À rebours
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À rebours (translated into English as Against the Grain or Against Nature) (1884) is a novel by the French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans. It is a novel in which very little happens; its narrative concentrates almost entirely on its principal character, and is mostly a catalogue of the tastes and inner life of Des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive aesthete and antihero.
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[edit] Plot introduction
À rebours contained many themes which became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic, and Des Esseintes became the emblem of Europe's disaffected male youth suffering from mal du siècle.
In doing so, it broke from naturalism and became the ultimate example of "decadent" literature. À rebours was imitated by Oscar Wilde in several passages of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian reads an untitled book, which has a profound effect on his worldview, inspiring him to indulge in excess. Wilde wrote that his idea for the French novel was based on À rebours. It gained further notoriety as an exhibit during Wilde's trial in 1895, during which the prosecutor referred to the novel as a "sodomitical" book.
It is sometimes regarded as one of the most profound works in the history of decadent literature, especially because it successfully transcended the definition of Romanticism into Decadence.
[edit] Plot summary
Though the book is widely believed to have no structure whatsoever, it does tell a relatively simple story. Des Esseintes is the last member of a powerful and once proud noble family. He has lived an extremely decadent life in Paris which has left him disgusted with human society. Without telling anyone, he absconds to a small house in the countryside.
He fills the house with his eclectic art collection (which notably consists of reprints of paintings of Gustave Moreau). Drawing from the theme of Gustave Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet, Des Esseintes decides to spend the rest of his life in intellectual and aesthetic contemplation. Throughout his intellectual experiments, he recalls various debauched events and love affairs of his past in Paris.
He conducts a survey of French and Latin literature, finding little that pleases him. The works of Stéphane Mallarmé (who was then virtually unknown) are a notable exception . He studies Moreau's paintings, he tries his hand at inventing perfumes, he creates a garden of poisonous flowers. In one of the book's most surreal episodes, he has gemstones set in the shell of a tortoise. The extra weight on the creature's back causes its death. In one of the book's more comic episodes, he spontaneously decides to visit London. When he reaches the train station, he overhears some English visitors, whom he finds disgusting. Feeling that he now knows what London would be like, he immediately returns home.
Eventually, his late nights and idiosyncratic diet take their toll on his health, requiring him to return to Paris or to forfeit his life. In the last lines of the book, he compares his return to human society to that of a nonbeliever trying to embrace religion.
[edit] Influence
It is widely believed that À rebours is the "poisonous French novel" that leads to the downfall of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. The book's plot is said to have dominated the action of Dorian, causing him to live an amoral life of sin and hedonism. Although his reputation somehow remains untarnished (perhaps due to his charm and looks), the reputations of his "friends" seem to turn to dust as soon as he touches them.
The novel is thought to have been an influence on H. P. Lovecraft, particularly on his stories "The Hound" and "The Silver Key".
À rebours is also a song by the band Babyshambles (frontman Pete Doherty) on the debut album Down in Albion.
À rebours is also a band, taking their name from this novel. À rebours
Towards the end of the film Withnail and I, Marwood packs a copy of the novel as he's preparing to leave Withnail's flat.
[edit] External links
- Original French text of À rebours
- Against The Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans, Project Gutenberg ebook in English (omits a chapter in which Des Esseintes tries to start a young man on a life of crime, and a passage describing implied homosexuality)
