Des esseintes wants to experience life in measured and verifiable doses, and he. The project gutenberg ebook of a rebours, by joriskarl huysmans this ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the united states and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. In both its style and its subject, the work epitomizes the decadence of late 19thcentury french elite culture. Landow created the html design and formatted the text, adding french accents. Des esseintes is a neurasthenic aristocrat who has turned his back on the vulgarity of modern life and retreated to an isolated country villa, where he pursu. Antihero jean des esseintes despises the bourgeois society he lives in and withdraws. Huysmans famous novel a rebours, the duc des esseintes is a wealthy, decadent french nobleman who loves imagining voyages to foreign lands after becoming enamored with dutch painting, he travels to holland, but becomes disappointed when he realizes that the images he saw in art were merely mixed with other elements of the land. The shock caused by a drastic change of social habits, comparable, in terms of social impact, to the contemporary hyperconnection.
Project gutenberg statement note that the six paragraphs following the phrase monotonous coquetry disgusting him. A rebours available for download and read online in other formats. Nature, calls it, is also exceptional because he believes this total deliquescence. After a lifetime of parisian decadence, and out of a. Colin wilsons suggestion may merely tell us more about colin wilson than what would have undoubtedly pleased huysmans. A rebours, against the grain or against nature in english, is an 1884 novel by joriskarl huysmans. As des esseintes hides away in his museum of high taste, huysman offers the reader a treasury of cultural delights and. This upperclass antihero is an aesthete who loath his contemporaries and lives retreated in his once splendid and rich home, where he collects objects of art. The character of duc des esseintes in the art of travel. Apr 25, 2020 against nature a rebours refresh and try again.
We suggest that readers not undertake this book until they have attained the age of 65. Jean des esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. This is the earliest edition the british library holds of a rebours, a novel published by the french writer and civil servant joriskarl huysmans in 1884 what does the title mean. A rebours is a novel by a french writer translated. Des esseintes is a decadent, ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where her indulges his taste for luxury and excess. Dec 31, 2016 the protagonist of joriskarl huysmans a rebours against nature, in my translation, though the original title has a wider connotation. It was also translated into english as against nature. All the novel is concentrate in one eccentric character and its inner life. Esseintes a beau avoir quitte le monde, il en est obsede. After becoming enamored with dutch painting, he travels to holland, but becomes disappointed when he realizes that the images he saw in art were merely mixed with other elements of the landscape. The book became a central work in the decadent movement, as described by arthur symons.
About against nature a rebours the infamous inspiration for the novel which slowly corrupts oscar wildes dorian gray is translated by robert baldick with an introduction by patrick mcguinness in penguin classics. Either translated as against nature or against the grain, the title refers to the central process of the book, in which an aristocrat, des esseintes, completely withdraws himself from society to immerse himself in concentrated sensations in private. Huysmans thats des esseintes for you, speaking of a boychild he had granted three months of biweekly brothel visits to, for no other reason but a sudden whim to conduct a viciously abhorrent sort of social experiment. As the book that supposedly corrupts dorian gray, a rebours is usually read as a novel in which life imitates art, but it might also. Huysmans against the grain a rebours is a relatively simple story.
Aug 02, 2011 a rebours is a novel by a french writer translated. The last scion of an aristocratic family, des esseintes loathes nineteenth century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal. Gratis joris karl huysmans a rebours pdf piu popolare. 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. Scaricare a rebours libri pdf gratis di joriskarl huysmans. Against the grain, or a rebours, was written by joris huysmans in 1884, and it tells the story of a young duke named jean des esseintes who indulges in a life of debauchery in paris but suffers. Scaricare a rebours libri pdf gratis by joriskarl huysmans download link. It scarcely admittedin theory at leastany exceptions huysmzns the rule. Against nature fell like a meteorite into the literary fairground and there was astonishment and fury huysmans, preface to against nature. It concerns the seclusion of des esseintes, the last member of a once powerful and noble family. Resisting the traditional model of nineteenthcentury fiction, joriskarl huysman produced in 1884 a novel unlike any other of his time. Des esseintes perfumes fromagainstthegrainrebours byj. Without being able to explain the reason, des esseintes awoke quite strong and well one fine morning.
Les meilleures photo ruisseauarebours des internautes. Huysmans 1884 1 more than two months slipped by before the time came when des esseintes found it feasible to immerse himself definitely in the peace and silence of his house at fontenay. Either translated as against nature or against the grain, the title refers to the central process of the book, in which an aristocrat, des esseintes, completely withdraws himself from. Des esseintes would gladly have accepted the tedious nonsense which those marionettes exchange with each other offstage. Portraits of the artist from baudelaire to des esseintes taylor. Huysmanss biographer, baldick, echoes the earliest critics of a rebours in his assessment.
First published in 1884, a rebours against the grain by the french. It was also translated into english as against nature in both its style and its subject, the work epitomizes the decadence of late 19thcentury french elite culture. The character of duc des esseintes in the art of travel from. Antihero jean des esseintes despises the bourgeois society he lives in and withdraws into the aesthetic and artistic ideals that he has created. Against the grain, novel by joriskarl huysmans, published in french as a rebours in 1884. The project gutenberg ebook of against the grain, by joriskarl. Artifice against nature one consequence of des es lifestyle is that, the more he discriminates, the more he moves away from other people, until eventually he lives an almost hermitlike existence on the outskirts of paris, surrounded only by the objets of his own. His description was not a model to be emulated or celebrated. The project gutenberg ebook of a rebours, by joriskarl.
Nov 05, 2019 unfortunately, several chapters are devoted to enumerating the various works of art and sensory stimuli that lead des esseintes huyzmans the novels only character through his passionate aesthetic reactions which can leave an ignorant reader like myself altogether unstimulated. A rebours is wrong way, which huysmans described in his novel. A rebours by joriskarl huysmans 1884 the bestknown example of findesiecle decadence, this novel has been banned and expurgated for years. A wildly original findesiecle novel, against nature contains only one character. Rebours, the novel by joriskarl huysmans from 1884, as a critique of public urban life on the one hand, and as an experiment in private life on the other hand. This web version of john howards translation of joriskarl huysmanss a rebours, whose title is rendered both against the grain and against nature, uses the project gutenberg ascii text produced by harrison ainsworth release date. Against nature joriskarl huysmans oxford university press. Charlesmariegeorges huysmans was a french novelist who published his works as j. The project gutenberg ebook of a rebours, by joriskarl huysmans. The project gutenberg ebook of against the grain, by joris.
Decadent novel a rebours, or, against nature the british. A rebours 1884 is a novel by the french writer joriskarl huysmans. Aug 06, 2019 joriskarl huysmans a rebours pdf the infamous inspiration for the novel which slowly corrupts oscar wildes dorian gray is translated by robert baldick with an introduction by. Des esseintes trip is normally seen as a classic example of aestheticism, just one example of many where the selfobsessed hero values sensation over the real. Huysmans 1884 chapter ten in the course of that sickness which plays such havoc with surges of exhausted vitality, sudden intervals of calm succeed the crises. The thing he could not forgive, however, and which infuriated him most, was the. Des esseintes is the false iconoclast, the man who is obsessed with being different for its own sake, but who does not know himself. As brilliant nietzsche scholar rick roderick pointed out. That is the trap into which des esseintes falls in huysmans experimental novel, called a rebours in the french, variously translated in english as against the grain or against nature. The hero of this book, jean des esseintes, is the aaginst of a line of distinguished aristocrats. Against the grain a rebours by joriskarl huysmans 1884 the bestknown example of findesiecle decadence, this novel has been banned and expurgated for years. A beginners guide to better understand their amazon fire phone fire phone, fire phone books, fire. The protagonist, and actually the only character worth mentioning, is duc jean des esseintes, a thirtyyear old child of. The floressas des esseintes, to judge by the various portraits preserved in.
The last scion of an aristocratic family, des esseintes loathes nineteenth century. A translation by robert baldick against nature in the penguin series is convenient to read and widely. Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with cla. Most of the time, and quite famously so, a rebours is regarded as the bible of decadence, as the biography of a highly sensitive and somewhat effeminate and probably homosexual character that can no longer stand the sensory impulses of urban life.
Such is the enticing epigraph of one early translation of huysmans cult novel of 1884, which is also routinely called the bible of decadence. As des esseintes hides away in his museum of high taste, huysman offers the reader a treasury of cultural delights and anticipates many aspects of twentieth century modernism. Librivox recording of against the grain, or against nature, by joriskarl huysmans, read by martin geeson. Bewildered, des esseintes looked on and listened to the cacophonous sounds of the names. Jan 10, 2020 huysman against nature pdf against nature by joriskarl huysmans is a novel in which very little happens. A rebours translated into english as against nature or against the. The protagonist, des esseintes, exhibits the debilitating symptoms of neurasthenia, a generalized psychosomatic disorder that came into.
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