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The Damned (La-Bas) (Penguin Classics), by Joris-Karl Huysmans
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Joris-Karl Huysmans' shocking novel of an innocent's descent into a world of depraved, blasphemous rituals
Durtal, a shy, censorious man, is writing a biography of Gilles de Rais, the monstrous fifteenth-century child-murderer thought to be the original for 'Bluebeard'. Bored and disgusted by the vulgarity of everyday life, Durtal seeks spiritual solace by immersing himself in another age. But when he starts asking questions about Gilles's involvement in satanic rituals and is introduced to the exquisitely evil madame Chantelouve, he is soon drawn into a twilight world of black magic and erotic devilry in fin-de- siècle Paris. Published in 1891, The Damned cemented Huysmans's reputation as a writer at the forefront of the avant-garde and as one of the most challenging and innovative figures in European literature.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
- Sales Rank: #546434 in Books
- Published on: 2002-01-29
- Released on: 2002-01-29
- Original language: French
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.80" h x .70" w x 5.20" l, .46 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
About the Author
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.
Most helpful customer reviews
35 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
A bit wearing.
By GeoX
La-Bas is more like an actual novel than Against Nature, inasmuch as it has actual characters other than the protagonist, as well as a plot, of sorts. I think this is also why it doesn't work as well; in spite of the more novelistic elements, it still retains much of the earlier work's self-indulgence, giving the work as a whole something of a watered-down feel: the characters aren't that interesting.
In reading this book, you will learn more about historic views of demonology than you probably ever wanted to know, with characters earnestly expounding on possessions, curses, and exorcisms; this is given an extra edge by the fact that Huysmans himself was apparently a firm believer in it. It's interesting for a while, but the fact is, it does get old. Against Nature jumped from topic to topic quickly enough that tedium never really had time to set in; not so here, unforunately.
The back cover copy claims that "...when he [Durtal, the protagonist] meets the exquisitely evil Madame Chauntelouve, he is drawn into the twilight world of black magic and erotic devilry of fin-de-siecle Paris." This makes the book sound far more interesting than it actually is. The twilight world in question basically consists of people sitting around and talking about the aforementioned subjects, and the infamous black mass at the end is pretty tame by modern standards. I can see how this stuff could have been shocking a century ago, but now I think it likely to arouse, if anything, historical interest more than anything else. I would say that the most interesting part of the book consisted of the sections on the child murderer Gilles de Rais, about whom Durtal is trying to write a biography. They were vivid, frequently fairly gruesome, and they provided a good, violent, fire and brimstone view of Medieval Europe.
Still, criticisms aside, if you want more of Huysmans than Against Nature, you might find La-Bas (I can't help but note that 'The Damned,' as a translation of the title, is stretching it pretty far) a worthwhile read. Word.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
The Damned
By Steven Davis
The end of the 19th century was a time when science had battered the foundations of orthodox religion, but could not yet dispel many notions of the supernatural. Spiritualism became an upper class fad, and there was a renewed interest in the darker forms of occultism. Là-Bas both represents and depicts this period of exploring the fringes of the supernatural.
The novel opens with its principle character, a writer named Durtal, having one of many discussions with his friend Hermies, a physician. They are criticizing Naturalism, the literary movement led by Émile Zola. What Durtal finds objectionable is not "the language of the lockup, the doss house and the latrines," but the fact that it "promotes the idea of art as something democratic" and denies the "higher levels of existence."
Durtal announces that he is commencing a writing project that will address the spiritual as well as the material. It is to be a biography of Gilles de Rais, a 15th century military leader, occultist, and serial killer. Throughout the novel, Huysmans interweaves the biographical details of Gilles de Rais with the story of Durtal and his friends. Once a celebrated general under Joan of Arc, Gilles retired to his baronial estates in Brittany where he began dabbling in alchemy. This led to the practice of celebrating the Black Mass, a ceremony meant in this case to invoke Satan's aid in converting lead to gold. But the Black Mass, as Gilles practiced it, required the blood of a freshly slain child. This soon became a sexual fetish for the baron, who became one of history's most notorious child killers.
From Hermies, Durtal learns that there are people practicing the black arts even in his own time. In various dinner table conversations--much of the novel consists of dinner table conversations--Durtal learns about contemporary practitioners of astrology, exorcism, spiritual poisoning, and other rites. He is most fascinated by the Black Mass, however, and eventually gets his chance to observe one with the aid of a mysterious and anonymous female admirer.
The views of Durtal and his friends reflect the author Huysmans's increasing conservatism and orthodoxy. There is a nostalgia for the Middle Ages, a time when the "plebs" knew their place and accepted their lot in life--in contrast to the Paris "rabble" whom Hermies describes as "avaricious, abject and stupid." Most tellingly, Satan is depicted as a Socialist revolutionary in this invocation: "Thou art the champion of the poor, and the staff of the vanquished! Endow them with hypocrisy, ingratitude and pride, that they may defend themselves against the Children of God, the rich and wealthy!"
The author's elitism may be as repugnant to some as the Gilles de Rais's murders, but that doesn't keep Là-Bas from being a fascinating and entertaining novel. The discussion of the dark arts is highly informative but kept light enough--would you be so kind as to pass the creamed peas--by the interjection of small talk to avoid becoming a lecture. While it's rather light on plot, there is enough graphic sex and violence in Là-Bas to make it controversial at the time in France and unpublishable elsewhere. It is very much worth reading for the light it sheds into the darker corners of history and its insight into the intellectual currents of the fin de siècle.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Blacker Than A Moonless Night
By Subterranean Subterfuge
Huysmans' "La-Bas" was poised just as the world of Tradition was dying along with God and an unknown future, the blank filled with utopian dreams of Man's emancipation from the Authority of the transcendent.
Huysmans, delving into depths darker than anything from the imagination even of Sade, intimates, well before Chesterton, a return to Orthodoxy.
It's a brilliant novel- our author's beautiful prose is almost unequaled and the quality of the imageric writing unparalleled. Some of the scenes are unforgettable- Durtal transversing the shadowy, ominous streets, the dangers, dedication and skull required for the ringing of the church bells, the Satanist priest with Christ tattooed on the bottoms of his feet.
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