The Artifice of Isolation

👤 A Solitary Masterpiece

Published in 1884, Joris-Karl Huysmans' novel, originally titled À rebours (translated as Against Nature or Against the Grain), centers on the singular figure of Jean des Esseintes. As the last scion of a distinguished aristocratic lineage, Des Esseintes embodies the quintessential eccentric and reclusive aesthete. His profound disdain for the burgeoning bourgeois society of the nineteenth century compels him to withdraw into a meticulously crafted, ideal artistic world of his own design. The narrative, remarkably, functions less as a conventional plot and more as an intricate catalogue of Des Esseintes's neurotic aesthetic sensibilities, his profound musings on literature, painting, and religion, and his intensely hyperaesthetic sensory experiences.

🚧 Breaking Literary Molds

À rebours represents a pivotal moment in literary history, marking a decisive break from the prevailing Naturalist movement. In its embrace of subjective experience, artificiality, and a rejection of conventional morality, it swiftly became the quintessential exemplar of "Decadent" literature. Its influence was immediate and profound, notably inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde's iconic The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Huysmans himself, in his 1903 preface to the novel, articulated his ambition to portray a man "soaring upwards into dream, seeking refuge in illusions of extravagant fantasy, living alone, far from his century, among memories of more congenial times, of less base surroundings..." He envisioned each chapter as a "sublimate of a specialism, the refinement of a different art; it became condensed into an essence of jewellery, perfumes, religious and secular literature, of profane music and plain-chant."

🌌 A Plotless Odyssey

À rebours is famously characterized by its almost complete absence of a conventional plot. Jean des Esseintes, the last surviving member of a once-proud noble family, has lived a life of extreme decadence in Paris, which has ultimately left him utterly disgusted with human society. Without informing anyone, he retreats to a secluded house near Fontenay, resolving to dedicate the remainder of his life to intellectual and aesthetic contemplation. His new abode becomes a sanctuary for his eclectic art collection, prominently featuring reprints of paintings by Gustave Moreau (such as Salome Dancing before Herod and L'Apparition), drawings by Odilon Redon, and engravings by Jan Luyken.

🧪 Sensory Experiments

Within the confines of his self-imposed exile, Des Esseintes embarks on a series of elaborate sensory experiments. He delves into the art of inventing perfumes, creating complex olfactory symphonies. He cultivates a garden of poisonous tropical flowers, a testament to his preference for artifice over nature—a central theme of Decadent literature. In one of the novel's most surreal and memorable episodes, he adorns the shell of a tortoise with an array of dazzling gemstones. Tragically, the creature, "unable to bear the dazzling splendour imposed on it," succumbs to its unnatural burden and dies. In another instance, Des Esseintes contemplates a trip to London after immersing himself in the novels of Charles Dickens. He dines at an English restaurant in Paris while awaiting his train, finding immense delight in the uncanny resemblance of the patrons to his literary preconceptions. Convinced that any actual journey would only lead to disillusionment, he cancels his plans and returns home, his aesthetic satisfaction already complete.

📚 Literary Canon Reimagined

A significant portion of the novel is dedicated to Des Esseintes's idiosyncratic survey of French and Latin literature, through which he systematically rejects the works lauded by the mainstream critics of his era. He dismisses the academically revered Latin authors of the "Golden Age," such as Virgil and Cicero, in favor of later "Silver Age" writers like Petronius (whose decadent Satyricon he praises) and Apuleius (author of Metamorphoses, commonly known as The Golden Ass), as well as early Christian literature, often scorned for its "barbarous" style. Among French authors, he expresses profound contempt for the Romantics but reserves adoration for the poetry of Baudelaire. He shows little regard for classic French authors like Rabelais, Molière, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, preferring instead the works of Bourdaloue, Bossuet, Nicole, and Pascal. He finds profound resonance in the pessimistic philosophy of the nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, connecting it to the resignation found in The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. His personal library also includes the nascent Symbolist poets, such as Paul Verlaine, Tristan Corbière, and Stéphane Mallarmé, alongside the decadent fiction of unorthodox Catholic writers like Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Barbey d'Aurevilly, and the Catholic literature of Ernest Hello.

🌪️ A Scandalous Success

Huysmans, anticipating a critical and public failure for his unconventional novel, famously declared: "It will be the biggest fiasco of the year—but I don't care a damn! It will be something nobody has ever done before, and I shall have said what I want to say..." Contrary to his prediction, upon its publication in May 1884, À rebours ignited a veritable storm of publicity. While many critics were scandalized by its themes and style, the book resonated powerfully with a burgeoning generation of aesthetes and writers, quickly establishing itself as a touchstone for the emerging Decadent movement.

🍏 Dorian Gray's Poison

Perhaps the most enduring testament to À rebours's influence is its widely acknowledged role as the "poisonous French novel" that precipitates the moral downfall of the protagonist in Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. In Chapter 10, Dorian examines a book sent by Lord Henry Wotton, described as "the strangest book that he had ever read... a novel without a plot, and with only one character... simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian, who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own." Wilde's vivid description of the book's "curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, of technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases," and its "monstrous as orchids" metaphors, unmistakably points to Huysmans' work. Richard Ellmann, Wilde's biographer, confirms that Wilde conceded at his trial that it was, or almost, Huysmans's À rebours, stating he had played a "fantastic variation" upon it.

🌊 Literary Ripples

Beyond The Picture of Dorian Gray, À rebours served as a direct inspiration for numerous other works of the period. Robert Baldick notes its manifest influence on Remy de Gourmont's Sixtine, George Moore's A Mere Accident and Mike Fletcher, and even other works by Oscar Wilde, including his play Salome and the poem The Sphinx. Furthermore, the novel gained significant notoriety as an exhibit during Oscar Wilde's trials in 1895, where the prosecutor infamously referred to it as a "sodomitical" book, solidifying its controversial status and contributing to its recognition as an important precursor in the development of gay literature.

🗣️ Reactions and Tributes

Huysmans' former mentor, Émile Zola, offered a lukewarm reception, telling Huysmans that the book was a "terrible blow to Naturalism" and accused him of "leading the school astray" and "burning [his] boats with such a novel," claiming "no type of literature was possible in this genre, exhausted by a single volume." Conversely, À rebours garnered new allies for Huysmans among Symbolist and Catholic writers. Stéphane Mallarmé penned the famous and enigmatic tribute "Prose pour Des Esseintes," published in La Revue indépendante in January 1885. The Catholic writer Léon Bloy lauded the novel, proclaiming Huysmans "formerly a Naturalist, but now an Idealist capable of the most exalted mysticism." Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, in his review, presciently compared Huysmans to Baudelaire, suggesting that like Baudelaire, Huysmans would eventually choose "the foot of the Cross"—a prediction that proved true with Huysmans' conversion to Catholicism in the 1890s.

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