The parable of Saint Matthew, which describes two men working in the fields and two women grinding grain at the mill, seems to echo in the fate of Paul Gadenne's posthumous novel Les Hauts-Quartiers. Published in 1973 as part of the "Cadre rouge" collection by Éditions du Seuil and reissued by Points in 2013, the novel was written over nearly 50 years, from 1907 to 1956. It has been praised for its spiritual depth and described as "original and opulent" by literary critic Gaétan Picon, but also criticized for its lack of structure and literary coherence by André Le Vot, who called it "not sufficiently purely literary." The story follows Didier Aubert, a tuberculosis patient, professor, and philosopher living in Irube, a bourgeois town in southwestern France. His life's work is a thesis on the spirit of poverty, and his physical decline mirrors his growing disillusionment with the bourgeois society he critiques. The novel uses the imagery of unsanitary housing and poor living conditions to symbolize both his physical deterioration and his existential crisis. The novel opens with Rosa Pardoux, a 13-year-old girl described as beautiful, provocative, daring, and lazy. Her character is vividly introduced, but she vanishes from the narrative by page 63, leaving readers in suspense. This sudden disappearance has been likened to a narrative ghosting, as if the author has abandoned his creation, much like the myth of Dr. Frankenstein fleeing from his monster. Despite moments of lyrical brilliance, the novel is often seen as disjointed, with an overreliance on allegory and moralizing that can feel heavy-handed. Some characters and situations are considered implausible, and the narrative lacks a clear direction. Gadenne's close identification with his protagonist, Didier Aubert, has led some to suggest that the novel may be an early example of autofiction, where the author's life and work blur with those of the characters. Gadenne's Didier Aubert, like the author himself, is portrayed as a man of letters who feels "impeded" and "stifled," excluded from society and torn from his literary vocation. He denounces the suffering of the poor but feels his own injustices are overlooked. The novel is seen as a missed opportunity to create a French counterpart to Dostoevsky, as Didier fails to complete his moral transformation. Gadenne's work also draws comparisons to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, where the metaphor of a garden overrun by weeds represents the challenges faced by women writers. Similarly, Didier's passion for gardens and his struggles with poverty and illness reflect converging themes of creativity and suffering.