In the 1903 preface, Huysmans writes that he would have included Rimbaud and Laforgue had he known their work at the time. A 19th century novel by a French writer of Dutch descent, Joris Karl Huysmans (real name Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans), A Rebours was first published in 1884. It has been translated into English as Against the Grain and, more recently, as Against Nature. The novel focuses on the young dandy and aesthete, Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes, who becomes disgusted with the society of his day and tries to escape from it by constructing a "refined Thebaid" - a house where he lives completely alone, surrounded by the artistic objects and books that obsess him and living out his aesthetic daydreams. It is largely plotless, and largely chronicles his aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, religion, paintings, and hyperaesthetic sensory experiences. Brophy, Liam (1956). "J.–K. Huysmans, Aesthete Turned Ascetic," Irish Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. LXXXVI, pp.43–51. One of the more curious threads in the book is the effect which his religious education has had on him: though it has not made him a faithful man, it has inspired him to reject man and the world as worthless and flawed, and to instead spend his time living for another world, a false world which exists only in his mind. I don’t really know French, but what I know of it in reading shampoo bottles and international signs is that it requires more words to say a thing than English does. Push red button for help becomes in French something like “For the assistance of yourself, press you the button of red.” To say nothing of French’s needing two words to express a negative.

The language all this is described in is deliberately rich and unnaturalistic. Huysmans’s basic approach is outlined when des Esseintes explains the kind of writing he admires among Latin authors – full of

public Wi-Fi - this extends to the majority of our public spaces including the Reading Rooms, as well as our study desks and galleries at St Pancras (you won't require a login) While he slowly drifted away from the Naturalists, Huysmans won new friends among the Symbolist and Catholic writers whose work he had praised in his novel. Stéphane Mallarmé responded with the tribute "Prose pour Des Esseintes", published in La Revue indépendante on January 1, 1885. This famous poem has been described as "perhaps the most enigmatic of Mallarmé's works". [17] The opening stanza gives some of its flavour:

a b c d Etherington, Peter (February 28, 2012). "Book Review: Against Nature (A Rebours)". The Culture Vulture . Retrieved March 11, 2021. Nasuprot je diskurs o piščevim nenaklonostima prema određenim piscima ali istovremeno i veliko apologetsko raspoloženje prema pjesnicima i piscima poput Flobera, Poa i Bodlera itd. Zatim je to kritika tendencije modernizovane umjetnosti, društvena antipatija, izvođenje egzibicija sa cvijećem stvarajući samo njemu znane mirise, putovanja itd. Junak ove knjige podsjeća na Manovog Hansa Kastorpa. Bolešljiv, sklon dokolici i neumoljivim hobijima, izolovan od svijeta, eksperimentalan u svom naumu. Osjetno je piščevo saznanje iz medicine, dragog kamenja, botanike, umjetnosti i srednjeg vijeka te čovjeka sa svojim psihološkim svojstvima i bolestima. Čime će se kroz lik Dezesenta i baviti u ovoj knjizi. Kod Uismansa nema fantaziranja već odanost prema onome što je Tvorac već uspostavio. On crpi materiju iz stvarnosti i bogati je svojim riječima, držeći je u svojoj arhetipskoj formi. Daje joj boju, zvuk i jednu egzotičnu evokaciju. Naročito se to vidi kod flore. Ono što su boje kod slikara, to su riječi kod Uismansa. Commemorative plaque in 31 rue Saint-Placide, Paris, 6e A caricature of Huysmans, by Félix Vallotton, c. 1898 E quindi, si ritira, “via dalla pazza folla”, va a vivere in una magione agreste che diventa il suo eremo (compagnia della servitù a parte), e che man mano trasforma secondo i suoi canoni estetici.The iconoclast doesn’t look left and right to see what everyone else is doing before they act, because their actions aren’t defined by conforming to or rejecting what others do. They have an internal motivation, a philosophy which tells them what is worthwhile and what is not, and why. He used the name Joris-Karl Huysmans when he published his writing, as a way of honoring his father's ancestry. His first major publication was a collection of prose poems, Le drageoir aux épices (1874), which were strongly influenced by Baudelaire. They attracted little attention but revealed flashes of the author's distinctive style. Shuster, George N. (1921). "Joris Karl Huysmans: Egoist and Mystic," The Catholic World, Vol. CXIII, pp.452–464. Huysmans’ın Tersine’yi yayınladığı 1884 yılında Fransız edebiyatı başını Zola’nın çektiği doğalcı akımın etkisinde, tek tip edebiyatın hayatın ve olayların oldukları gibi anlatıldığı ultra gerçekçi bir iklimin etkisinde can çekişiyordu ki Huysmans da bu etkinin altındaydı. Tersine bu edebiyat ortamına karşı yazılmış bir manifestodur adeta. Bu yanıyla belki bir proje roman da denebilir. Başka türlü anlatmanın tüm olanakları zorlanmış, bu zorlama ile gelenek ile tüm bağlar koparılmıştır. Konu, içerik ve biçem daha önce hiç işlenmemiş bir şekil almış ve geleneğin kalıpları tahribata uğratılmıştır.