J.-K. Huysmans - (Critical Lives) by Ruth Antosh (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A critical biography of a major novelist and art critic from the late nineteenth-century French decadent movement.

J.-K. Huysmans (1848-1907) is often hailed as a forerunner of modernist letters. While his novel À rebours / Against Nature remains infamous for its reclusive protagonist retreating into a realm of artifice and dreams, Huysmans's literary contributions are far-reaching. Ruth Antosh explores Huysmans's life and work, illustrating how both reflect an uneasy era of profound social and artistic change. In this context, Huysmans's correspondence, early fiction, art criticism, and surrealist novel En rade / Stranded demand greater critical attention. Antosh argues that Huysmans's life should be understood as an unwavering quest for spiritual and aesthetic fulfillment.

Review Quotes

"[Antosh's] skills as both a biographer and a critic have enabled her to provide us access to [Huysmans's] somewhat specialized menu of reverie. She probes his origins in great depth, looking for the answers to how he has managed to intrigue readers with 'his often ironic insights into the minds and souls of his protagonists.'"-- "Critics at Large"

"J.-K. Huysmans excels in bringing to life the author the author in his eccentric, sometimes disgraceful later years. . . Antosh paints in vivid detail."-- "Times Literary Supplement"

About the Author

Ruth Antosh is professor emerita of French at the State University of New York at Fredonia. She is the author of Reality and Illusion in the Novels of J.-K. Huysmans.