Audiobook7 hours
Against Nature
Written by Joris-Karl Huysmans
Narrated by Nicholas Boulton
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
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.
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.
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
Related audiobooks
The Confusions of Young Master Törless Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgainst Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don Juan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOutrageous Fortune: Gloomy Reflections on Luck and Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Letters of Pliny the Younger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBashan and I (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsT.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone: ONTOLOGICAL ANARCHY, POETIC TERRORISM Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Dr. B.: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollected Poems 1947-1997 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoderick Random (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Georgian Poets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLetters of Two Brides Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCamp of Wallenstein Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe World in a Man of War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dhammapada, The Udana, The Itivuttaka: Key Texts from the Khuddaka Nikaya Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dangerous Connections Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Herodias by Gustave Flaubert Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPierre et Jean Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lion and the Sun Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Letters of Abelard and Heloise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Double (Unabridged) Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Peaks and Lamas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStalingrad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Decameron Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Classics For You
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Clockwork Orange Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perks of Being a Wallflower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Gatsby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fountainhead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlas Shrugged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War & Peace - Volume I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/520,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tale of Two Cities Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flowers in the Attic: 40th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crucible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Thousand Ships: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Name of the Rose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51984 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Schindler's List Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Around the World in 80 Days: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pilgrimage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Against Nature
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews