Title: À rebours
First published: 1972
Description: À rebours (French pronunciation: [a ʁ(ə).buʁ]; translated Against Nature or Against the Grain) is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes loathes nineteenth-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. The narrative is almost entirely a catalogue of the neurotic Des Esseintes's aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, painting, and religion, and hyperaesthetic sensory experiences.

À rebours contains many themes that became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from Naturalism and became the ultimate example of "Decadent" literature, inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). In his preface for the 1903 publication of the novel, Huysmans wrote that he had the idea 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 ... each chapter became the 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." (Wikipedia)
Subjects: Aesthetics, Fiction, Fiction, general, Translations from French, Translations into English, Fiction in English, French fiction, Classic Literature, French Translations, Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Large type books, Romans (teksten), decadent, Fantasy, Aesthetics in fiction, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Gifted children, Education, Aesthetics--fiction, Pq2309.h4 a6213 2003, 843.8, Social life and customs, Romance literature, Manuscripts, LGBTQ fiction before Stonewall, Art -- Philosophy, Decadence (Literary movement), French literature, Symbolism (Art movement)
Places: Somewhere near Paris
People: Fictional character: Jean des Esseintes, J.-K Huysmans (1848-1907)
Time periods: Late 19th century
LC classification: PQ2309H4 A6216