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Against Nature : A Rebours : Penguin Classics
Paperback Edition: 1
Infamous as the inspiration for the novel which slowly corrupts Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, Joris-Karl Huysmans' Against Nature (A Rebours) is translated by Robert Baldick with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness in Penguin Classics.
A wildly original fin-de-sicle novel, Against Nature contains only one character.
Des Esseintes is a decadent, ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where he indulges his taste for luxury and excess. Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art, exotic jewels (with which he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise), rich perfumes and a kaleidoscope of sensual experiences.
Against Nature, in the words of the author, exploded 'like a meteorite' and has enjoyed a cult following to this day.
This revised edition of Robert Baldick's lucid translation features a new introduction and a chronology, and reproduces Huysmans's original 1903 preface as well as a selection of reviews from writers including Mallarm, Zola and Wilde.
Pages : 288
Publisher : Penguin Classics
Publication date : 2003-07-07
Subjects: Fiction, Classics (pre C.1945), Contemporary, Historical Fiction