La rive d'Asie by Claude Anet
"La rive d'Asie" by Claude Anet is a novel written in the early 20th century. It appears to be a sensual, introspective Bildungsroman that follows Philippe, a sensitive provincial youth, through his sexual and emotional awakening—from innocent flirtations and a formative affair with a sophisticated countess to an ardent, perilous attachment to the pious, married Mme de Sées. The book explores desire, self-mastery, and conscience with a lucid, confessional voice. The opening
of the novel charts Philippe’s adolescence: solitary, overcharged with desire, and tenderly befriended by his neighbor Henriette, whom he only realizes he loves after she departs. Sent to a spa with his mother, he is initiated into sex by the worldly Comtesse de Francheret, then returns home to win Henriette’s love for one luminous week before losing her and later learning of her coarse marriage. In Paris he drifts—clever, dissatisfied, skimming through brief liaisons—while confiding his ideals and hearing faint Eastern echoes in conversations with acquaintances. A chance encounter on the boulevard Saint‑Germain with a woman’s “periwinkle” eyes leads him to Mme de Sées; he insinuates himself into her reserved, devout household, playing the courteous friend while secretly plotting seduction. Summer finds him near her family in Normandy, walking the cliffs and fields, their intimacy deepening to the brink of avowal as the excerpt closes. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77330.html.images | 298 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77330.epub3.images | 291 kB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77330.epub.images | 290 kB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77330.epub.noimages | 204 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77330.kf8.images | 543 kB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77330.kindle.images | 524 kB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77330.txt.utf-8 | 280 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/77330/pg77330-h.zip | 242 kB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Anet, Claude, 1868-1931 |
|---|---|
| Title | La rive d'Asie |
| Original Publication | Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1927. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Polona digital library) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese |
| Subject | French fiction -- 20th century |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77330 |
| Release Date | Nov 24, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 183 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |