Rewriting L'Immoraliste in Reverse.” French Review, vol. 95, no. 1, 2021, pp. 147-62, 10.1353/tfr.2021.0183.
Abstract: This article situates Didier van Cauwelaert’s Un aller simple (1994) in a broader literary context by arguing that it is a rewriting of André Gide’s L’Immoraliste (1902). The analysis, anchored in theoretical frameworks of Orientalism and postmodernism (including Jean-François Lyotard’s theory of “rewriting”), examines the texts’ shared themes of travel, illness, and the pursuit of personal authenticity. I contend that Un aller simple reverses within these themes the diegetic structure and the protagonists’ character development, linguistic strategies, and relationship to power structures of class and ethnicity. The rewriting found in Un aller simple creates subtle yet pervasive intertextuality with L’Immoraliste.