Controcorrente (original 1884; edition 2009)

An odd one, a 'scandalous' book of its time that recounts the life of Jean Des Esseintes, who hates the 19th century French society he lives in and shuts himself away from it, indulging in various sorts of decadence - going through obsessions with flowers, jewellery, perfumes, classical literature etc. The book has no plot beyond his going into seclusion and its eventual end, but generally just catalogues his tastes in all those things in some detail. If that sounds rather boring, it is. The most interesting chapter is a memory from a previous time, and his attempts to make a passing young man into a murderer.

That said, it was worth reading the book to have it to think about afterwards. The point of view it describes might not make for compelling reading but is certainly stark - reading the intro and appendices to the book, describing reaction to the book and how the author saw it afterwards was more interesting than the book itself. Huysmans saw the book as the start of his later conversion to Catholicism, which seems about right - Des Esseintes has contempt for the world and all things human but does not have the hope of anything better elsewhere. That is a tricky position to hold, intellectually and emotionally, and the reviewer who told him he needed either to shoot himself or convert had a point. ( )

An ornate, sickly, claustropobic book, full of fascinating discussions about art and literature, and studded with items of outré vocabulary (I still haven’t worked out what mœchialogie means). It is a novel for people who like talking about novels – the plot itself is slim and of little importance. I’ll summarise it quickly: des Esseintes, a rich, effete aristocrat, retires from a life of excess and debauchery to live in his retreat at Fontenay outside Paris, where he shuts himself off from the rest of the world and ekes out an existence in a cloying, hypochondriac, lamplit environment that has been elaborately constructed to meet his own aesthetic requirements.

Basically, he’s a proto-hipster, who has had enough of dealing with Other People and wants to lock himself away from public opinion. Anything that's popular with anyone else is out – Goya gets taken down from his walls for being not obscure enough.

Cette promiscuité dans l’admiration était d’ailleurs l’un des plus grands chagrins de sa vie ; d’incompréhensibles succès lui avaient à jamais gâté des tableaux et des livres jadis chers ; devant l’approbation des suffrages, il finissait par leur découvrir d’imperceptibles tares, et il les rejetait….
[This promiscuity of admiration was one of the most distressing things in his life. Incomprehensible successes had permanently ruined books and paintings for him which he had previously held dear; faced with widespread public approbation, he ended up discovering imperceptible flaws in works, and rejecting them….]

Although he has given up interpersonal relationships himself (even his servants have to wear felt slippers, so he doesn’t hear them walking around), he often reminisces about his previous conquests. I particularly loved the early description of his old bachelor pad, decorated in pink and lined with mirrors, which had been

célèbre parmi les filles qui se complaisaient à tremper leur nudité dans ce bain d’incarnat tiède qu’aromatisait l’odeur de menthe dégagée par le bois des meubles.
[famous among the girls who had been pleased to soak their nudity in this bath of warm carnation infused by the smell of mint given off by the furniture.]

His view of women in general is distinctly un-modern, but often weirdly fascinating. I liked the strange little anecdote of his liaison with a US circus performer, which read like an Angela Carter short story. (Unfortunately, in a complaint soon to become a cliché among European male writers, his American girlfriend turned out to have une retenue puritaine au lit). Des Esseintes moves on to date a ventriloquist, whom he makes lie out of sight and enact odd, symbolist dialogues between statues of a chimera and a sphinx that he bought for the occasion.

There are even some aesthete-esque hints towards des Esseintes’s homosexual urges, with vague references to a young man who made him think about ‘sinning against the sixth and ninth of the Ten Commandments’.

Other senses, too, get close examination. An entire chapter is given over to various exotic scents and perfumes which des Esseintes is trying to create. When it comes to taste, our hero has what he calls a ‘mouth organ’, which consists of several dozen barrels of alcoholic liqueurs ranged side by side, which he mixes-and-matches to create a variety of gustatory symphonies or harmonies to suit his current mood.

The language all this is described in is deliberately rich and unnaturalistic. Huysmans’s basic approach is outlined when des Esseintes explains the kind of writing he admires among Latin authors – full of

verbes aux sucs épurés, de substantifs sentant l’encens, d’adjectifs bizarres, taillés grossièrement dans l’or, avec le goût barbare et charmant des bijoux goths….
[the purified juice of verbs, nouns that smell of incence, bizarre adjectives scultped roughly from gold, with the barbaric, charming taste of Gothic jewels….]

I came to Huysmans via Barbey d’Aurevilly, and it was nice to see that des Esseintes thinks so highly of Les Diaboliques that he had a special copy made, printed sacrilegiously on ecclesiastical parchment. Barbey reviewed À Rebours when it came out, and made a surprisingly perceptive comment that its author, like Baudelaire, would have to choose between la bouche d’un pistolet ou les pieds de la croix ‘the mouth of a pistol or the foot of the Cross’. What is it about these Decadent authors – Baudelaire, Huysmans, Barbey himself – that despite their obvious dislike of religion, they all ended up going back to the Catholic faith? Suffice to say that this novel draws its power to shock and delight from its willingness specifically to go against (à rebours) the ideals and principles of a Catholic culture – not that that prevents a more secular modern reader from being shocked and delighted in his or her own right.

And they should be, it’s worth it. This book can be oppressive, but it’s a wonderful experience. ( )

Lacking any real plot, this book is somewhere between a character study, a manual on how to achieve the pinnacle of decadence, a sermon on the merits and demerits of various artists, writers, and holymen, and a screed on the follies of modern life. I've never read anything like it, and while it was fascinating and largely enjoyable, I don't particularly wish to read anything like it again in the near future. ( )

gnarly book

I was lead to À rebours (the English translation I read was titled Against the Grain as opposed to the more traditional Against Nature) through my recent reading of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. À rebours is purportedly the “Yellow Book” that enthralled Dorian.

The focus of the story is Jean Des Esseintes, a nervous and sickly man in his 30s. He held humanity in contempt, referring to people as scoundrels and imbeciles, so he sought refuge and isolation on top of Fontenay-aux-Roses. During his isolation, he rambles on with is opinions about art, literature, food, music and just about anything related to the senses.

The text is incredibly sensual and layered with descriptions typical of decadent writings. As an example, he described his bedroom’s décor with the phrase “women loved to immerse their nudity in this bath of warm carnation [light], made fragrant with the odor of mint emanating from the exotic wood of the furniture.” The book contains luxurious details to the point where you can feel brocade, smell incense and see light reflected from polished and jeweled surfaces. Another example in describing his library: “Between two gilded copper monstrances of Byzantine style, originally brought from old Abbaye-au-Bois de Bièvre, stood a marvelous church canon.”

The book presented frequent anti-naturalist themes and attitudes. (Hence the Against Nature title.) In one chapter, the author described Des Esseintes’ ornate decoration of a tortoise’s shell with gold guilt and jewels and minerals. The motif and materials used for the design are painstakingly described. The fact that this decoration resulted in the death of the animal was only conveyed in one short sentence at the end of the chapter. In another part of the book, Des Esseintes describes how nature’s rendition of flowers is lacking so he recreates them using wire, paper and fabric to a more glorious effect. He then duplicates their fragrances through the art of perfumery. Again, the descriptions are provided in minutiae and the final product is believed to be far better than what can be found in nature. His attitude is best summed up in the line “There can be no doubt about it: this eternal, driveling, old woman is no longer admired by true artists, and the moment has come to replace her by artifice.”

The most difficult chapters were those dedicated to literature. One provides an in-depth comparison of classical Latin writings to which I’ve had little to no exposure. Another provided reviews and critiques of French authors of the day (mid-1880). This chapter did lead me to read some works of Baudelaire with whom Des Esseintes had a strong obsession believing that “the prose poem represented the concrete juice of literature, the essential oil of art.”

There really is no plot to À rebours. Instead, it’s merely a collection of observations presented with beautiful language. Through the story, Des Esseintes’ health continues to decline. His doctor’s advice is to “get a life” and the book ends abruptly with Jean’s return to Paris. ( )