ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the sympathetic imagination and the authorial double, whose transformations are both in decline by the end of the nineteenth century. It argues that the intuitive and omniscient character who is able to guess the truth at a glance is preserved in the detective story. Les Faux-Monnayeurs's argument is based on the alleged incompatibility between reflexivity and representation and on a strong demarcation between the domains of realism and modernism which are presumed to consist in a wholesale espousal and rejection, respectively, of representational concerns. The chapter explores why the screened use of the sympathetic imagination seems to be no longer necessary in Gide's time. The chapter also argues that the ease with which Edouard Maynial admits his lack of any sense of ownership and his easy-going attitude towards his 'creatures' can also be seen in the context of the disappearance of the fear of authors regarding the alienability of their works.
