'The Immoralist'

This is one of Andre Gide's "earlier" publications (1903) when he was about 34, but he was still set to write and publish a ton of things afterwards.

Gide was a bit of a rabble rouser.

He became a communist until he visited the Soviet Union and soured on the whole deal. He wrote about homosexuality and free and easy living. He was a beat and a hippie before there were beats and hippies.

In The Immoralist, our hero Michel travels to north Africa with his wife and he is near death with TB. He survives with a new viewpoint of life and ceases to function until the provincial rules of modern and social life. Although he can't completely come forward without bring embarassment to him and his wife.

He moves to the country and falls in love with the simplicity and quiet of his family farm and the attitude of his attendant's son, Charles.

Eventually, Michel is forced back into the social scene in Paris and eventually his wife dies. Although they are together, they're mentally miles apart. His wife, however, is very religious and very caring despite this separation. Both are kind of heart broken with this emotional divorce and Michel's guilt is palatable when she later dies.

Maybe ol' Michel wasn't such the immoralist after all.