Lafcadio’s Adventures – Usado

Gide’s search for self, the underlying theme of his several works, remained essentially religious. Lafcadio Wluiki is one of the original creations in modern fiction.

Gide’s preoccupation with the gratuitous action, the unmotivated crime -it has a place in more than one of his books- here receives its most extended treatment, and Lafcadio is the instrument. With characteristic irony, Gide leads the police to a solution wherein the wrong man is apprehended and punished for the crime, while the charmingly perverse Lafcadio goes free. The action passes with cinematographic speed, chiefly in the capitals of Europe. The actors, other than Lafcadio, are noblemen, saints, adventurers and pickpockets.