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screen_memory 's review for:
Against Nature
by Joris-Karl Huysmans
I was introduced to Husymans through Houellebecq's Submission whose principal character had written a book on Huysmans. Despite being a nonbeliever, I find myself still irresistibly drawn to the words of those whose lives were characterized by religious austerity, additionally finding myself perhaps more sympathetic to the scriptures and those whose faith remains firm in them over those who reject religion, those so prideful of their so-called reason that they reject centuries of rich mythology out of hand. -
But I digress. Huysman's Against Nature (or Against the Grain as its commonly known) is less about religious austerity (unfortunately, for my peculiar taste) and much more about a wealthy bourgeois man who turns his back on society and retreats into his own private aesthetic world after taking refuge from the world in the countryside. -
Much of the book are Huysman's own views on ancient Greek and Roman writers, as well as certain then-contemporary writers (Zola, depsite Huysmans' disinterest in naturalism owing to his own place within so-called decadent literature, gets an honorable mention). -
The setting of the novel might seem idyllic to those such as myself who are highly avoidant and find far greater pleasure in their solitary pursuits than what is offered by social pleasantry, yet the main characters' decadent habits and lack of regard for his health leads to the development of an illness whose possible cure might seem on one hand a fate worse than death; a return to the society he despises.
But I digress. Huysman's Against Nature (or Against the Grain as its commonly known) is less about religious austerity (unfortunately, for my peculiar taste) and much more about a wealthy bourgeois man who turns his back on society and retreats into his own private aesthetic world after taking refuge from the world in the countryside. -
Much of the book are Huysman's own views on ancient Greek and Roman writers, as well as certain then-contemporary writers (Zola, depsite Huysmans' disinterest in naturalism owing to his own place within so-called decadent literature, gets an honorable mention). -
The setting of the novel might seem idyllic to those such as myself who are highly avoidant and find far greater pleasure in their solitary pursuits than what is offered by social pleasantry, yet the main characters' decadent habits and lack of regard for his health leads to the development of an illness whose possible cure might seem on one hand a fate worse than death; a return to the society he despises.