This is an extraordinary book. The writing is glorious. However, I can't help feeling I don't have the education to get everything from it. I don't know how anyone could, really. But having read it, I now have a reading list that will see me in books for the rest of my life.
For what it's worth, I completely understood the section on Latin literature, but understood none of the other sections, which shows I think that it is extremely unlikely that anyone could understand every single section completely - nevertheless I enjoyed the descriptions of different works of art
I'm so glad to find someone else who has read and loved this book! I read it for my Modern France class at university and it's only grown on me since. Its hard to decide between the turtle, perfume, flowers, and enema for my favorite sections. Against Nature is a treasure.
I've just binge watched all your videos, and what can I say ? Gimme more ! Great literature needs great defenders, and you are definitely one of them. Thank you for such in-depth analysis. (plus, not that I want to add some fuel to your impatience, but as a French I have the privilege to have already read "Soumission" and it is ... fuck*** Houellebecquian genius - and yes he totally deserves a neologism with his name)
Clémentine Oh.......There's more. Seething with envy, mais presqu'arrive... You're too kind, welcome and happy to have you watching. I agree. He does deserve a neologism. Now to find the author to whom such a term is deserving....
Better Than Food: Book Reviews Thank you for your welcome ! About "deserving" authors, Pierre Michon just came to my mind : have you heard of him ? I would definitely recommend "The origin of the world" and "Small lives" (sorry, it's French again, no chauvinism intended) Looking forward for the next video(s) then. See you soon.
Thanks for covering one of my favorite authors who I was turned onto back in 1984 after first reading La' Bas and then read many of his books over the years as he converted to Catholicism. Your channel is probably the only one I have come across that actually gives sufficient credit to J.K. Huysmans and much appreciated for your perspective.
I first discovered this book in my mid-twenties, many years ago. I was a young gay man obsessed with Wilde and 19th C. decadents in general when I saw a mention of it in a book on Wilde. I had to search all over for a copy in the suburban wasteland of my youth (it was the 80’s) and when I did, I read it and it changed my life and my mind for good. This book seems to have that effect on people. I always get giddy when I encounter someone who loves this book as much as I do. You should very definitely considering marrying such an individual when you find them, I highly agree with you there!
I also read this book in my twenties. Just seems to be the best time to read it. It was the 1980s for me, too. Having just left the early punk scene, and trying to make sense of it all, I decided to try and figure out how far back "counter-culters+ and the thinking behind them. When I reached 19th-century Europe, I found the mother load. That included the decadents, and so, of course, this book,
I have a question, Is all big oscar wilde fans gay?, like, is that a thing in gay world? I know a guy who is 63 and he is a big fan of oscar wilde. And everyone is saying that he is gay bc he is so obsessed with wilde. He is actually my boss yea and sadly I’m a really curious person :/
I started this today...I had a good feeling about it a few pages in. I read Submission last year but wasn't familiar with Huysmans at the time. I had some issues with Submission but have since read 2 more Houellebecqs. He always seems to pick supremely interesting subject matter.
...I read this "fucking book"...several years ago, and it continues to resonate with me to this day. In fact, I've written about this "decadent novel" par excellence in a couple of articles on my blog (i.e. The Culture Fix). Des Esseintes' musings about Mallarme's poetry in Chapter 12 are especially great because Mallarme is one of my favorite poets. Great review, man. And if you haven't already, might I suggest that you read and review Rainer Maria Rilke's lone novel, "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge". It's another one of my all-time favorites, and you seem like the kinda guy that would really dig it for sure. Cheers! And I've officially subscribed to you. :-)
I really enjoy watching your reviews. This particular one inspired me to finally pick up my own copy of 'Against Nature' from my local bookshop and giving it a try. I also picked up a copy of a little biography of Rimbaud, about his stay in Belgium (where I live), after watching your Rimbaud review. So yeah, def. looking forward to reading those. And I really hope I don't offend you by saying this, but you are very, very beautiful.
I read this novel many years ago when I was interested in Oscar Wilde and now I can't remember much about it. Maybe I was too young and optimistic at the time. Perhaps decadence belongs to middle and old age.
The quintessential description of Huysman is "decadent." In fact, this book is considered the best example of Decadence in French Literature in the 20th century. I read it many years ago (60's) and never recovered. Think of Huysman as related to Baudelaire and also another minor writer Villiers de L'isle D'adam who said, " As for living we will leave that to our servants."
+Madeleine Spencer I always thought that Bret Easton Ellis was riffing on Against Nature with the detail oriented internal life of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.
I honestly don't know how I've never found this channel before. Absolutely love it. Definitely the kind of person you need to have a pint and book rant with! Keep it up!
You should take a look at "En rade" (I don't know the English title), written two years later, it's more like a "real" novel, it's kinda funny, scarcastic and full of despair, and as sophisticated as "Against Nature", with that incredible, hallucinated style. Great review. Cheers from France
"Once I despised [the Church], because I had a staff on which to lean when the great winds of weariness blew ; I believed in my novels, I worked at my history, I had my art. I have come to recognize its absolute inadequacy, its complete incapacity to afford happiness. Then I understood that Pessimism was, at most, good to console those who had no real need of comfort; I understood that its theories, alluring when we are young, and rich, and well, become singularly weak and lamentably false, when age advances, when infirmities declare themselves, when all around is crumbling. I went to the church, that hospital for souls. There, at least, they take you in, put you to bed and nurse you, they do not merely turn their backs on you as in the wards of Pessimism and tell you the name of your disease." - from the semi-autobiographical "En Route" By Joris-Karl Huysmans
Try La Retraite De Monsieur Bougran, a very nice short story by Huysmans. If you can't read french, I don't think you'll get all the modernity of the writer's style but I'm sure some good translators were paid.
Another reason for you to read Soumission by Houellebecq. I think you having read Huysmans will add to that experience. Skip that comment, you already knew Houellebecq used it... Note to self: wait after video is completely done before commenting.
I won't bore you with my history. But like another poster I do recommend The Magus by John Fowles. It is a masterpiece of literature and works best on someone in his late 20's early thirties.
I was recommended this book after reading bel ami by guy de Maupassant which is brilliant i will have against nature in a few weeks peace. Good review.
It's definitive . Compared to heart of darkness and the visceral of Burroughs but with musical prose that makes you feel like an illiterate .The first Modern novel .
I found the book mind numbingly boring - it felt like a series of lists tied together with some flowery prose in between. That being said, your enjoyment of the book is so infectious I'm going to give it a second go!
Please good person who reads my comment and likes this book: Can you reccomend me another book with a schizoid character? And please not "The perfume" as i already read that one. And not "The portrait of Dorian Grey" as i read that one too. Thank you from the bottom of my lonely soul!
Hey good reader, I am unsure if you are still looking for recommendations but you can have a look at Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg (Cliff liked that book too)
@@muskmadness1 Thank you a lot! Gonna check it out. And i'm always on the hunt for such books so if you find anything else that's good,drop a comment 😘
Admittedly I have only rubbed genitalia once with a morbidly obese ecstasy-addict. I couldn't feel a thing and was unable to ejaculate because I was drunk and my severely death-gripped penis was wrapped in a condom. The sex was exhausting, boring, and awkward.The saddest part is probably that I spent three years being obsessed with the idea of sex and love, the social pressure and rejection killing me inside every day, only to be hugely disappointed. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time in a very Kierkegaardian way. So although my sample size is quite limited, I have neither the capacity or desire to increase it any further.
Jan Gjerdum How is your death grip now ? I’ve been on NoFap cuz I had a similar experience with sex. I haven’t had sex since then and want to but scared I might fail
Didn't see a single jewel encrusted onto that cat.
paradiceislost9 What an excellent way to take my revenge...
oh yeah that was horrendous
This is such an underrated comment
This is an extraordinary book. The writing is glorious. However, I can't help feeling I don't have the education to get everything from it. I don't know how anyone could, really. But having read it, I now have a reading list that will see me in books for the rest of my life.
I don’t think you’re meant to. It’s the ramblings of a decadent aristocrat with nothing else to do but read as many old books as possible
@@MrPROJECTSyNc god i wish that were me
For what it's worth, I completely understood the section on Latin literature, but understood none of the other sections, which shows I think that it is extremely unlikely that anyone could understand every single section completely - nevertheless I enjoyed the descriptions of different works of art
Huysmans, Baudelaire, Balzac, De Maistre, the great French Catholic writers.
Chateaubriand too
You forgot Flaubert.
This is the great influence to The Picture of Dorian Gray
And a better book in my opinion
Poisonous yellow book
Read The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. Super good book.
I mean, having Egon Schiele art on the cover makes the book good by default.
I'm so glad to find someone else who has read and loved this book! I read it for my Modern France class at university and it's only grown on me since. Its hard to decide between the turtle, perfume, flowers, and enema for my favorite sections. Against Nature is a treasure.
I've just binge watched all your videos, and what can I say ? Gimme more !
Great literature needs great defenders, and you are definitely one of them. Thank you for such in-depth analysis.
(plus, not that I want to add some fuel to your impatience, but as a French I have the privilege to have already read "Soumission" and it is ... fuck*** Houellebecquian genius - and yes he totally deserves a neologism with his name)
Clémentine Oh.......There's more. Seething with envy, mais presqu'arrive...
You're too kind, welcome and happy to have you watching. I agree. He does deserve a neologism. Now to find the author to whom such a term is deserving....
Better Than Food: Book Reviews Thank you for your welcome !
About "deserving" authors, Pierre Michon just came to my mind : have you heard of him ? I would definitely recommend "The origin of the world" and "Small lives" (sorry, it's French again, no chauvinism intended)
Looking forward for the next video(s) then. See you soon.
Thanks for covering one of my favorite authors who I was turned onto back in 1984 after first reading La' Bas and then read many of his books over the years as he converted to Catholicism. Your channel is probably the only one I have come across that actually gives sufficient credit to J.K. Huysmans and much appreciated for your perspective.
I first discovered this book in my mid-twenties, many years ago. I was a young gay man obsessed with Wilde and 19th C. decadents in general when I saw a mention of it in a book on Wilde. I had to search all over for a copy in the suburban wasteland of my youth (it was the 80’s) and when I did, I read it and it changed my life and my mind for good. This book seems to have that effect on people. I always get giddy when I encounter someone who loves this book as much as I do. You should very definitely considering marrying such an individual when you find them, I highly agree with you there!
I also read this book in my twenties. Just seems to be the best time to read it. It was the 1980s for me, too. Having just left the early punk scene, and trying to make sense of it all, I decided to try and figure out how far back "counter-culters+ and the thinking behind them. When I reached 19th-century Europe, I found the mother load. That included the decadents, and so, of course, this book,
I have a question, Is all big oscar wilde fans gay?, like, is that a thing in gay world? I know a guy who is 63 and he is a big fan of oscar wilde. And everyone is saying that he is gay bc he is so obsessed with wilde. He is actually my boss yea and sadly I’m a really curious person :/
I started this today...I had a good feeling about it a few pages in. I read Submission last year but wasn't familiar with Huysmans at the time. I had some issues with Submission but have since read 2 more Houellebecqs. He always seems to pick supremely interesting subject matter.
His poems are so great too...
Same reason why I'm here lol
...I read this "fucking book"...several years ago, and it continues to resonate with me to this day. In fact, I've written about this "decadent novel" par excellence in a couple of articles on my blog (i.e. The Culture Fix). Des Esseintes' musings about Mallarme's poetry in Chapter 12 are especially great because Mallarme is one of my favorite poets. Great review, man. And if you haven't already, might I suggest that you read and review Rainer Maria Rilke's lone novel, "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge". It's another one of my all-time favorites, and you seem like the kinda guy that would really dig it for sure. Cheers! And I've officially subscribed to you. :-)
I really enjoy watching your reviews. This particular one inspired me to finally pick up my own copy of 'Against Nature' from my local bookshop and giving it a try. I also picked up a copy of a little biography of Rimbaud, about his stay in Belgium (where I live), after watching your Rimbaud review. So yeah, def. looking forward to reading those. And I really hope I don't offend you by saying this, but you are very, very beautiful.
Seems like everytime I watch Clifford's review, I buy the book! I think he doesn't realize how his enthusiasm sells the book. 🤣
I read this novel many years ago when I was interested in Oscar Wilde and now I can't remember much about it. Maybe I was too young and optimistic at the time. Perhaps decadence belongs to middle and old age.
I’m reading this book right now. Yes, it’s better than food... better than being happy.
The quintessential description of Huysman is "decadent." In fact, this book is considered the best example of Decadence in French Literature in the 20th century. I read it many years ago (60's) and never recovered. Think of Huysman as related to Baudelaire and also another minor writer Villiers de L'isle D'adam who said, " As for living we will leave that to our servants."
Fantastic review!! Against Nature is one of my absolute favorites! Also, wow, you look and sound like Bradley Cooper! :)
+Madeleine Spencer I always thought that Bret Easton Ellis was riffing on Against Nature with the detail oriented internal life of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.
Madeleine Spencer yep. Thought that as well but had never seen the parallel drawn before.
I honestly don't know how I've never found this channel before. Absolutely love it. Definitely the kind of person you need to have a pint and book rant with! Keep it up!
I definitely enjoy the thought of Décadence authors being casually read and reviewed, without fancy wordy sugarcoating! Thanks from France!
Reading Houellebecq rn that's how I came up on this guy. As a Catholic myself I might pick up this guy once I finish Submission
You should take a look at "En rade" (I don't know the English title), written two years later, it's more like a "real" novel, it's kinda funny, scarcastic and full of despair, and as sophisticated as "Against Nature", with that incredible, hallucinated style. Great review. Cheers from France
Man, you should re-review this book.
"Once I despised [the Church], because I had a staff on which to lean when the great winds of weariness blew ; I believed in my novels, I worked at my history, I had my art. I have come to recognize its absolute inadequacy, its complete incapacity to afford happiness. Then I understood that Pessimism was, at most, good to console those who had no real need of comfort; I understood that its theories, alluring when we are young, and rich, and well, become singularly weak and lamentably false, when age advances, when infirmities declare themselves, when all around is crumbling. I went to the church, that hospital for souls. There, at least, they take you in, put you to bed and nurse you, they do not merely turn their backs on you as in the wards of Pessimism and tell you the name of your disease." - from the semi-autobiographical "En Route" By Joris-Karl Huysmans
Try La Retraite De Monsieur Bougran, a very nice short story by Huysmans. If you can't read french, I don't think you'll get all the modernity of the writer's style but I'm sure some good translators were paid.
Made me want to go out find this book right now, and some scotch. Also the cat is welcomed addition
Another reason for you to read Soumission by Houellebecq. I think you having read Huysmans will add to that experience.
Skip that comment, you already knew Houellebecq used it...
Note to self: wait after video is completely done before commenting.
Checking this out! I'm curious in your opinion of Cormac McCarthy´s work!
I won't bore you with my history. But like another poster I do recommend The Magus by John Fowles. It is a masterpiece of literature and works best on someone in his late 20's early thirties.
Will definitely take a look at it
This channel is fantastic. As a student-teacher, I thank you. I paraphrase you often.
I was recommended this book after reading bel ami by guy de Maupassant which is brilliant i will have against nature in a few weeks peace. Good review.
I am about to begin reading it when this video is finished!
It's definitive . Compared to heart of darkness and the visceral of Burroughs but with musical prose that makes you feel like an illiterate .The first Modern novel .
Thanks I now know how to pronounce Huysmans lol I was pronouncing it like it was spelled
LOVE THIS BOOK…. Heard about it from Terence Mckenna… Okay I subscribed… John Waters quote did it for me.
I try to read every book you've spoken
Great videos on great books! Ate some food while watching them. Subscribed immediately.
thanks
Beautiful cat. ❤😊
I found the book mind numbingly boring - it felt like a series of lists tied together with some flowery prose in between. That being said, your enjoyment of the book is so infectious I'm going to give it a second go!
One of my favorite books!!
0:44 keep the leather jeans in tip top condition
Its on my "to read" list
Will always be my favorite book. P.s Great review
do the picture of Dorian Gray
Great book!! I would like to suggest The Magus by John Fowles!!!
My favorite book of all time.
No wonder the cat hates him
Holy shit my cat is identical... Lol. Great review by the way
he embraced catholicism because it’s better than food, even better than a slice of gamey venison on the point of going off.
You're awesome
YESSS! Just my taste
Who or wat is a liggotian???
someone who follows the ideas of thomas ligotti, who is famously nihilistic
You are perfect.
The edition of Against Nature talked about here is the translation by Brendan King, published by Dedalus Books.
i cam here bc i wanted u to spoil it
Please good person who reads my comment and likes this book: Can you reccomend me another book with a schizoid character? And please not "The perfume" as i already read that one. And not "The portrait of Dorian Grey" as i read that one too. Thank you from the bottom of my lonely soul!
Hey good reader, I am unsure if you are still looking for recommendations but you can have a look at Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg (Cliff liked that book too)
@@muskmadness1 Thank you a lot! Gonna check it out. And i'm always on the hunt for such books so if you find anything else that's good,drop a comment 😘
@SHRELP QR Thank you so much! Will read them all. Keep adding if anything else comes to mind!
You’re such a funny guy but you need to learn how to edit your videos and to be less anxious talking, good luck
Sex isn't good at all though
Admittedly I have only rubbed genitalia once with a morbidly obese ecstasy-addict. I couldn't feel a thing and was unable to ejaculate because I was drunk and my severely death-gripped penis was wrapped in a condom. The sex was exhausting, boring, and awkward.The saddest part is probably that I spent three years being obsessed with the idea of sex and love, the social pressure and rejection killing me inside every day, only to be hugely disappointed. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time in a very Kierkegaardian way. So although my sample size is quite limited, I have neither the capacity or desire to increase it any further.
Very Kierkegaardian, indeed.
Jan Gjerdum
How is your death grip now ? I’ve been on NoFap cuz I had a similar experience with sex. I haven’t had sex since then and want to but scared I might fail
Cat owners 😒