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Title: Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans, Robert Baldick ISBN: 0-14-044086-0 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: May, 1959 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.88 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Damn right.
Comment: Against Nature utterly captivated me. Never before had I read a novel that dared throw any and all narrative convention to the winds with such mad abandon. Huysmans himself thought the public would have no interest in it, and to be perfectly honest, I can't for the life of me see why he wasn't absolutely correct. And yet, for some reason, I just couldn't get enough. Chapters that do nothing more than expound upon Des Esseintes's favorite painters or Latin writers amount to little more than reader abuse, but I found them endlessly fascinating regardless. No doubt part of this was nothing more than shocked delight at the sheer perversity of the little experiment, but I don't think my interest was entirely predicated on novelty--Huysmans is actually quite a good writer (I read the Penguin edition, as translated by Robert Baldick, for what its worth), and Des Esseintes's whims, desires, and recollections are often so extravagantly bizarre as to be quite funny. And then, of course, there's the 'plants' chapter, which is quite probably the most grotesque and macabre thing I've ever read. It's a bit of a shame that it's stuck right in the middle of the book, as it does make the subsequent material seem a bit anticlimactic, but then again, if Huysmans had any sort of regard for narrative structure, he wouldn't have written this diabolical piece of work in the first place. If Zola was Pink Floyd, Huysmans was the Sex Pistols. You need to read Against Nature.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best edition of decadent classic
Comment: Assuming that this "Viking" edition is in fact the Penguin edition or some relation, this is by far the preferred edition of Huysmans' strange masterwork. The translation by Robert Baldick, Huysmans' most trustworthy biographer, is not only NOT slightly censored like the earlier English one reprinted by Dover... it's also a much livelier read. Which is important because, after all, there's not much of a conventional plot here; the story such as it is depicts the gradual enervation of a decadent aristocrat as he exhausts the pleasure to be found in every pleasure he can think of.
Huysmans was literature's great complainer, capable of finding the misery and ennui in any situation-- even bachelorhood in late 19th century Paris. And while the book is regarded mainly as a manual for decadent living (Dorian Gray kept it by his bed), full of recherche and recondite indulgences, Huysmans' depiction of the unending quest for novelty and sensation is also drolly funny at times-- as in the scene in which an impotent des Esseintes takes up with a ventriloquist in the hopes that she can get a rise out of him by impersonating her own husband threatening violence outside the door while they copulate
Rating: 3
Summary: Against Nature
Comment: Against Nature is a book that deserves its own category. The book touches upon issues and conflicts that all intelectuals (both young and mature) face. The book is well written and is a great complement to someone that is experimenting with decadent type literature. I highly recommend this book. I also recommend that you check out some of the literature that the author recommends in the book, both the ones he praises and the ones he detests. In addition this book is what kept Dorian Gray up and knowing this linkage gave this book a great reputation. In addition one should remember the authenticity of this book as the other never expected it to do well, one could see why after reading it.
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Title: The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy, and Perversion from Fin-de-Siècle France by Asti Hustvedt ISBN: 1890951072 Publisher: Zone Books Pub. Date: 18 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $34.00 |
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Title: The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau, Alvah C. Bessie ISBN: 0965104265 Publisher: Juno Books Pub. Date: 31 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: The Masterpiece (Oxford World's Classics) by Emile Zola, Thomas Walton, Roger Pearson ISBN: 0192839632 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Bel-Ami by Guy De Maupassant, Douglas Parmee ISBN: 0140443150 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: November, 1975 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Maldoror and the Complete Works by Lautreamont, Alexis Lykiard, Comte De Lautreamont, Lautreamont Chants De Maldoror, Lautreamont Poesies, Conte de Lautreamont, Comte De Lautreamont ISBN: 187897212X Publisher: Exact Change Pub. Date: July, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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