Against Nature (Á Rebours)Against Nature is Huysmans's great fin-de-sicle novel anticipating many strains of modernism in its appreciation of Baudelaire, Moreau, Redon, Mallarm and Poe. A novel like no other, it features a hero, des Esseintes, a neurasthenic aristocrat who has turned his back on the vulgarity of modern life and retreated to an isolated country villa. Here, accompanied only by two silent servants, he pursues his obsessions with exotic flowers, rare gems, and complex perfumes, embarking on a series of increasingly strange aesthetic experiments, starting with the decision to give his giant pet tortoise a jewel-encrusted shell. |
Contents
Introduction | 9 |
Note on the translation | 26 |
Preface written twenty years afterwards | 237 |
Copyright | |
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amid aroma artificial artist Barbey d'Aurevilly Baudelaire became bishop blue bouquet brain Catholic century charming Château Christian Church cold colour Decadent dining room dreams ecclesiastical Edgar Allan Poe edition Ernest Hello Esseintes Eugénie de Guérin eyes father feeling felt flowers Fontenay France French front glass green Gustave Moreau head Huysmans ideas Jesuits Jutigny L'Assommoir Lacordaire language Latin Latin language Léon Bloy Les Diaboliques light literary literature lived longer Lourps Mallarmé masters memories mind monk mystical Nature neurosis never novel obsessed Odilon Redon odour once painted painter Paris perfumes period Perreyve plants pleasure poem poet priests prose published rebours refined religious Saint seemed sense servant short smell soul stirred stupidity style taste Tertullian things thought tone Tristan Corbière Verlaine verses vulgar Walafrid Strabo window wine woman women writer wrote Zola