Product Description

The hero of this curious novel is 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 a couple of silent servants, he pursues his obsessions with exotic flowers, rare gems, and complex perfumes and embarks on a series of increasingly strange aesthetic experiments, starting with the decision to give his giant pet tortoise a jewel-encrusted shell...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10968 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Born in Paris in 1848 and acknowledged as a principal architect of the fin-de-siècle imagination, Joris-Karl Huysmans was a career civil servant who wrote ten novels, most notably A Rebours (1884) and Là-Bas (1891). Huysmans died in 1907. Robert Baldick (d.1972) translated widely from the French and wrote a biography of Huysmans. Patrick McGuinness is a Fellow and Tutor in French at St Anne's College, Oxford, and editor of Symbolism, Decadence and the Fin de Siecle (Exeter UP, 2000).

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Book
This is a very interesting novel; not only in terms of its content, but in terms of its function as a touchstone of decadent 1890s English literature. Indeed, it's rumored to be the novel which corrupts Dorian Gray in the Wilde novel of 1891.

A novel with only one main character sounds a bit strange. And it is. But rather than the focus being on linear plot, action or conventional emotions, the reader of this book - whilst carrying out their own solitary activity of reading - seems to form a symbiotic relationship with the book's protagonist, Des Esseintes. Reading about the things that this French loner does purely out of boredom is fascinating; indeed, the very act of reading about his mad experiments and activities gives the reader as great a hedonistic pleasure as it gives Des Esseintes himself by doing these things.

Whilst most people today associate money with being able to have a nice house, eat well, drive nice cars etc, this fictional account of a bored, rich man sees a much more fascinating way to toy with boredom and money. The translation is great, capturing Huysmans' tone and sentiment perfectly.

Reading this book will change your life.

True Art
For those looking for a great tale of adventure,intrigue or any other discernible genre stay away.

This book has a very very brief plot but that is the beauty of it. You get lost in the descriptions. The author paints a picture in your mind. It's easily one of the most enchanting books I've read.

I was truly absorbed in it, and upon finishing it realized that story was less interesting than anyone's life yet the descriptions will mesmerize and hold you to the end. Its almost a sensory overload.

Might be of interest to some others - this is presumably the ' yellow book ' that corrupts the main character in the picture of Dorian Gray

Highly recommended.

A Masterpiece
Huysmans' fantastic novel has been influential on writers when it first came out and up to the present day, after all you can obviously see the beginnings of such novels as 'Perfume' amongst its pages. The only main character, Des Esseintes has lived a life that mirrors Dorian Gray, and Dorian indeed reads this book in The Picture of Dorian Gray (Penguin Classics). You do get glimpses in this novel of Des Esseintes' hedonistic lifestyle before he seeks 'rest'. Told by his doctors that his lifestyle will kill him, Des Esseintes retires into seclusion and loneliness. However even here his life is full of eccentricity and dissipation.

Des Esseintes changes one lifestyle for another and contemplates upon a series of subjects in his new home that he has bizarrely furnished and fitted out. A weird and captivating tale this book is now a cult classic and has held people enthralled since its first publication, indeed it is difficult to put it down, and remains in the mind long after. As I wrote in my review for The Damned (Penguin Classics), Huysmans can write about literally anything and hold you in captivation, truly he was one of the worlds greatest writers. In this book mention is made of Barbey D'Aurevilly, and the bookLes Diaboliques: She Devils (Empire of the Senses). This is a book of short stories and is well worth a read.

Along with the story and an introduction you also get here Huysmans' preface written 20 years later, and also reviews and responses to the novel from such luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Emile Zola and Barbey D'Aurevilly, amognst others.