Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907)

In English the title was translated as either 'Against Nature' or 'Against the Grain', which to me are two very different titles. It occurred to me that this tension within the meaning of the title itself is a good indication of the contents of the novel. We are introduced to a French aristocrat by the name of Des Esseintes who is of feeble stamina and who might be called a dandy in British terms. We follow the young man as he slowly retreats out of everyday life into a decadent seclusion of show more his own design. At times opulent in its descriptions of Des Esseintes' mansion, at times excruciatingly detailed and accurate in Des Esseintes' analysis of his tastes, desires and repulsions, the novel lures the reader into an artificial world of what seems to be luxury. Page after page Des Esseintes delves deeper into his own mind. He collects rare specimens of everything and if there does not exist a rarity he believes he should have, he has it created from his own detailed drawings and directions. As a side note, most of the objects and interiors the young man envisions were based on actual examples of dandyish extravaganza.

The reader is slowly included into the artificial world of Des Esseintes and slowly the alternative reality appears more and more sold. Instead the young man's health deteriorates and his mind attempts to grapple with his own choices. Inevitably he wavers between stepping back into Beau Monde or forever lock himself away into an imaginary world. He goes back and forth and makes several attempts to take either extreme leaps. In one famous scene Des Esseintes is well on his way to visit London when after thinking over the plan in his mind he decides that in his mind he has already read and imagined so much of Britain's capital that he can only be disappointed by traveling there. Instead he returns to his mansion. Ultimately his private physician offers him the choice: go back into the world and regain your physical health, or retreat into your own mind and suffer.

The author, Joris-Karl Huysmans, wrote the novel in a time when literature's standard was realism devoid of symbolism or misplaced fantasy. Huysmans received both high acclaim from writers such as Oscar Wilde, but also derision from esteemed authors like Zola, who was Huysmans' mentor and inspiration. Perhaps this book can be seen as the ultimate anti-novel in the sense that it does not feature any trappings of a book designed to entertain. If you want to convey a point or principle then you either write it with great entertainment value but your meaningful message might not be remembered, or you write the work in a serious tone, in which case it will be remembered but not widely read. Huysmans took the extreme side of those polar opposites and goes beyond somber writing and confronts the reader head on by presenting the world of Des Esseintes from a solipsistic standpoint in which as a reader you have no other safety net than your own experiences and opinions. Instead of taking the Disney approach of embedding a clear takeaway moral message, the novel's aim is to have the reader make decisions on how to travel through life and in that sense it is the paragon of letting the reader take away whatever usefulness can be derived, even if this means rejecting the novel. show less

While I’m told Huysmans’ À rebours (Against Nature) is considered a jewel of Decadent literature, it’s not clear if this novel is a work of Decadent fiction.

If I’m understanding its definition, Decadent literature, in its English and French varieties, portrays the present as decaying and advocates for enjoying the long fall of civilization with sex and drugs and outré experiences.

This novel votes yes on the decaying society part and no on the pursuit of strange aesthetic pleasures. show more Rather, it postulates that decay brings mysticism to the fore, and here that mysticism takes on two strains: Catholicism and Satanism.

"It is just at the moment when positivism is at its zenith that mysticism rises again and the follies of the occult begin."

After À rebours was published, that Huysmans was going to have to eventually chose between “the muzzle of a pistol and the foot of the Cross”. Huysmans would eventually choose the latter, ending up as a Benedictine monk. This considered one of the great novels of “literary Satanism”, but Catholics of a conservative bent (it was one who recommended this book to me) also admire the Durtal trilogy.

Durtal’s progression from Decadent to monk is paralleled by three Huysmann novels featuring the writer Durtal, generally considered to be Huysman’s alter ego. Là-Bas is the first of that trilogy.

Durtal’s newest project is a biography of the infamous Gilles de Rais, French noblemen, defender and champion of Joan of Arc, Marshal of France – and raper, torturer, and killer of hundreds of children. The puzzle Durtal seeks to answer is why Rais, “a brave captain and a good Christian, all of a sudden became a sacrilegious sadist and a coward”. The novel will present the story of Rais throughout and conclude with Durtal’s ideas on the Marshal’s motivations.

Durtal’s friend, Dr. Des Hermies, is a man of amazing learning and equally broad cynicism. He doesn’t have a lot of faith in modern medicine or “alienists”. It’s not his peers he likes to hang out with but “astrologers, cabbalists, demonologists, alchemists, theologians, or inventors”.

Durtal is similar.

“I learned long ago that there are no people interesting to know except saints, scoundrels, and cranks. They are the only persons whose conversation amounts to anything. Persons of good sense are necessarily dull, because they revolve over and over again the tedious topics of everyday life. They are the crowd, more or less intelligent, but they are the crowd, and they give me a pain.
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As for their conversations, well, both men believe “Conversations which do not treat of religion or art are so base and vain”.

And there is a lot of talk about art and religion in this book including the art of bellringing and the symbols of church bells (material supplied by Hermies’ friend Carhaix, a devout Catholic and poor bellringer who also just happens to be an expert in heraldry), demon possessions, “alienist” explanations of said possessions, medicine, Paracelsus, a Third Kingdom of God proposed by a Catholic mystic, miraculous healing, and poisons. I have no idea how many things presented are real and how many are Huysmans’ inventions.
And there is a show less

I think you'll either love this book or hate it. I loved it. But to do so, I had to immerse myself in the details. So, when Huysmans starts talking about a plant, or a scent, or a painter, or an author, I have to go off to Google or Wikipedia to explore it further. I spent probably more time on that than I did on reading the book, but I can't imagine enjoying the book so much otherwise. The plants and the artwork alone make it worthwhile. If you haven't taken time to look at the works on show more Gustave Moreau, you are missing a world of color and patterns that just has to be seen to be believed.

Yes, this has no plot. The only real story elements are reminiscences of past events. Whole chapters are basically literary criticism, and the authors discussed are largely obscure to an American reader (and probably to most modern French readers as well.) There is an awful lot about Catholicism--that alone would seem to make the book totally irrelevant, for what could be more irrelevant than Catholicism? Actually, I guess as long as some people take it seriously, that makes it relevant, whether I like it or not....

Still, the experience of reading this is a deep, intellectual journey. The central character, the very wealthy Des Esseintes, has withdrawn from Paris society to a remote estate, furnished in an inimitable manner with colors, perfumes, books, paintings, and plants of his own eccentric choosing. Much of the book is a description of these, until it comes to a turning point, when even this private world he has created leaves him empty and sick. True, it was published in 1884, but there is so much here to identify with for any intelligent person who is almost overwhelmed by the stupidity of the world we live in and wishes to just turn off the news and live in a more perfect world of books and music. (I can't begin to keep up with Huysmans on the colors or scents!) But, of course, it isn't that easy.

This is a core work of "decadent" literature, but it is important to understand "decadent" as meaning a time when things are falling apart, when old things, such as language (very important in this book, both in reference to Latin and French) are losing their vigor. "Decadent" doesn't mean debased, although a few of the central character's experiences would fit that category. I could go on, but this is really a book you should read, taking your time to soak in the details. I read a translation from 1931 by John Howard. I thought it was quite good, but more modern ones are available and may better capture some of the book's more extreme elements. It is also important to read Huysmans' own preface to the 1904 edition, where he reflects on the book 20 years later. These days, it is difficult to see what all the fuss was about, but in France at least, literature was taken very seriously and it involved taking sides in the struggle between the church and the state or of naturalism (e.g., Zola) vs. more non-realistic forms of writing (e.g., decadence, symbolism). But you don't really have to understand all of that to get a lot of pleasure from spending time with Des Esseintes and his creator, J.K. Huysmans. It will also point you toward other things you may wish to read--Baudelaire, above all. show less

I remain firmly on the fence about this particular book. (And partially, I question myself because, once again, I'm not that enamored of a French writer. I just seem to have a hard time connecting with French writers... other than Alexandre Dumas. Maybe Huysmans gets a partial pass -- me being on the fence -- because he's half Dutch???) I wanted to like it more than I actually did like it.

While I appreciate that Huysmans' writing/style/subjects were unorthodox for his time & some of the show more passages are truly lovely &/or amazingly descriptive, I found other parts to be overly tedious & excessive to the point that I felt like I was plodding though an unwanted school assignment.

Ironically, a passage within À Rebours itself summed up this particular book for me. Des Esseintes (the main character) is going through his bookshelves...

"Of course, Des Esseintes still appreciated the works of these two poets, in the same way that he appreciated rare jewels or precious substances; but none of the variations of these brilliant instrumentalists could now enrapture any more, for none possessed the makings of a dream, none opened up, at least for him, one of those lively vistas that enabled him to speed the weary flight of the hours."

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