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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
Still not a huge fan of long lists. But Des Esseintes as a character study was interesting.
Cartea este excelentă, dar evitați dacă puteți ediția asta scoasă cu ziarul "Cotidianul". E tradusă ca naiba în foarte multe locuri.
I have known for a long, long time that I needed to read this book. When I discovered that the "poisonous little Bible" of Dorian Gray's was a reference to a real text I craved it, but I was also very afraid of it. Part was the fear that it would not be everything that I wanted it to be, everything that the beautiful Chapter 11 of [b:The Picture of Dorian Gray|489732|The Picture of Dorian Gray|Oscar Wilde|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1318163354s/489732.jpg|1858012] describes. Part of it was a fear that I might be bored by it because some reviews I read made it sound pedantic and difficult. And, well, maybe it is those things but it wasn't bad for being those things. Perhaps I read it at the right time, having a Mature & Cultivated Literary Taste thanks to my Degree, and what with focusing my thesis work on this matter. And yet another part of me believes that high-school Micha would have loved this every bit as much. The novel's only character, Des Esseintes, is so misanthropic and fulfils everything I look for in a Decadent protagonist, and his plaintive appeal to the doctor, "But I just don't enjoy the pleasures other people enjoy!" would have struck the same chord in me then as it does now. I found this novel extremely funny in its way and am so glad to have read it (and quite glad that I will continue to work closely with it over the coming months). I don't know who I would recommend it to or if I would do that. Likely you have to come to a work like this of your own choosing entirely. It's not to be thrust upon anyone.
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2,5 stars! I can appreciate what this book was doing and some parts were interesting and had me wanting to read more, but mostly I was incredibly bored by the pages upon pages of rambling about the character's various obsessions, that I understand what it was doing does not change the fact that I had to absolutely force myself to read it most of the time. I do have to say that I enjoy remembering it much more than I ever enjoyed the actual experience of reading it. Thinking of it I ca sort out the parts that I found enjoyable and dwell upon only those. My absolute boredom with the book might also somewhat be blamed on the fact that this was assigned reading for me, so I might have enjoyed it more had I had a bit more time to for it.
I remain firmly on the fence about this particular book. (And partially, I question myself because, once again, I'm not that enamored of a French writer. I just seem to have a hard time connecting with French writers... other than Alexandre Dumas. Maybe Huysmans gets a partial pass -- me being on the fence -- because he's half Dutch???) I wanted to like it more than I actually did like it.
While I appreciate that Huysmans' writing/style/subjects were unorthodox for his time & some of the passages are truly lovely &/or amazingly descriptive, I found other parts to be overly tedious & excessive to the point that I felt like I was plodding though an unwanted school assignment.
Ironically, a passage within À Rebours itself summed up this particular book for me. Des Esseintes (the main character) is going through his bookshelves...
While I appreciate that Huysmans' writing/style/subjects were unorthodox for his time & some of the passages are truly lovely &/or amazingly descriptive, I found other parts to be overly tedious & excessive to the point that I felt like I was plodding though an unwanted school assignment.
Ironically, a passage within À Rebours itself summed up this particular book for me. Des Esseintes (the main character) is going through his bookshelves...
"Of course, Des Esseintes still appreciated the works of these two poets, in the same way that he appreciated rare jewels or precious substances; but none of the variations of these brilliant instrumentalists could now enrapture any more, for none possessed the makings of a dream, none opened up, at least for him, one of those lively vistas that enabled him to speed the weary flight of the hours."
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This work is J.K. Huysmans rant against every thing that defined French culture in the late 1800's. He rails against art, literature, poetry, French cuisine, flowers, women, gambling, youth and young men's pursuits, and the Catholic Church, twice. The first is an attack on sadism. He says, through his character Des Esseintes: "The truth of the matter is that if it (Sadism) did not involve sacrilege,sadism would have no raison d'etre; on the other hand, since sacrilege depends on the existence of a religion, it cannot be deliberately and effectively committed except by a believer, for a man would derive no satisfaction whatever from profaning a faith that was unimportant or unknown to him.
The strength of sadism then lies entirely in the forbidden pleasure of transferring to Satan the homage an prayers that should go to God"
Now, I could say that since the current Protestant practice of many southern churches does the exact same thing. They transfer to the capitalist/Republican system of hate and money
those prayers for God to the god of money, and the Oligarchy that the GOP wishes to establish. This change of god from the God of the Bible to the god of the dollar fits into this category, as defined by
Huysman, as sadism.
When Huysmans goes after Church music his disdain for the modern Church symphonies is truly cast in the following: The fact was that this indulgent attitude, ostensibly intended to attract the faithful and really intended to attract their money." Just as the evangelical churches of the South and the rest of the country have, since Orel Roberts and the rest of the defrocked evangelical clergy, who have no true understanding of scripture, but a huge understanding of using media to sell snake oil disguised as salvation, use Christ to make money. They sell hate as what Christ said, they sell misogyny, bigotry, racism, xenophobia, the gospel of prosperity, and the earth is ours to abuse as the word of God. When it is really the word of the top384 families in this nation. The 384 that control 90% of the wealth in the U.S., while the other 99.999% fight over that last 10%. The Church that Huysmans saw is the Church that today is running thre GOP and it has the same defects that Huysmans Catholic Church had.
This work is an indictment of France in the 1890's and could just as well be an indictment of the U.S. today.
The strength of sadism then lies entirely in the forbidden pleasure of transferring to Satan the homage an prayers that should go to God"
Now, I could say that since the current Protestant practice of many southern churches does the exact same thing. They transfer to the capitalist/Republican system of hate and money
those prayers for God to the god of money, and the Oligarchy that the GOP wishes to establish. This change of god from the God of the Bible to the god of the dollar fits into this category, as defined by
Huysman, as sadism.
When Huysmans goes after Church music his disdain for the modern Church symphonies is truly cast in the following: The fact was that this indulgent attitude, ostensibly intended to attract the faithful and really intended to attract their money." Just as the evangelical churches of the South and the rest of the country have, since Orel Roberts and the rest of the defrocked evangelical clergy, who have no true understanding of scripture, but a huge understanding of using media to sell snake oil disguised as salvation, use Christ to make money. They sell hate as what Christ said, they sell misogyny, bigotry, racism, xenophobia, the gospel of prosperity, and the earth is ours to abuse as the word of God. When it is really the word of the top384 families in this nation. The 384 that control 90% of the wealth in the U.S., while the other 99.999% fight over that last 10%. The Church that Huysmans saw is the Church that today is running thre GOP and it has the same defects that Huysmans Catholic Church had.
This work is an indictment of France in the 1890's and could just as well be an indictment of the U.S. today.