| Against Nature Contributor(s): Huysmans, Joris Karl (Author) |
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ISBN: 1604596716 ISBN-13: 9781604596717 Publisher: Wilder Publications OUR PRICE: $11.39 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2009 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Classics |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Lexile Measure: 1600 |
| Physical Information: 0.41" H x 6" W x 9" (0.59 lbs) 176 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - French |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans is a novel in which very little happens; its narrative concentrates almost entirely on its principal character, and is mostly a catalogue of the tastes and inner life of Jean Des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive aesthete and antihero, who loathes 19th century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. Against Nature containes many themes which became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from naturalism and became the ultimate example of decadent literature. Jean Des Esseintes is the last member of a powerful and once proud noble family. He has lived an extremely decadent life in Paris which has left him disgusted with human society. Without telling anyone, he absconds to a house in the countryside. He fills the house with his eclectic art collection and decides to spend the rest of his life in intellectual and aesthetic contemplation. Throughout his intellectual experiments, he recalls various debauched events and love affairs of his past in Paris. |