Joris–Karl Huysmans | |
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 Huysmans, c. 1895 | |
| Born | Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans 5 February 1848 Paris, France |
| Died | 12 May 1907 (aged 59) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Novelist |
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Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (US: /wiːsˈmɒ̃s/,[1] French: [ʃaʁl maʁi ʒɔʁʒ ɥismɑ̃s]; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (French: [ʒɔʁis kaʁl -], variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel À rebours (1884, published in English as Against the Grain and as Against Nature). He supported himself by way of a 30-year career in the French civil service.
Huysmans's work is considered remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, large vocabulary, descriptions, satirical wit and far-ranging erudition. First considered part of Naturalism, he became associated with the Decadent movement with his publication of À rebours. His work expressed his deep pessimism,[2] which had led him to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.[3] In later years, his novels reflected his study of Catholicism, religious conversion, and becoming an oblate. He discussed the iconography of Christian architecture at length in La cathédrale (1898), set at Chartres and with its cathedral as the focus of the book.
Huysmans' novel Là-bas (1891) concerns the novelist Durtal, who researches Satanism and the 15th-century child-murderer Gilles de Rais. It was followed by the Durtal trilogy,[4] comprising En route (1895), La cathédrale (1898), and L'Oblat (1903), in which Durtal takes a spiritual journey and eventually converts to Catholicism; in L'Oblat, he becomes an oblate in a monastery, as Huysmans himself was in the Benedictine Abbey at Ligugé, near Poitiers, in 1901.[5][6] La cathédrale was his most commercially successful work. Its profits enabled Huysmans to retire from his civil service job and live on his royalties.
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- ^ "Huysmans". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
- ^ Eugene Thacker, "An Expiatory Pessimism," Transactions of the Flesh: An Homage to Joris-Karl Huysmans (edited by D.P. Watt & Peter Holman, Ex Occidente Press, 2014).
- ^ Twenty–three year–old Schopenhauer, who had a great influence on Huysmans, told Wieland, "Life is an unpleasant business. I have resolved to spend it reflecting on it. (Das Leben ist eine mißliche Sache. Ich habe mir vorgesetzt, es damit hinzubringen, über dasselbe nachzudenken.)" (Rüdiger Safranski, Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, Chapter 7).
- ^ Huysmans - The Durtal Trilogy (En Route, The Cathedral, The Oblate)
- ^ Keeler, Sister Jerome (1950). "J.–K. Huysmans, Benedictine Oblate," American Benedictine Review, Vol. I, pp. 60–66.
- ^ The Cathedral, Introduction, Dedalus 1997