Against the Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans. The Ultimate Example of “Decadent” Literature Translated by John Howard. Against Nature or Against the Grain. À rebours (translated into English as Against Nature or Against the Grain) () is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. Its narrative concentrates. The Project Gutenberg EBook of Against The Grain, by Joris-Karl Huysmans This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no.
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Against the Grain by J. Now I would simply say “you’re des Esseintes on a budget, aren’t you? His heighten senses go further to invent new art forms: It must have been so exciting to be a novelist in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Amazon Inspire Digital Educational Resources. OK, no, that’s just a little joke. Des Esseintes’ world is teh superficial, contrived.
Against the Grain by J.-K. Huysmans – Free Ebook
I’ve collected all of the art referenced in this novel that I could find here. As by way of example, here is Des Esseintes reflecting on two modern authors he enjoys: The rest, really, was essayistic, sort of like the chapters in American Psycho about Huey Lewis, Whitney Houston, Genesis, etc, but this takes place in the 19th Century so it’s all about Zola, Baudelaire, Poe, lots of Catholic art and really too many artists and artworks to even begin to list, thereby adding to the list of things I’ve never heard of but wouldn’t mind hunting down, like Ernest Hello or Barbey d’Aurevilly?
Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. So I usually just spend my time thinking about des Esseintes and Huysmans, rather th If the hero of this novel had a more anglo-friendly name, it would be the byword for hyper-neurotic aesthete dandies, as Sherlock Holmes is in the world of detective. So many decadent themes.
Oct 31, Sinem A. Beware this is an expurgated version. Its narrative concentrates almost entirely on its principal character and is mostly a catalogue of the tastes and inner life of Jean des Esseintes, an fhe, reclusive aesthete and antihero who loathes 19th-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation.
Against Nature
So, in a way, I am laughing at myself as much as I am laughing at Des Esseintes. There is a chapter, towards the very end of the book, in which des Esseintes talks of his tastes in music, and extols the beauty of Gregorian chant over all other sacred music, but you can tell that Huysmans has less patience with this particular topic, and his analysis is sketchy, as if he wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. So long as they’ve been around so for me really only since the early to mid ‘sI’ve always loved internet profiles full of great long lists of people’s tastes in everything.
The unexamined life is not worth living–which is huusmans it destroys him. The rest of this review is available elsewhere the location cannot be given for Goodreads policy reasons Well, I can honestly say I’ve never read anything like it, nor have I encountered a character as oddly loveable and annoying as Des Esseintes. Though not a great Wilde fan, I couldn’t agree with him more on that point. It was coated with a layer of bronze green on which glanced silver reflections. That is why he locks himself away, alone, and refuses to see anyone.
It’s almost as if his discrimination is the cause of a social illness, his individualism the cause of a quasi-syphilitic social disease, and he must return to bourgeois Paris, the Church huys,ans its conformist flock, in order againat cure his hallucinations, nightmares, melancholia, and ennui.
Only, Huysmans leaves us with a scintilla of doubt as to whether these very books are not the cure, but a cause, of Des E’s dissolute condition.
You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution jotis-karl keeping a few points in mind.
They are rampant consumers, early-adopters who are constantly looking for new ways to spend their money because as soon as other people start liking what they like, they have to dump it all and buy new stuff.
This site uses cookies. Real iconoclasts are cool. Feb 03, Eddie Watkins rated it really liked it Shelves: View all 48 comments. Cambridge University Press, pp. Yet at first glance it is rather difficult to see why this book should have exerted such a powerful fascination over its readers.
This is a brilliant book. He rejects the academically respectable Latin authors of the ” Golden Age ” such as Virgil and Ciceropreferring later ” Silver Age ” writers such as Petronius and Apuleius as well as works of early Christian literature, whose style was usually dismissed as the “barbarous” product of the Dark Ages.
He does show that staying at home doesn’t have to be boring though the richer you are the better in that respect. Oct 08, Sam rated it it was amazing Shelves: Want to Read saving….
Against the Grain (A Rebours), J.-K. Huysmans ()
In Paris he buys a London guidebook. Difficult to do this one justice. University of Delaware Press, pp. The parallels joris-arl the two books end there since Huysmans takes his character in quite a different direction to the one Stevenson chose for the finally repentant Doctor Jekyll.
He quietly returns home, “having seen what he wanted to experience” — and feeling the fatigue of a long journey. Set up a giveaway.
