![]() ![]() Oscar Wilde read the book on his honeymoon and it changed his life. ![]() It is often remembered as the book which contains the tortoise whose shell is encrusted with jewels.Ĭolin Wilson mentions this striking novel in The Outsider, acknowledging the book’s compelling power which draws the reader into the world of a bored, rich loner and, sometimes much to our discomfort, we vicariously start to enjoy his hedonistic experiments in much the same way that today despite ourselves we may root for Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan or Walter White. It is the convergence of four unique creative energies, the fourth being the novel’s author Joris-Karl Huysmans.Ī Rebours or Against Nature (a literal translation is ‘against the grain’) was considered a very shocking novel in its time, it is the story of the retreat from society of the aristocratic Jean des Esseintes to a house in the countryside where he devotes his life to aesthetic contemplation, conducting a series of intellectual experiments (a bit like Flaubert’s Bouvard and Pecuchet) while recalling his debauched life in Paris. ![]() I was delighted to receive in the post this week a copy of the limited edition cd Against Nature, a project I was pleased to help fund via Kickstarter, an album of fifteen songs inspired by Huysmans 1884 novel A Rebours, the project a collaboration between three great talents-music by Orthon, lyrics by Jeremy Reed and vocals by Marc Almond. ![]()
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