Against Nature
{{Against Nature}}
Basic Info
- Author: Joris-Karl Huysmans
- Year:
- Type: primary / secondary / theory-adjacent
Summary (brief)
-Jean Des Esseintes retreats from society to an isolated villa to indulge his extreme aesthetic tastes in art, literature, and sensory experiences, rejecting the vulgarity of modern life; focused on inner world, obsessions with things,
Major Themes
Key Passages / Quotes
Quote 1
quote:: “only the brain was aroused, without any link to the lower organs, which, if they existed at all, remained forever in a state of frozen virginity”
page:: 206
themes:: trans-corporeality
Quote 2
quote:: “just as he could no longer visit with impunity his red vestibule and regale himself with the dark visions of Odilon Redon or the tortures depicted by Jan Luyken”
page:: 206
themes:: red
Quote 3
quote:: “The story turned on a commonplace case of adultery, but ended on an unspeakable note of horror, when Bonhomet, opening Claire's eyes on her death-bed and probing them with hideous instruments, sees distinctly reflected therein the image of her husband, brandishing at arm's length her lover's decapitated head and howling a war-song like some South Sea islander”
page:: 20
themes:: adultery, monstrous-feminine
Quote 4
quote:: “great arterial road which leads from earth to heaven”
page:: 168
themes:: trans-corporeality, monsterhouse
Genre Notes
-Seminal work of decadent literature; fin-de-siecle novel; Symbolist movement; catalogue
Characters / Concepts (if relevant)
Theory Connections
- Topographic Horror
- Sensation Novel
- Creed, Alaimo, Kristeva, Derrida - Kristeva with the uncanny/abject/topographic; Alaimo's transcorporeality; Creed = monster house
Related Texts
My Argument / Interpretation
-Jean De Esseintes lives in a monster house full of junk, including a diamond encrusted gilded tortoise he wants to keep as a moving decoration but its actually an animal that he neglects so it dies. This guy gets very sick and I think the evil in the house just gets to him. Ultimate masterpiece of decadent literature. Famously inspired the "poisonous French novel" that corrupts Dorian Gray. A life of isolation and artificiality is unsustainable. He will die just like his tortoise if he doesn't go back to society.
Dissertation Relevance
How could this matter to my project?
-Just as the body is porous and not a closed entity, the house cannot be a closed entity; the outside world breaks in