Against Nature

by Huysmans, Joris Karl
ISBN: 9781250787668
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Used - Trade Paperback - 9781250787668

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Overview

Joris-Karl Huysmans's cult classic of deviance and decadence that inspired Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, now in a new translation by Theo Cuffe

A celebration of deviance, vanity, sensual abandon, and the aesthetics of artifice, Against Nature brings us the nineteenth-century rebel Jean des Esseintes--disaffected, degenerate, and art-obsessed. The last of a proud and noble family, des Esseintes retreats from the world in disgust at bourgeois society and leads a life based on cultivation of the senses through art. He distills perfumes from the rarest oils and essences, creates a garden of poisonous flowers, sets gemstones in a tortoise's gold-painted shell, and plans to corrupt a street urchin until he is degraded enough to commit murder. Des Esseintes's groundbreaking aesthetic pilgrimage in Against Nature has served as the guidebook to decadence for more than a century, inspiring writers from Oscar Wilde to Michel Houellebecq.

A pioneer whose early work took inspiration from Baudelaire and Zola, Joris-Karl Huysmans was a founder of the nineteenth-century decadent movement. Against Nature has influenced countless writers and artists and enjoys a cult following to this day. This new translation by Theo Cuffe, with a foreword by Luc Sante, captures the magnificence of Huysmans's famous style--filled with wit and irony, expressiveness and precision, erudition and sensuality.

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Huysmans, Joris Karl
  • ISBN: 9781250787668
  • Condition: Used
  • Number Of Pages: 304
  • Publication Year: 2022