“Des Esseintes needs to get a Pinterest or something, Jesus.”
—skabritches
Barbaric in its profusion, violent in its emphasis, wearying in its splendor, it is - especially in regard to things seen - extraordinarily expressive, with all the shades of a painter’s palette. Elaborately and deliberately perverse, it is in its very perversity that Huysmans’ work - so fascinating, so repellent, so instinctively artificial - comes to represent, as the work of no other writer can be said to do, the main tendencies, the chief results, of the Decadent movement in literature.
Arthur Symons, The Decadent Movement in Literature
“Dans l'odeur perverse des parfums, dans l'atmosphère surchauffée de cette église, Salomé, le bras gauche étendu, en un geste de commandement, le bras droit replié, tenant à la hauteur du visage, un grand lotus, s'avance lentement sur les pointes, aux accords d'une guitare dont une femme accroupie pince les cordes. La face recueillie, solennelle, presque auguste, elle commence la lubrique danse qui doit réveiller les sens assoupis du vieil Hérode; ses seins ondulent et, au frottement de ses colliers qui tourbillonnent, leurs bouts se dressent; sur la moiteur de sa peau les diamants, attachés, scintillent; ses bracelets, ses ceintures, ses bagues, crachent des étincelles; sur sa robe triomphale, couturée de perles, ramagée d'argent, lamée d'or, la cuirasse des orfèvreries dont chaque maille est une pierre, entre en combustion, croise des serpenteaux de feu, grouille sur la chair mate, sur la peau rose thé, ainsi que des insectes splendides aux élytres éblouissants, marbrés de carmin, ponctués de jaune aurore, diaprés de bleu d'acier, tigrés de vert paon.”
—A rebours, Joris-Karl Huysmans.To realise how faithfully and how completely Huysmans has revealed himself in all he has written, it is necessary to know the man. “He gave me the impression of a cat,” some interviewer once wrote of him; “courteous, perfectly polite, almost amiable, but all nerves, ready to shoot out his claws at the least word.” And indeed, there is something of his favourite animal about him. The face is grey, wearily alert, with a look of benevolent malice. At first sight it is commonplace, the features are ordinary, one seems to have seen it at the Bourse or the Stock Exchange. But gradually that strange, unvarying expression, that look of benevolent malice, grows upon you as the influence of the man makes itself felt. I have seen Huysmans in his office—he is an employe in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a model employe; I have seen him in a cafe, in various houses; but I always see him in memory as I used to see him at the house of the bizarre Madame X. He leans back on the sofa, rolling a cigarette between his thin, expressive fingers, looking at no one and at nothing, while Madame X moves about with solid vivacity in the midst of her extraordinary menagerie of bric-a-brac. The spoils of all the world are there, in that incredibly tiny salon; they lie underfoot, they climb up walls, they cling to screens, brackets, and tables; one of your elbows menaces a Japanese toy, the other a Dresden china shepherdess; all the colours of the rainbow clash in a barbaric discord of notes. And in a corner of this fantastic room, Huysmans lies back indifferently on the sofa, with the air of one perfectly resigned to the boredom of life.
Something is said by my learned friend who is to write for the new periodical, or perhaps it is the young editor of the new periodical who speaks, or (if that were not impossible) the taciturn Englishman who accompanies me; and Huysmans, without looking up, and without taking the trouble to speak very distinctly, picks up the phrase, transforms it, more likely transpierces it, in a perfectly turned sentence, a phrase of impromptu elaboration. Perhaps it is only a stupid book that some one has mentioned, or a stupid woman; as he speaks, the book looms up before one, becomes monstrous in its dulness, a masterpiece and miracle of imbecility; the unimportant little woman grows into a slow horror before your eyes. It is always the unpleasant aspect of things that he seizes, but the intensity of his revolt from that unpleasantness brings a touch of the sublime into the very expression of his disgust. Every sentence is an epigram, and every epigram slaughters a reputation or an idea. He speaks with an accent as of pained surprise, an amused look of contempt, so profound that it becomes almost pity, for human inbecilitity.
The Symbolist Movement in Literature, Arthur Symons
“La porte s'ouvrit brusquement; dans le lointain, encadrés par le chambranle, des hommes coiffés d'un lampion, avec des joues rasées et une mouche sous la lèvre, parurent, maniant des caisses et charriant des meubles, puis la porte se referma sur le domestique qui emportait des paquets de livres. Des Esseintes tomba, accablé, sur une chaise. - Dans deux jours, je serai à Paris; allons, fit-il, tout est bien fini; comme un raz de marée, les vagues de la médiocrité humaine montent jusqu'au ciel et elles vont engloutir le refuge dont j'ouvre, malgré moi, les digues. Ah ! le courage me fait défaut et le coeur me lève ! - Seigneur, prenez pitié du chrétien qui doute, de l'incrédule qui voudrait croire, du forçat de la vie qui s'embarque seul, dans la nuit, sous un firmament que n'éclairent plus les consolants fanaux du vieil espoir !”
—A rebours, Joris-Karl Huysmans.
Un acceso de ira barrió como un huracán sus tentativas de resignación. No podía cerrar los ojos a la evidencia de que no quedaba nada, todo estaba derruido. […]
¿Acaso este inmundo fango seguiría extendiéndose hasta cubrir con su pestilencia este viejo mundo, en donde sólo brotaban las semillas de la iniquidad, las mieses del oprobio?
[…]
-Dentro de dos días estaré en París -se dijo -Todo ha terminado. Como un maremoto, las olas de mediocridad humana que se elevan hasta el cielo, cubrirán este refugio del cual, muy a mi pesar, abro las puertas. ¡Ah! ¡Siento que me falta valor! Elevo mi corazón a ti, Señor. ¡Ten piedad de un cristiano que duda, de un incrédulo que querría creer, de este galeote de la existencia que, en la noche, solo, se hace a la mar, bajo un firmamento que ya no iluminan los faros consoladores de la antigua esperanza!
À rebours is very very strange.
I love it, I am deeply passionately in love with it. But I’m on the 3rd chapter and I’d say its 1% plot, 4% referencing other books and 95% descriptions of furnishings.
It’s very… rich. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to read it all in one go or if it’ll be one for dipping in and out of, but either way it’s interesting.
Pero cuanto más la anhelaba, en menor medida se colmaba el vacío de su espíritu y más, aún más, se demoraba la visita de Cristo. A medida que su ansia de religión aumentaba, y que anhelaba con todas sus fuerzas, como tributo pagado al futuro y como subvención para su nueva vida, esta fe que ahora adivinaba, aunque la distancia que lo separaba de ella le infundía pavor, sombrías ideas y dudas se apretujaban en su mente febril, llevándole a rechazar mediante argumentos, basados en el sentido común o en demostraciones científicas, los misterios y dogmas de la Iglesia.
