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A review by reasie
Là-Bas by Joris-Karl Huysmans
3.0
Ah, nothing like a Victorian French novel about Satanism! The book surprised me by opening up mid-scene, mid-argument, two men arguing about literature and whether the realists are all they're cracked up to be. I suppose this was the author telling us his stance on writing before we got into his book, having already been hooked by the promise of tasty tasty Satanism.
They griped about Stendhal and George Sand and I found myself more interested in their conversation than most readers likely would be, having read both authors recently. When you pick and choose around a whole history of writing, you forget who is a contemporary to whom. What I liked best about this book were those moments where it was about the contemporary culture - though the author never stops banging on about how awful 'modern times' are. LOL. As they have ever said, right? Oh that awful Eiffel Tower, I'm sure they'll tear that eyesore down soon.
There are passages eulogizing the good, pure, high-minded Catholicism of the Middle Ages, and all I can say about that is that the author (and his characters) obviously have not read that much primary source material from the middle ages..
The promised Satanism itself is definitely disturbing, and takes the form of snatches of the main character's work on a biography of a 15th century madman and his investigations into promised Satanism in his contemporary Paris.
There is weirdness aplenty, and a few small moments of realism to make you hope for more of that and less of the long dialogs which are really monologues punctuated with "And why is that?" questions. :P The narrator has a cat who does cute cat things. He has an affair with a married woman who seems unhinged. He contemplates raping her cheerfully and then is appalled by the grossness of learning that she actually WANTS to have sex. The misogyny is... wow. I would hope the author is pointing this out, but I'm afraid the narrator is really an author-replacement and no, he does not realize how evil he's being. Still, it wasn't dull.
They griped about Stendhal and George Sand and I found myself more interested in their conversation than most readers likely would be, having read both authors recently. When you pick and choose around a whole history of writing, you forget who is a contemporary to whom. What I liked best about this book were those moments where it was about the contemporary culture - though the author never stops banging on about how awful 'modern times' are. LOL. As they have ever said, right? Oh that awful Eiffel Tower, I'm sure they'll tear that eyesore down soon.
There are passages eulogizing the good, pure, high-minded Catholicism of the Middle Ages, and all I can say about that is that the author (and his characters) obviously have not read that much primary source material from the middle ages..
The promised Satanism itself is definitely disturbing, and takes the form of snatches of the main character's work on a biography of a 15th century madman and his investigations into promised Satanism in his contemporary Paris.
There is weirdness aplenty, and a few small moments of realism to make you hope for more of that and less of the long dialogs which are really monologues punctuated with "And why is that?" questions. :P The narrator has a cat who does cute cat things. He has an affair with a married woman who seems unhinged. He contemplates raping her cheerfully and then is appalled by the grossness of learning that she actually WANTS to have sex. The misogyny is... wow. I would hope the author is pointing this out, but I'm afraid the narrator is really an author-replacement and no, he does not realize how evil he's being. Still, it wasn't dull.