Joris-Karl Huysmans: Against Nature – A Review of the Literature

Against Nature, by Huysmans, is a novel written in decadent aesthetics and is inspired by many other decadent authors, such as Baudelaire. Huysmans develops a character named Des Esseintes who has characteristics of a lonely nervous person who reflects on living alone in his house of artifacts. Against Nature is written in a beautifully descriptive setting. The beginning of the book expresses its surroundings from top to bottom; for example, Huysmans takes the reader on a pleasant sensory journey through the home of Des Esseintes. The setting involves all his decorating schemes and begins to inform the reader about his great library of his most precious literature; Baudelaire, Edgar Allen Poe, Dickens, Petronius, and many more. Huysmans finally explains Des Esseintes’ extensive knowledge of literature, art, and business interests, such as perfume making. Your thoughts are always in conflict; for example, it contemplates the importance of Christianity versus paganism. Throughout the book, he is torn between his knowledge of many conflicting ideas, which mainly brings him to school with the Jesuit priests. Although he suffers from a nervous illness, he escapes his illness by reading literature and conversing with his imagination rather than with real people.

Des Esseintes is a very melancholic type of man, but little mental desires keep his soul alive during his illness. An example of a fleeting desire is your longing for a turtle; Due to his eccentric imagination, he has the turtle’s shell covered with its favorable gemstones and he loves the contrast of the animal against its golden floor. Of course, the tortoise dies from a heavy shell and lack of nutrition, but it does not show any emotion towards death because the tortoise has already aged for its liking. Like most Decadent writers, Des Esseintes’ character is highly narcissistic.

His home is covered in expensive literature, fake flowers, and art. Des Esseintes especially favors Gustave Moreau’s religious paintings and imagines the goddess Salome in motion with the other figures in the painting. Salomé seems to intimidate him, and he always reflects more towards the art and literature that threaten him. Huysmans also mentions Des Esseintes’ artwork titled Religious Persecutions, “These images, filled with abominable imaginations, reeking of burned flesh, oozing blood, filled with screams of horror and curses, made his skin crawl, holding him to the ground. the place, unable to breathe, when he entered that red room. ” (Huysman, JK, 1884)

As mentioned above, Des Esseintes has many fleeting wishes that she quickly fulfills; then he begins his conquest of boredom for something new. During his boring lifestyle, he conjures up old memories of Paris; one about a child he tries to turn into murder. While living in Paris society, he meets a boy, Auguste, whom he calls “little Judas.” He introduces Auguste to a night of drinking and sex at a brothel, and hopes to increase the boys’ sexual frustration to the point of murdering them. Des Esseintes peruses the newspaper for months, expecting to see the boy murder some unnecessary people on the streets, and he’s disappointed that his devious plan didn’t work.

Another memory is that of his former lover; Urania, a ventriloquist who fulfills his sexual desires to commit adultery, in which he uses his multiple voices as an illusory husband willing to knock down the door. While experimenting with aromatics and making perfumes, he imagines a lover who, “… would go into ecstasy with particular aromatics … a nervous woman who liked to have her nipples soaked in perfume.” (Huysmans, JK, 1884) during Des Esseintes’ experiment with aromatics, he fainted, which began the reality and intensity of his nervous disease.

While continuing in a dreamy state, possibly caused from the earliest stages of death, he takes an imaginary journey to London. The journey is filled with eating, talking, drinking, and watching. Huysmans wrote this imaginary trip with more descriptions than a real vacation could possibly entail. Des Esseintes says: “It would be folly to risk losing, through a poorly advised trip, these unforgettable impressions”, Huysmans explains that his imaginary trip was worth much more than making the trip; In fact, he felt the exhaustion of the mental vacation as if he felt it from a real one.

Des Esseintes begins to get bored with his literature, art and his home. He explains his book collection as if he is supporting his intelligence as it weakens. He mentions Baudelaire many times and says: “[Baudelaire’s writings]… finally reaching those regions of the soul where the nightmarish growths of human thought flourish. “Towards the end of the book, he realizes that he can already take laudanum, opiates, or hashish to enhance his imaginary journeys because his body He will reject anything he ingests. At this point in Des Esseintes disease, Huysmans explains Des Esseintes’ mirror image of himself, which is that of a malnourished man. He calls a doctor who prescribes enemas of certain nutrients, which is very excited to “… eliminated the tedious and vulgar task of eating” (Huysmans, JK, 1848) The doctor orders him to return to Paris and society, instead of being confined to the walls of his home in Fontenay. Des Esseintes concludes that he must reconcile himself to Catholicism along with his move to Paris, and explains that he must give up his art of comparing all religious skepticism in order for his mind to be at peace.

In general, he uses his imagination to satisfy his need for pleasure and adventure. It seems that he moved to Fontenay to bring personal reflection with him, but during his lonely lifestyle he begins a nervous illness. Reflecting on your memories makes you get caught up in comparing the knowledge you have acquired in life; from his early years with the Jesuit priests, to his adulthood in a modern Paris society. Des Esseintes is an artist who criticizes art, literature and social class. He is a master of religious teachings compared to a realistic scientific view. Due to his struggle to gather his knowledge into the truth, he nearly died from neglecting his basic needs to survive.

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