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The Chapel of the Abyss

Description: The Chapel of the Abyss is a virtual reliquary, a cenotaph devoted to the extravagant saints and angels who have fallen out of fashion and elsewhere. The kernel of this group is in the decadent and occult-themed literature of the 1890s and early 20th century. The focus, along with the theme, will continue to expand or metastasize as the mysteries of decay, of sickness, and of the wound, and their link to an original sin, perhaps one of omission, but nevertheless mortal and without appeal, are enduring and may be pursued at any point in time.

"And perhaps it was not perceptible to him in the midst of his tumultuous agitation, how much higher than all the voices of nature resounded here with a dissonant clamour the glaring disappropriation of all things - of the altar all the more majestic for being abandoned, of the useless lance, of the tomb as perturbing as a cenotaph, of the clock ticking for nothing outside of time, on which its gears had no more grip than a mill-wheel in a dried-up stream, of the lamp burning in full daylight, of the windows palpably made to be looked into from outside...."

- Julien Gracq, Chateau d'Argol

"This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change beds; one man would like to suffer in front of the stove, and another believes that he would recover his health beside the window. It always seems to me that I should feel well in the place where I am not, and this question of removal is one which I discuss incessantly with my soul."

- Charles Baudelaire

"It is always Autumn at Bruges.... The sameness of this terribly constant old city seems to intensify the change that has come to oneself."

- Ernest Dowson

In his classic novel of the occult, La-Bas, Joris Huysmans wrote “Now from lofty Mysticism to base Satanism there is but one step. In the Beyond all things touch.” Essence becomes the surface of things: the priesthood of art and the cult of the senses. By piety or perversion- through prayer, or by "the rational derangement of all the senses" -one must obtain to the Beyond. Huysmans' linking of Jeanne d'Arc and Giles de Rais melds that astonishing horizon: the pure and the unlean, signifying real change: a Chemical Wedding, an androgyne Christ.

The decadent is concerned with the mysteries of the artificial, the urban, masks and the culture of the self. The city is a mirror in which one might scry voluptuous postures of decay.

From the depths to the surface: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." Style, as George Brummel knew and Barbey d'Aurevilly preached, is the true soul of man. The gnostic pearl is a dandy's tie-tack.

One can keep to the well-worn way and aver that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, but entry demands devious routes. Christ thus advised the elect: go against nature, "Love one another as you love yourself."

For less hardy souls, sensual indulgence and depravity serve as stations of the cross. Severin’s journey into the dark and Durtal’s return to the Church indicate that the underlying theme is pilgrimage, quest - if not for spiritual transcendence, then for moral transformation - for a new order of existence: to undertake oneself, "to create one's own aesthetic."

"Let everyone be his own lover...."

- Emile Hennequin

Most recent members: robertajl, doomented, makifat, Eustrabirbeonne, themista, torontoc, BarkingMatt, henkl, kiwidoc, lorirorke, varielle, annakarina, GoyodelaRosa, mlfhlibrarian, plinio_designori, monjolo, tom1066, mediavirus, JanWillemNoldus, lsherriff, amarnath, MysteryWatcher, CharlesFerdinand, Heavenly, wasistweimar, mystiquemuse, niles_desperandum, slickdpdx, meadowss, rolig — 93 total

Member library: 107,353 books

Most commonly shared books (weighted): Against the grain (A rebours) by Joris-Karl Huysmans (32), Là-bas (Down there) by J. K. Huysmans (23), The flowers of evil; by Charles Baudelaire (32), The book of masks by Remy de Gourmont (8), The quest for Corvo : an experiment in biography by A.J.A. Symons (12), The Oblate of St. Benedict (Dedalus European Classics) by Joris-Karl Huysmans (6), The Dark Domain (Dedalus European Classics) by Stefan Grabinski (7), Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Rolfe (13), Bruges-la-Morte : a novel by Georges Rodenbach (8), Cruel tales by comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (9)

Created: Oct 20, 2006 by benwaugh; Language: English