The Vatican Cellars

Could the Pope have been secretly abducted? André Gide’s famous satire centres around a group of ingenious fraudsters, who convince their wealthy victims that the pontiff has been imprisoned by freemasons. Ranging from madcap farce to scenes of romance and even murder, it is a send-up of conventional morality, most clearly in the picaresque character of Lafcadio, whose notorious behaviour in the novel provoked outrage at the time of publication. Though in a more light-hearted vein than other works by Gide, this unusual novel still questions how individuals should live their life when faced with the rigid social and ethical structures that surround us.


Genre: General Fiction