So I wrote to Sarah a while back thanking her for The Counterfeiters (I'm determined to at least try to hold to this old-fashioned idea of thank-you notes for a while longer, before the real world finally overwhelms me), and she mentioned that I hadn't said anything about the novel's ending (either on extemporanea or in the letter) and enjoined me to tell her what I'd thought, prompting the following (which I include here because I just loved the novel that much):
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About the ending of "The Counterfeiters"...well, to be honest, I've been a bit lazy in thinking about it, mainly because I didn't really know what to make of it (and nor had I seen it coming while reading the novel). Even now, several weeks on, I'm not entirely sure what I think of it.
What happens to Boris ~is~ quite horrible, and initially struck me as gratuitous - much as I'd enjoyed the book as a whole, I didn't like Gide very much for the way in which he chose to end it (although the very last line, in which Edouard coolly reflects that he'd be very much interested to meet Caloub, is a nice one). Later, though, I began to think about it more on the level of craft - the way it takes place in front of La Perouse (Boris' grandfather, of course) and involving a 'talisman' of La Perouse's (the pistol) which maybe parallels Boris' own talisman, and how this intersects with some of the broader concerns of "The Counterfeiters"...
And later still, I recalled Edouard saying, in the final chapter (I think it's the final chapter, anyway...the details aren't very fresh in my mind, as I lent the book to a friend a while ago (with a stern injunction to guard it with her life on account of its sentimental value!)) that he wouldn't make use of Boris' 'suicide' in his "Counterfeiters" because he couldn't understand it. And that turned my mind back to the section in the middle of the novel where he's describing his theory of the novel, and he says something about how he doesn't want to 'cut' his novel in time, but rather wants to represent both a slice of reality and the attempt to stylise that reality into art (and also says that his novel doesn't have a subject). And if one were to apply that kind of frame to the ending of Gide's "Counterfeiters", it makes more sense and is more defensible, I think - ie, the ending seems less gratuitous and more 'artistically' justified (even if it can't be justified in structural/narratival/character-related terms) - though I'm still not entirely convinced.
