Against Nature (Green Integer Books, #50)

by Joris-Karl Huysmans

Patrick McGuinness (Translator), Robert Baldick (Translator), and Patrick McGuiness (Notes)

Infamous as the inspiration for the novel which slowly corrupts Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, Joris-Karl Huysmans' Against Nature (A Rebours) is translated by Robert Baldick with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness in Penguin Classics.

A wildly original fin-de-siècle novel, Against Nature contains only one character. Des Esseintes is a decadent, ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where her indulges his taste for luxury and excess. Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art, exotic jewels (with which he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise), rich perfumes and a kaleidoscope of sensual experiences. Against Nature, in the words of the author, exploded 'like a meteorite' and has enjoyed a cult following to this day.

This revised edition of Robert Baldick's lucid translation features a new introduction and a chronology, and reproduces Huysmans's original 1903 preface as well as a selection of reviews from writers including Mallarmé, Zola and Wilde.

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) is now recognized as one of the most challenging and innovative figures in European literature and an acknowledged principal architect of the fin-de-siècle imagination. He was a career civil servant who wrote ten novels, most notably A Rebours and Là-Bas.

If you enjoyed Against Nature, you might like Huysmans's The Damned (La-Bas), also available in Penguin Classics.

• ISBN10: 0140447636
• ISBN13: 9780140447637
• Publish Date: 1 May 2003 (first published 1 September 1998)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780140447637

Reviews

[celinenyx]

Vaguely interesting and entertaining. Although the book is basically a catalogue of what Des Esseintes has in his house, the descriptions are vivid, and I found it easy to stay engaged. Apart from that, Des Esseintes is a terrible woman-hating person (apparently women all have an innate stupidity) that I didn't give a freckle about what happened to him. Against Nature is more about making a statement than anything else. Just reading a few passages will suffice.