Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook7 hours
Against Nature (Against the Grain)
Written by Joris-Karl Huysmans
Narrated by Nicholas Boulton
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Against Nature was one of the most shocking French novels of the 19th century. When it was published in 1884, it thrilled the aesthetes, the poets, and the intellectuals of Europe on both sides of the Channel (notably Oscar Wilde) because for all its lofty tone, it had, as its core, an unbridled decadence, and it was this same character that challenged, even horrified, established bourgeois society. Des Esseintes, a minor aristocrat but a high intellectual - deeply cultured and well-read - can no longer bear contemporary Parisian life in any of its forms! As a youth he had experienced the monastic environment and later academic life, but, remaining unfulfilled, he immersed himself in the multifarious sensual pleasures so readily available in Paris. Still deeply unsatisfied, he decides to move to a house in a village in the countryside. Here he can create his own controlled environment with a minutely designed interior supporting his particular artistic tastes. At last he can live alone with his books, his reflections, and his needs. Nothing will interfere with how he wants to live, what he wants to see, to read, to study, to smell, to eat. However, a life of such total personal indulgence, even on a lofty intellectual and artistically sensitive plane, proves anything but easy - or satisfying. The character of Des Esseintes, intense, testing, infuriating, but astonishing, was said to have been influenced by the famous aesthete of the time, the Comte de Montesquiou (also a model for Baron de Charlus in Proust's In Search of Lost Time), while Against Nature makes an unmistakeable appearance in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Nicholas Boulton here reads one of the best early translations (published anonymously and originally titled Against the Grain), which has been revised to reinstate sections originally cut to protect sensibilities of the time. It is the full novel as Huysmans intended.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateFeb 8, 2017
ISBN9781004133055
Unavailable
Author
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Joris-Karl Huysmans (Charles Marie Georges Huysmans), geboren am 5. Februar 1848 in Paris als Sohn des Druckers Godfried Huysmans und der Lehrerin Malvina Badin; gestorben am 12. Mai 1907, ebenda. Französischer Schriftsteller. Hauptwerke: Gegen den Strich (À rebours, 1884); Tief unten (Là-bas, 1891). Ausführliche Lebensbeschreibung auf Seite 4.
Related to Against Nature (Against the Grain)
Related audiobooks
The Life & Work of Marcel Proust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Social Conquest of Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Top 10 Short Stories - The 20th Century - Horror: The ten best horror stories written in the 20th century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of the Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pandemic Life: A New Normal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speaking Out: Lectures and Speeches, 1937-1958 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Call of Cthulhu Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Book of Ghost Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Goethe: Life as a Work of Art Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Le Grande Bretèche: A man goes to extreme lengths to punish his wifes infidelity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe English Renaissance of Art (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Writing of Fiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Letters of Jane Austen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Big Book of Adventure Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: The Lost Manuscript Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Europe's Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Years Journey Through Romania and Beyond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nightwood Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Against The Grain, or Against Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoul at the White Heat: Inspiration, Obsession, and the Writing Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crome Yellow: An Aldous Huxley Classic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmily Dickinson: Poems and Letters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Medieval Bodies: Life and Death in the Middle Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chasing Whispers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jules Verne: The Biography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry David Thoreau: A Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Against Nature (Against the Grain)
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews