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    Against the Grain
    Against the Grain
    Against the Grain
    Ebook222 pages4 hours

    Against the Grain

    By Joris-Karl Huysmans

    4/5

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    Because of his extreme sensitivity to the absurd and grotesque in human affairs, the protagonist of this masterpiece of decadence has estranged himself from society and savors the most bizarre aspects of human existence in his quest for novelty. This landmark novel is filled with weird images and biting wit.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBooklassic
    Release dateJun 10, 2015
    ISBN9789635221615
    Against the Grain
    Author

    Joris-Karl Huysmans

    Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) was a French novelist and art critic who was one of the founders of the Decadent Movement in France. His most famous novel Against Nature (A rebours) was a foundational novel of the Decadent Movement in France. He also wrote novels in the Naturalist tradition of Emile Zola, including Marthe, Histoire d'une fille, Les Soeurs Vatard, and En menage and poetry inspired by Baudelaire's work.

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    Reviews for Against the Grain

    4/5

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    • 2/5
      I quit at 40%. Childish are the behaviour and philosophies of the protagonist who elaborates chapters long on Latin writers that are to his taste or not, flowers that he likes or not, etc. This novel of ideas is more a collection of essays than a narrative. Very boring!
    • 4/5
      Like Don Quixote this book possesses some magnificent chapters, and some that you just have to grimace through. There'll never be a better chapter than when Des Esseintes decides to journey to London, but doesn't actually make it.
    • 2/5
      This "novel" is actually a series of prose poems describing in minute detail the life of the mind of a fin-de-siecle decadent as viewed through the prism of his opinions about such matters as Latin literature and precious stones. As such, it hearkens back to the great decadent poets of the France of a generation earlier, and, to a lesser degree, the futurists who emerged a decade or so later. It is very difficult and unrewarding reading, despite the occasional impressive use of imagery, and few will care to plow through a book which requires four or five trips to the dictionary to complete reading one page.
    • 4/5
      This is the book from which "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" is based. Fascinating story of this type of surreal genre.
    • 4/5
      The author himself thought this book would be a universal flop; au contraire, it wasn't. Instead, it has affected writers, poets, libertines and other people around the world, and continues to impress, outrage and mess with people's ideas on what a book should be like.

      A man, Jean Des Esseintes, creates his own artistic creation through eccentric and bohemian ways. For example, he ponders the significance of colours and blends of those for ages, along with smells and sights.

      The translation is wonderful, riddled with footnotes and illustrations that flesh out Esseintes' surroundings and references, and the book contains a splendid end note from the translator along with a list of names and explanations; without the annotations, I would not have graded this book as highly as I have. Apart from the namedroppings, this book is worth a lot.
    • 3/5
      Jean Des Esseintes is a very rich man, the last of a noble family, who led a life of parties and mistresses in Paris, until he becomes disgusted by society, and moves to an isolated country house to enjoy his art treasures and books in quiet contemplation. He asserts that his tastes are highly discriminating, and he has rare books bound in rare leather, many paintings and drawings, often erotic, and goes through crazes for plants, then artificial plants, and even at one point a jeweled turtle. He has an elaborate dispenser of alcohlic spirits, that he can use to create just the right taste for his mood, and has an exhaustive collection of perfumes. In his isolation he begins to dream of previous affairs, becomes ill, and at the end is sent back to Paris by his doctor. The book is full of unusual words and detailed descriptins or musings about literature and Des Esseintes' collections.
    • 5/5
      Painfully beautiful, weighty ruminations on art, Latin , horticulture, Catholic literature and liturgical music parade past desiring only to be left alone. These stitches aphorisms and taxonimies obscure a darker edge to the novel. It is left unsaid but there is something of menace afoot.
    • 4/5
      But I just don't enjoy the pleasures other people enjoy!

      With this exclamation, Jean des Esseintes, the sole character in Huysmans' Against Nature, sums up the central theme of the novel.

      Against Nature is an atypical novel: there is only one character - the decadent and ailing aristocrat des Esseintes - and there is no traditional plot to speak of, rather the novel catalogues and discusses the varied tastes des Esseintes has in literature, art, music, perfume, and flowers to name a few. Des Esseintes prides himself on having tastes far removed from the common, vulgar crowd of everyday society, from whom he has secluded himself in an eremitic existence in a country manor to be left in solitude with his possessions and sensual experiences. Veering between extreme and nervous excitability to debilitating ennui, des Esseintes represents the ultimate in decadent fin de siècle aesthetics.

      Huysmans' prose is replete with obscure and idiosyncratic vocabulary and detailed narrative descriptions, all of which have ably and faithfully translated into English by Robert Baldick. Huysmans also displays an encyclopaedic knowledge of many subjects including perfumery, classical Latin authors, and tropical plants.

      Against Nature indeed goes against the grain of traditional plot-driven novels, focusing rather on the psychology and tastes of the central character, decadently languishing in luxurious tastes and emotions. It is a deeply interesting psychological study of one man and his retreat from society, and the effect it has on him. It remains a classic Symbolist and Decadent piece of literature, and as the author himself said, it has exploded onto the literary scene "like a meteorite" and remains powerful even now.

    • 4/5
      “Their imperfections pleased him, provided they were neither parasitic nor servile, and perhaps there was a grain of truth in his theory that the inferior and decadent writer, who is more subjective, though unfinished, distills a more irritating aperient and acid balm than the artist of the same period who is truly great. In his opinion, it was in their turbulent sketches that one perceived the exaltations of the most excitable sensibilities, the caprices of the most morbid psychological states, the most extravagant depravities of language charged, in spite of its rebelliousness, with the difficult task of containing the effervescent salts of sensations and ideas.”

      —Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans

      Amen!

      À rebours. Against the grain. Against nature. No matter the translation or language it all comes out right. Decadence never seemed so austere; retreat never seemed so opulent. No wonder this had such an impact on Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. I’d discovered an odd painter from that time during research for my own psychological horror story of a painter, “Cripplegate”, who first gained prominence within the dark, detailed and deluded pages of Huysmans’ classic. What could seemingly be mistaken for a catalogue of grotesquery or litany of extravagance by those without imagination is really an exploration of a wasted human soul sealing himself within a self-made ivory tower and failing desperately at rebuilding some kind of kinship with humanity.
      Odilon Redon! That inimitable painter of surrealistic nightmares, hanging in that eccentric’s house, a unique voice within a unique voice of its era. Was Huysmans just being reactionary? Or was he dreadfully bored? Maybe he had a hyperthymic temperament like me. He’d taken as much as he could from his world, or at least his antihero had, immersed himself in oddities, wallpapered his existence with the outré and offensive, only to be broken by the expectation of it all. Alas, des Esseintes.

      So now what? Back to society? Back to another book? Back to another project to fool the brain into believing that this current existence is the one you were always meant for because it was the only one in which you could fashion it yourself? Except this book was written in 1884, sounds a hundred years older, and feels as modern as middle-aged angst aswim in seas technologically deeper than one can plumb with rusty anchor and busted chain.

      Hellfire Club! Sir Francis Dashwood bashing his head against the gothic walls of Strawberry Hill. Great splintered Horace Walpole! The first gothic novel. A break against tradition. Cutting against the grain. Embracing tradition, history, and throwing it aside to paint or write or forge something singular from within and have it trampled in the grass and full mocking glare of the sun. Pearls before swine. Maybe some things are better kept hidden. Locked in a treasure room and toasted over and over into dissipation. I have cried out to you! De Profundis. It’s only fitting it took one-hundred and thirty Psalms to hear that wail from the depths and make castle walls ring.

      Did any of these fucks feel any kind of affinity for their time? ‘Cause I sure as hell don’t. I’m just grateful that Huysmans had the guts to take a chance and lay it all out, vomit in the short grass, for the few of us who’ve been there to nod before turning politely away.
    • 5/5
      'If rape and arson, poison and the knife
      have not yet stitched their ludicrous designs
      onto the banal buckram of our fates
      it is because our souls lack enterprise!

      But here among the scorpions and the hounds,
      the jackals, apes and vultures, snakes and wolves,
      monsters that howl and growl and squeal and crawl,
      in all the squalid zoo of vies, one

      is even uglier and fouler than the rest,
      although the least flamboyant of the lot;
      this beast would gladly undermine the earth
      and swallow all creation in a yawn;

      I speak of Boredom which with ready tears
      dreams of hangings as it puffs its pipe.
      Reader, you know this squeamish monster well,
      - hypocrite reader, - my alias, - my twin!’
      --Baudelaire

      Joris-Karl Huysmans—sybarite, mystic, rake, oblate, and (of all things) civil servant—published what has been referred to as ‘the bible of the Decadence,’ À Rebours (often translated under the title of ‘Against Nature’ or ‘Against the Grain’), in 1884, setting in motion a literary movement that would come to include such icons as Mirbeau, Wilde, Rachilde, De Sa-Carneiro, and Beardsley. There had been earlier precursors who wore the mantle of ‘Decadent,’ sometimes with pride: Baudelaire, Poe, Gautier, Hugo; but it was Huysmans, with his callous disregard for convention, who established the motifs we refer to as ‘Decadent’ today. À Rebours has been viewed as more a catalog of tastes than a novel, considering that it is entirely devoid of a plot in any real understanding of the word; but the psychology of its central character, Des Esseintes, is a constant source of illumination, and remains as instrumental to defining the trappings of Decadence as the flamboyant catalog of literature, interior decoration, perfume, painting, and aesthetic experience that comprises the bulk of its pages.

      Des Esseintes, a libertine, grown weary with the sordid pleasures of fin de siècle Paris, retreats into solitude; purchasing a house, and filling it with countless objects that reflect an ornate, languid, and near-hallucinatory preoccupation with aesthetic excess, Des Esseintes begins a personal quest to seek out higher and higher avenues of experience, cloistered away in effete seclusion from the insipid trivialities and tedious ennui of modern life. Here, in reclusion, he is free to experiment with lavish predilections and whimsical pursuits not afforded by his previous circumstances: from fatally bejeweling a tortoise to surveying the degenerate concerns of authors and artists as varied as Petronius, Verlaine, Apuleius, Baudelaire, and Gustave Moreau; in a typical episode of À Rebours, Des Esseintes, who had before found more beauty in the patent artificiality of paper flowers than in their natural counterparts, decides that the ultimate in sensation would involve procuring natural flora that possess the curious and almost ridiculous distinction of appearing more false than their artificial analogues.

      This preoccupation with the supremacy of artificiality is, perhaps, the chief concern of À Rebours, illustrated with particular élan when Des Esseintes, who desires to travel to London as respite from the regularity of his life in seclusion, chances to dine, before embarking, at an English restaurant located in his abhorred Paris: after his meal, Des Esseintes promptly cancels his trip to England, returning to his country estate, having satisfied his desire to experience England by enjoying the artificial, Parisian notion of ‘England’ presented to him over dinner. On one hand, Des Esseintes is sure that he will be underwhelmed by the ‘real thing,’ as the beauty of a lover devoid of cosmetics cannot approach the painted opulence of an affected image; more subversively, however, our world-weary libertine is aware that the experience he seeks is of a uniquely ersatz variety, and that subjecting his ‘heightened tastes’ to the dismal, pedestrian pleasures of European society would dull, and perhaps corrupt, his delicate sensibilities.

      This rationalization is archetypal, in that it examines one of the key paradoxes of the Decadent world-view (a world-view which, it should be noted, revels in the charms of a good paradox): that, while the Decadent soul may seek redemption from his patent artificiality and adulterated perversions, he remains well-aware that the ‘purity’ of these notions of contrition is threatened chiefly by his own surfeit of experience: for how can gauche, prosaic 'reality' ever compare to the sumptuous unreality created by the Decadent imagination? And how can confessing the sins of the Decadent soul be a worthy pursuit when these sins, in and of themselves, illustrate the absurdity of both ‘confession’ and ‘sin?' Far more intriguing to the Decadent would be the affected comforts of a life of religious rigor, entirely devoid of the moral reflections that generally accompany it: the architecture of the church, to the Decadent, is far more paramount than the goings-on inside of it; the ephemeral, sensual allure of the incense and wine and costume and resonance of the organ can never be matched by the rituals for which they have been appropriated.

      Barbey d'Aurevilly may have been considering this puzzle when he famously portended a choice for the author of À Rebours between ‘the muzzle of a pistol and the foot of the Cross.’ Huysmans, intriguingly, chose the latter, applying to the rigorous philosophy of Catholic mysticism the same impassioned dedication his creation, Des Esseintes, applied to his own pursuit of aesthetic experience. Which is to say that Huysmans—author of the ‘bible’ of the Decadence, À Rebours—himself epitomizes the ultimate paradox of the Decadent imagination.
    • 5/5
      Against Nature (A rebours in the French original, also sometimes translated as Against the Grain) concerns itself with a degenerate French aristocrat, Jean des Esseintes, the last of his line, who has sunk so deep into the mire of degradation and decadence that he is bored and disgusted with his life, to the extent that he sells the family chateau in order to create a stream of income and retreats to the suburbs, renouncing the debased life he has lived and all acquaintances, becoming in almost every way a luxuriating hermit, nevertheless taking care to employ servants who can shield him as inconspicuously as possible from the quotidian necessities of living. Des Esseintes' debauchery has left him debilitated and has turned him into a narcissistic and neurotic, if highly intelligent, hypochondriac who seems to enjoy ill health. Where his physical ailments end and his neuroses begin is unclear.

      He decorates his house according to his own unique aesthetic and surrounds himself with books and art which reflect that artistic sense which is revealed as the book progresses.

      A rebours is "against nature" in the sense that des Esseintes has concluded that man has outdone nature at her own game, so he contrives to surround himself with artifice. It is also "against the grain" in the sense that almost everything des Esseintes does and nearly all the opinions he expresses are the antithesis of popular taste. The very form the book takes is in counterpoint to the Naturalism that dominated contemporary French literature. At the time the book was published in 1884, it created a tremendous stir among the "Naturalists," Émile Zola in particular, as they believed Huysmans had struck the death knell of that brand of realism.

      However, A rebours is a one-of-a kind work, one upon which a school of literature could not realistically be fashioned. While it is a breathtaking read, one cannot seriously imagine wanting to read another like it. It is challenge enough to get through the original, not because it isn't entertaining, but the level of erudition, the vast vocabulary, the plethora of obscure literary references going back to Classical Latin, the catalogues of paintings, the lists of flora, of perfumes, of gemstones, not to mention the never-ending description, all go on and on leaving the reader gasping for a breath of fresh air. Consequently, it is not an easy book to read in either English or the French original. Copious notes and a good introduction are the order of the day. Thankfully, the Oxford World Classics edition provides both.

      Despite its being one of a kind, A rebours heralds the birth of the modern and post-modern novel. It is without a plot and treats of but one character, but the reader has the sense that a story is being told, although the story merely follows the timeline of des Esseintes' life. Some chapters cause one to ask: "Is this a novel or a scholarly treatise?" Others have an episodic quality. Regardless, the novel elevates description to new heights, as it is devoid of dialogue.

      As a literary artifact of the late nineteenth century, A rebours is tremendously interesting. There is much to be learned here, and readers interested in the history and development of literary types will probably find it fascinating. However, I do not think it will appeal to everyone. Just the same, I am very glad I read it.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      The story of a man apart; a gorgeous, sickly anti-hero hermetically sealed from the common herd by an uncommon intellect. There is no plot as such, the book is a catalogue of things worth caring about (?): literature, art, beautiful things, jewels, perfumes. But where are all the people? Where is love? It's all very rarefied: Latin poets, Salom?, the black dinner, jewelled tortoises: all thrown into this golden baroque stew. Peter Greenaway could make a brilliant film from this. [Aug 1991][Jan 1997]
    • 4/5
      This is a sumptuously sensual book. Not much action, but the descriptions of the various aesthetic experiences are compelling, and the atmosphere of the fin-de-siecle ennui of the decadent aristocrat is tangible. Among many artists and writers that Huysmans mentions, Edgar Allan Poe comes up a number of times, and some of the scenery is reminiscent of some of Poe's Domains. An odd book, a rich banquet, a meditation on qualia. I am not quite sure what makes this a milestone of the Symbolist movement in literature, however.
    • 5/5
      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 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.
    • 4/5
      I had expected Huymans' A Rebours to be something similar to Lautremont's Maldoror, but this book is a different beast altogether. As did Maldoror, A Rebours eschews the notion of the traditional novel, though not in like manner. It is more a study of aesthetics, a critical text using the novel framework, defined by its tone rather than any sort of plot. The premise is visible right on the surface, being that the inventions of artifice from the minds of men are superior to the creations of the natural world. The themes of indulgence and excess here are of the same mold found in writings by other Symbolists such as Baudelaire, whose poems are praised by Huysmans' protagonist. The way in which they are presented here, however, will not be easy to digest for most.
    • 4/5
      I picked out this book in the bookstore because of it's intriguing cover. Something about the expression of the man's face seemed lost and almost crazed. The novel did not disappoint me, and in Des Esseintes, Huysman's created a character who remains agonizingly out of reach. The descriptions throughout are magnificent, (a sort of exciting Dickens), and I found the protagonist at all times lovable and nauseating. The novel is beautifully crafted, but simultaneously seems to be teetering on the edge of total collapse and disintegration. That it doesn't is all part of its peculiar charm.
    • 4/5
      wow. a journey within a confined space. effete tastes refined beyond any pallet... a nutshell of infinite space. but allergic to nuts.
    • 5/5
      I am a great fan of Huysmans, esoteric, mystic and hysteric that he was. In the closing years of the 19th century, fin-de-siecle literature was desperately trying to break free of naturalist modes, championed by its giant and erstwhile tutor of the young Huysmans, Emile Zola. Not possessing the virile protestant work ethic of his mentor, Huysmans wrote in starts and fits, "hysterically" one might say, and after dabbling in naturalism began pining for something more obscure, and more blatantly mystic and manichean. This is his opening salvo, and the decadent movement's overture against naturalism, an unapologetic rejection of the "real" world to turn, reclusively, towards the artificial and the arcane. Truly bizarre, this book is full of wonderful allusions to obscure artworks of all kinds and, not unintentionally in my opinion, will leave you dizzy if not nauseated by its irrepressible lists, cataloging the obsessional tastes of its immortal hero and dandy, des Esseintes.
    • 2/5
      Though dry and dragging, this is an interesting book to be at least familiar with. It is a quintessential depiction of the fin de siecle and the degenerate mode of literature.
    • 5/5
      grows better with age
    • 4/5
      A dandy retreats from society to ensconce himself in his lair of books, perfumes, flowers, art, etc. An amusing and entertaining read.

      You can skim any parts you find dull, but Huysmans is a skilled enough writer that reading the protagonist's opinions about obscure Latin authors somehow became enjoyable.

      In some ways a forerunner to American Psycho.
    • 3/5
      I was really enjoying this book - the protagonist's fussy, over-educated langour, his decadent dismissals of classical literature, the sumptuous textures of the setting - until the bit about the jeweled turtle. And I thought I was unshockable!
    • 3/5
      A total roll through the senses. At times the book was hilarious, sensual and fascinating.
    • 4/5
      At the end of the nineteenth century a young, decadent aristocrat indulges himself in multiple forms of depravity. Reading this made me feel like what I imagine opium dreams must be like.

    Book preview

    Against the Grain - Joris-Karl Huysmans

    978-963-522-161-5

    Chapter 1

    The Floressas Des Esseintes, to judge by the various portraits preserved in the Château de Lourps, had originally been a family of stalwart troopers and stern cavalry men. Closely arrayed, side by side, in the old frames which their broad shoulders filled, they startled one with the fixed gaze of their eyes, their fierce moustaches and the chests whose deep curves filled the enormous shells of their cuirasses.

    These were the ancestors. There were no portraits of their descendants and a wide breach existed in the series of the faces of this race. Only one painting served as a link to connect the past and present—a crafty, mysterious head with haggard and gaunt features, cheekbones punctuated with a comma of paint, the hair overspread with pearls, a painted neck rising stiffly from the fluted ruff.

    In this representation of one of the most intimate friends of the Duc d'Epernon and the Marquis d'O, the ravages of a sluggish and impoverished constitution were already noticeable.

    It was obvious that the decadence of this family had followed an unvarying course. The effemination of the males had continued with quickened tempo. As if to conclude the work of long years, the Des Esseintes had intermarried for two centuries, using up, in such consanguineous unions, such strength as remained.

    There was only one living scion of this family which had once been so numerous that it had occupied all the territories of the Ile-de-France and La Brie. The Duc Jean was a slender, nervous young man of thirty, with hollow cheeks, cold, steel-blue eyes, a straight, thin nose and delicate hands.

    By a singular, atavistic reversion, the last descendant resembled the old grandsire, from whom he had inherited the pointed, remarkably fair beard and an ambiguous expression, at once weary and cunning.

    His childhood had been an unhappy one. Menaced with scrofula and afflicted with relentless fevers, he yet succeeded in crossing the breakers of adolescence, thanks to fresh air and careful attention. He grew stronger, overcame the languors of chlorosis and reached his full development.

    His mother, a tall, pale, taciturn woman, died of anæmia, and his father of some uncertain malady. Des Esseintes was then seventeen years of age.

    He retained but a vague memory of his parents and felt neither affection nor gratitude for them. He hardly knew his father, who usually resided in Paris. He recalled his mother as she lay motionless in a dim room of the Château de Lourps. The husband and wife would meet on rare occasions, and he remembered those lifeless interviews when his parents sat face to face in front of a round table faintly lit by a lamp with a wide, low-hanging shade, for the duchesse could not endure light or sound without being seized with a fit of nervousness. A few, halting words would be exchanged between them in the gloom and then the indifferent duc would depart to meet the first train back to Paris.

    Jean's life at the Jesuit school, where he was sent to study, was more pleasant. At first the Fathers pampered the lad whose intelligence astonished them. But despite their efforts, they could not induce him to concentrate on studies requiring discipline. He nibbled at various books and was precociously brilliant in Latin. On the contrary, he was absolutely incapable of construing two Greek words, showed no aptitude for living languages and promptly proved himself a dunce when obliged to master the elements of the sciences.

    His family gave him little heed. Sometimes his father visited him at school. How are you … be good … study hard … —and he was gone. The lad passed the summer vacations at the Château de Lourps, but his presence could not seduce his mother from her reveries. She scarcely noticed him; when she did, her gaze would rest on him for a moment with a sad smile—and that was all. The moment after she would again become absorbed in the artificial night with which the heavily curtained windows enshrouded the room.

    The servants were old and dull. Left to himself, the boy delved into books on rainy days and roamed about the countryside on pleasant afternoons.

    It was his supreme delight to wander down the little valley to Jutigny, a village planted at the foot of the hills, a tiny heap of cottages capped with thatch strewn with tufts of sengreen and clumps of moss. In the open fields, under the shadow of high ricks, he would lie, listening to the hollow splashing of the mills and inhaling the fresh breeze from Voulzie. Sometimes he went as far as the peat-bogs, to the green and black hamlet of Longueville, or climbed wind-swept hillsides affording magnificent views. There, below to one side, as far as the eye could reach, lay the Seine valley, blending in the distance with the blue sky; high up, near the horizon, on the other side, rose the churches and tower of Provins which seemed to tremble in the golden dust of the air.

    Immersed in solitude, he would dream or read far into the night. By protracted contemplation of the same thoughts, his mind grew sharp, his vague, undeveloped ideas took on form. After each vacation, Jean returned to his masters more reflective and headstrong. These changes did not escape them. Subtle and observant, accustomed by their profession to plumb souls to their depths, they were fully aware of his unresponsiveness to their teachings. They knew that this student would never contribute to the glory of their order, and as his family was rich and apparently careless of his future, they soon renounced the idea of having him take up any of the professions their school offered. Although he willingly discussed with them those theological doctrines which intrigued his fancy by their subtleties and hair-splittings, they did not even think of training him for the religious orders, since, in spite of their efforts, his faith remained languid. As a last resort, through prudence and fear of the harm he might effect, they permitted him to pursue whatever studies pleased him and to neglect the others, being loath to antagonize this bold and independent spirit by the quibblings of the lay school assistants.

    Thus he lived in perfect contentment, scarcely feeling the parental yoke of the priests. He continued his Latin and French studies when the whim seized him and, although theology did not figure in his schedule, he finished his apprenticeship in this science, begun at the Château de Lourps, in the library bequeathed by his grand-uncle, Dom Prosper, the old prior of the regular canons of Saint-Ruf.

    But soon the time came when he must quit the Jesuit institution. He attained his majority and became master of his fortune. The Comte de Montchevrel, his cousin and guardian, placed in his hands the title to his wealth. There was no intimacy between them, for there was no possible point of contact between these two men, the one young, the other old. Impelled by curiosity, idleness or politeness, Des Esseintes sometimes visited the Montchevrel family and spent some dull evenings in their Rue de la Chaise mansion where the ladies, old as antiquity itself, would gossip of quarterings of the noble arms, heraldic moons and anachronistic ceremonies.

    The men, gathered around whist tables, proved even more shallow and insignificant than the dowagers; these descendants of ancient, courageous knights, these last branches of feudal races, appeared to Des Esseintes as catarrhal, crazy, old men repeating inanities and time-worn phrases. A fleur de lis seemed the sole imprint on the soft pap of their brains.

    The youth felt an unutterable pity for these mummies buried in their elaborate hypogeums of wainscoting and grotto work, for these tedious triflers whose eyes were forever turned towards a hazy Canaan, an imaginary Palestine.

    After a few visits with such relatives, he resolved never again to set foot in their homes, regardless of invitations or reproaches.

    Then he began to seek out the young men of his own age and set.

    One group, educated like himself in religious institutions, preserved the special marks of this training. They attended religious services, received the sacrament on Easter, frequented the Catholic circles and concealed as criminal their amorous escapades. For the most part, they were unintelligent, acquiescent fops, stupid bores who had tried the patience of their professors. Yet these professors were pleased to have bestowed such docile, pious creatures upon society.

    The other group, educated in the state colleges or in the lycées, were less hypocritical and much more courageous, but they were neither more interesting nor less bigoted. Gay young men dazzled by operettas and races, they played lansquenet and baccarat, staked large fortunes on horses and cards, and cultivated all the pleasures enchanting to brainless fools. After a year's experience, Des Esseintes felt an overpowering weariness of this company whose debaucheries seemed to him so unrefined, facile and indiscriminate without any ardent reactions or excitement of nerves and blood.

    He gradually forsook them to make the acquaintance of literary men, in whom he thought he might find more interest and feel more at ease. This, too, proved disappointing; he was revolted by their rancorous and petty judgments, their conversation as obvious as a church door, their dreary discussions in which they judged the value of a book by the number of editions it had passed and by the profits acquired. At the same time, he noticed that the free thinkers, the doctrinaires of the bourgeoisie, people who claimed every liberty that they might stifle the opinions of others, were greedy and shameless puritans whom, in education, he esteemed inferior to the corner shoemaker.

    His contempt for humanity deepened. He reached the conclusion that the world, for the most part, was composed of scoundrels and imbeciles. Certainly, he could not hope to discover in others aspirations and aversions similar to his own, could not expect companionship with an intelligence exulting in a studious decrepitude, nor anticipate meeting a mind as keen as his among the writers and scholars.

    Irritated, ill at ease and offended by the poverty of ideas given and received, he became like those people described by Nicole—those who are always melancholy. He would fly into a rage when he read the patriotic and social balderdash retailed daily in the newspapers, and would exaggerate the significance of the plaudits which a sovereign public always reserves for works deficient in ideas and style.

    Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity.

    A single passion, woman, might have curbed his contempt, but that, too, had palled on him. He had taken to carnal repasts with the eagerness of a crotchety man affected with a depraved appetite and given to sudden hungers, whose taste is quickly dulled and surfeited. Associating with country squires, he had taken part in their lavish suppers where, at dessert, tipsy women would unfasten their clothing and strike their heads against the tables; he had haunted the green rooms, loved actresses and singers, endured, in addition to the natural stupidity he had come to expect of women, the maddening vanity of female strolling players. Finally, satiated and weary of this monotonous extravagance and the sameness of their caresses, he had plunged into the foul depths, hoping by the contrast of squalid misery to revive his desires and stimulate his deadened senses.

    Whatever he attempted proved vain; an unconquerable ennui oppressed him. Yet he persisted in his excesses and returned to the perilous embraces of accomplished mistresses. But his health failed, his nervous system collapsed, the back of his neck grew sensitive, his hand, still firm when it seized a heavy object, trembled when it held a tiny glass.

    The physicians whom he consulted frightened him. It was high time to check his excesses and renounce those pursuits which were dissipating his reserve of strength! For a while he was at peace, but his brain soon became over-excited. Like those young girls who, in the grip of puberty, crave coarse and vile foods, he dreamed of and practiced perverse loves and pleasures. This was the end! As though satisfied with having exhausted everything, as though completely surrendering to fatigue, his senses fell into a lethargy and impotence threatened him.

    He recovered, but he was lonely, tired, sobered, imploring an end to his life which the cowardice of his flesh prevented him from consummating.

    Once more he was toying with the idea of becoming a recluse, of living in some hushed retreat where the turmoil of life would be muffled—as in those streets covered with straw to prevent any sound from reaching invalids.

    It was time to make up his mind. The condition of his finances terrified him. He had spent, in acts of folly and in drinking bouts, the greater part of his patrimony, and the remainder, invested in land, produced a ridiculously small income.

    He decided to sell the Château de Lourps, which he no longer visited and where he left no memory or regret behind. He liquidated his other holdings, bought government bonds and in this way drew an annual interest of fifty thousand francs; in addition, he reserved a sum of money which he meant to use in buying and furnishing the house where he proposed to enjoy a perfect repose.

    Exploring the suburbs of the capital, he found a place for sale at the top of Fontenay-aux-Roses, in a secluded section near the fort, far from any neighbors. His dream was realized! In this country place so little violated by Parisians, he could be certain of seclusion. The difficulty of reaching the place, due to an unreliable railroad passing by at the end of the town, and to the little street cars which came and went at irregular intervals, reassured him. He could picture himself alone on the bluff, sufficiently far away to prevent the Parisian throngs from reaching him, and yet near enough to the capital to confirm him in his solitude. And he felt that in not entirely closing the way, there was a chance that he would not be assailed by a wish to return to society, seeing that it is only the impossible, the unachievable that arouses desire.

    He put masons to work on the house he had acquired. Then, one day, informing no one of his plans, he quickly disposed of his old furniture, dismissed his servants, and left without giving the concierge any address.

    Chapter 2

    More than two months passed before Des Esseintes could bury himself in the silent repose of his Fontenay abode. He was obliged to go to Paris again, to comb the city in his search for the things he wanted to buy.

    What care he took, what meditations he surrendered himself to, before turning over his house to the upholsterers!

    He had long been a connoisseur in the sincerities and evasions of color-tones. In the days when he had entertained women at his home, he had created a boudoir where, amid daintily carved furniture of pale, Japanese camphor-wood, under a sort of pavillion of Indian rose-tinted satin, the flesh would color delicately in the borrowed lights of the silken hangings.

    This room, each of whose sides was lined with mirrors that echoed each other all along the walls, reflecting, as far as the eye could reach, whole series of rose boudoirs, had been celebrated among the women who loved to immerse their nudity in this bath of warm carnation, made fragrant with the odor of mint emanating from the exotic wood of the furniture.

    Aside from the sensual delights for which he had designed this chamber, this painted atmosphere which gave new color to faces grown dull and withered by the use of ceruse and by nights of dissipation, there were other, more personal and perverse pleasures which he enjoyed in these languorous surroundings,—pleasures which in some way stimulated memories of his past pains and dead ennuis.

    As a souvenir of the hated days of his childhood, he had suspended from the ceiling a small silver-wired cage where a captive cricket sang as if in the ashes of the chimneys of the Château de Lourps. Listening to the sound he had so often heard before, he lived over again the silent evenings spent near his mother, the wretchedness of his suffering, repressed youth. And then, while he yielded to the voluptuousness of the woman he mechanically caressed, whose words or laughter tore him from his revery and rudely recalled him to the moment, to the boudoir, to reality, a tumult arose in his soul, a need of avenging the sad years he had endured, a mad wish to sully the recollections of his family by shameful action, a furious desire to pant on cushions of flesh, to drain to their last dregs the most violent of carnal vices.

    On rainy autumnal days when melancholy oppressed him, when a hatred of his home, the muddy yellow skies, the macadam clouds assailed him, he took refuge in this retreat, set the cage lightly in motion and watched it endlessly reflected in the play of the mirrors, until it seemed to his dazed eyes that the cage no longer stirred, but that the boudoir reeled and turned, filling the house with a rose-colored waltz.

    In the days when he had deemed it necessary to affect singularity, Des Esseintes had designed marvelously strange furnishings, dividing his salon into a series of alcoves hung with varied tapestries to relate by a subtle analogy, by a vague harmony of joyous or sombre, delicate or barbaric colors to the character of the Latin or French books he loved. And he would seclude himself in turn in the particular recess whose décor seemed best to correspond with the very essence of

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