Là-Bas/Huysmans Day at Dennis Cooper's blog

[Frater_Tsalal]

I figured I'd just throw this out here as I know there are a lot of Huysmans fans on these boards. Today Dennis Cooper's blog is hosting an extremely obsessive essay/article I put together about J.K. Huysmans and his writing of Là-Bas. It was in fact so long that it had to be split into two parts, with part two set to appear over the weekend. Anyway, here's the link to part one:

http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blo...-soi-meme.html

[Malone]

Thank you for that. A clear labour of love on your part. I also love that novel, and when I was last in Paris made a special pilgrimage to Saint-Sulpice.

My only quibble would be your description of Huysmans as 'gullible'. I wouldn't say it was gullibility on his part, more an absolute resolute determination to throw himself into the world of the occult and due to the boredom and despair of materialism and atheism willfully believe whatever he encountered.

One of my favourite pieces of writing on Huysmans can be read here:

Egoists, a book of supermen: Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Barrès, Nietzsche, Blake, Ibsen, Stirner, and Ernest Hello, with portrait of Stendhal; unpublished letter of Flaubert; and original proof page of Madame Bovary

[Frater_Tsalal]

Malone, thanks for that link, I'll have to check it out later. I have heard of that book, but for whatever reason I've yet to read it.

My description of Huysmans as gullible was actually a paraphrasing of something that Brendan King wrote to me when I sent him an e-mail last year asking him some questions about the novel (mainly to get his opinion as to if he felt that Huysmans ever actually attended a Black Mass, among other issues). King wrote to me, "Huysmans was quite gullible, and he believed a lot of things which most of us would now would not accept on simply someone's word."

[Justin Isis]

Quote Originally Posted by Malone

Ernest Hello

Always felt this guy's name rather defeated him, and that he should have been called Count Orlov or Baron Mondegreen or something. I mean, his name sounds like a children's book. Same problem with Oliver Onions.

[Frater_Tsalal]

Part two:

http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blo...i-meme_12.html