| Author: | Joris-Karl Huysmans | ISBN: | 9781907650192 |
| Publisher: | Dedalus Ebooks | Publication: | January 5, 2010 |
| Imprint: | Dedalus Ebooks | Language: | English |
| Author: | Joris-Karl Huysmans |
| ISBN: | 9781907650192 |
| Publisher: | Dedalus Ebooks |
| Publication: | January 5, 2010 |
| Imprint: | Dedalus Ebooks |
| Language: | English |
No one, not even Toulouse-Lautrec, was so tireless a tracker of Paris�s genius loci as Huysmans. Like many of his radical contemporaries, he was obsessed by the idea of beauty within the ugliness of back-street Paris, by the thought that the distortions of depravity presented a truer picture of our spiritual nature than conventional religion or revolutionary excess. The excellent introduction to these cameos show how Huysmans saw his art as complementary to the painter�s. As the stories themselves testify, however, the results were not always successful. Compare for example, the sharp impressionistic portrayal of 'A Streetwalker' with the hazy, self-regarding raptures of 'The Overture to Tannhauser', a hyperventilating review characterised by sonorous phrases which pile up and collapse. But his symbolist mode yields as many rockets as damp squibs: 'A Nightmare' is genuinely chilling and oddly exultant. A tale about the wandering Jew is a mini-masterpiece. In this and other pieces, Huysmans begins and ends his tale with the same description - giving the whole the air of a medieval chant. Murrough Obrien in The Independent on Sunday
No one, not even Toulouse-Lautrec, was so tireless a tracker of Paris�s genius loci as Huysmans. Like many of his radical contemporaries, he was obsessed by the idea of beauty within the ugliness of back-street Paris, by the thought that the distortions of depravity presented a truer picture of our spiritual nature than conventional religion or revolutionary excess. The excellent introduction to these cameos show how Huysmans saw his art as complementary to the painter�s. As the stories themselves testify, however, the results were not always successful. Compare for example, the sharp impressionistic portrayal of 'A Streetwalker' with the hazy, self-regarding raptures of 'The Overture to Tannhauser', a hyperventilating review characterised by sonorous phrases which pile up and collapse. But his symbolist mode yields as many rockets as damp squibs: 'A Nightmare' is genuinely chilling and oddly exultant. A tale about the wandering Jew is a mini-masterpiece. In this and other pieces, Huysmans begins and ends his tale with the same description - giving the whole the air of a medieval chant. Murrough Obrien in The Independent on Sunday
