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/lit/ - Literature


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15940684 No.15940684 [Reply] [Original]

>Asserts that women are inferior to sexy, sexy trains
>Goes on a chapter-long rant about Latin poets in exactly the kind of aspergers style of Patrick Bateman talking about Huey Lewis and the News
>Has his dining room outfitted to look like the inside of a ship with aquariums in the windows and kitschy nautical decorations to pretend he's eating on a boat
>Orders a gigantic gilded and bejewelled tortoise to match his rug
I'm only forty pages in and this is the funniest book I've ever fucking read, Des Esseintes is the most flawless depiction of a prototypical /lit/ autist ever conceived

>> No.15940723

>>15940684
>has gay sex
exactly like 100% of /lit/

>> No.15940776

>>15940684
So, what was his f**king problem?

>> No.15940831

>>15940776
Autism of an unparalleled purity and refinement
>The turtle fucking died and Des Esseintes decided it must be because "it had not been able to bear the dazzling splendour thrust upon it"
I cannot stop laughing holy fuck

>> No.15940860
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15940860

>>15940831
Next time i read it, i'll picture Des Esseintes in head like pic related

>> No.15941368

If Des Esseintes were alive today he would be on /lit/ replying to every post praising an author with "go back to r*ddit" and every post criticizing an author with "lol filtered"

>> No.15941376

>>15940684
>Asserts that women are inferior to sexy, sexy trains

W-what?

>> No.15941411

I think the Incel is an archetype of the present, not the future. Maybe even the recent past. In my earlier films from the “Betamale” trilogy, I was interested in another hyper-contemporary archetype: the Internet Troll. Aspects of the Internet Troll have since metastasised into what is known as the Incel. Back then, I saw the Troll as a reclusive aesthete of the 4chan era, a modern-day reincarnation of the hero of Joris-Karl Huysmans’ novel À rebours (Against the Grain) [1884]. I think the Incel narrative in The Joker is pretty facile. Taxi Driver is way more interesting, because the hero inhabits a moral grey zone which is much more complex and ambiguous. It is important to create narratives that are able to deal with this grey zone in a nuanced way.

>> No.15941436
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15941436

>>15941376

>> No.15941447
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15941447

>>15941436

>> No.15941478

>>15941436
reminds me of Pynchon and that girl who wants to make love to her red corvette or something

>> No.15941480
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15941480

>>15941447
>>15941436
Holy fuck.

>> No.15941490

>>15941368
No he wouldn't. His character was defined by his retreat from society, even with the internet and anonymous forums he wouldn't be interested in posting his opinion anywhere.

He would be a reclusive trustafarian living in a small flat dominated by a huge gaming rig and thousand dollar chair, He used to play EvE and Dark Souls but now he plays Dwarf Fortress for 40 hours straight and eats packaged salads delivered automatically and left outside his door. The only other items in his flat are a carefully curated shelf of obscure manga in Japanese which he reads fluently although he doesn't speak it at all. Sometimes he listlessly browses expensive cam sites but it does nothing for him now, just checking if his cock is still dead.

>> No.15941517

>>15941490
Perfect lol.

Though it's missing the element that is the most essential to Des Esseintes, in my opinion - he's a living dinosaur in an age that has no need for him anymore.

>> No.15941598

>>15941436
>>15941447
How can one man be so fuckin' based?

>> No.15941609

>>15941490
>rich af guy
>used to be a dandy
>into aesthetics experiences
>likes lavish shit and art
>now plays video games and reads manga
Man, why do you have to project your shitty hobbies onto everything?

>> No.15941622

The first time I read OP I made the mistake of reading the old Project Gutenberg translation and it didn't do a lot for me. I was in a rush, not very familiar with some of the artworks he mentions.
It seems like I've learned to appreciate him a lot better after reading other writers.

Should I read La Bas or re-read A Rebours?

>> No.15941626

>>15940684
The rant against classic latin poets was where I personally lost it. Just too damn funny.

>> No.15942179

bump

>> No.15942923

>>15941622
Has nobody read any other Huysmans?
Maybe frog hours will bring some answers. Bump.

>> No.15943324

>>15942923
I've heard people mention Là-Bas on here, but I don't know anything about it myself. For some reason I thought it was a Bataille novel.

>> No.15943467

>>15943324
La Bas is the only other book by him I've seen mentioned. I know he was kinda controversial among French writers back then (maybe it was his style or something) so he must have been kinda prolific. La Bas is apparently about satanic rituals and what not.

I was able to find several other works in translation, by this guy btw
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/123091.Brendan_King

>> No.15943473

La bas is really good, definitely worth reading. Very different though

>> No.15945446

>>15942923
I've read À vau-l'eau (Downstream). It's sort of the poor man's version of À rebours, of a man who just wants to buy some nice wallpaper and secondhand furniture and have his meals delivered so he doesn't need to leave home. He does go out to eat at cheap places in Paris a few times, and it's quite comfy overall.

>> No.15946723

>>15940684
The way he corrupted the impoverished young man into a life of crime by giving him a taste of the high life was hilarious

>> No.15947428

>>15940684
Bro wait till you get to the part with the ventriloquist I was in tears

>> No.15947494

>>15940684
>Orders a gigantic gilded and bejewelled tortoise to match his rug
>>15940831
>The turtle fucking died and Des Esseintes decided it must be because "it had not been able to bear the dazzling splendour thrust upon it"

Lapidary tortoises make the most exquisite companions

>>15941411
>I think the Incel is an archetype of the present, not the future.
The great cities are dead -- the flaneur must promenade through the digital hives now

>> No.15947549

It's a great novel. I found it to be a slow read because I wanted to look up everything he referenced. The plant chapter send me on a two week botany tangent.

>> No.15947565

>>15943467
Second the Brandon King translations from Dedalus Books as being excellent:
http://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-books/?srch=Huysmans

>> No.15947593

>>15942923
La Bas is great.

>> No.15947607

>'Solitude had acted on his brain as an opiate. At first, it had over-excited and strained him, then induced a lethargy haunted by vague reveries; it destroyed his plans, broke down his will and now led him through a procession of dreams to which he passively submitted.'

Is he me?

>> No.15947658

>>15945446
It literally is the poor man's version - Huysmans himself said thw inspiration for A Rebours was inagining a Folantin with enough wealth to indugle his fantasies

Also important that À vau-l'eau can also be translated as "Drifting" or "With the Flow" (aka the opposite of A Rebours, against the grain)

>> No.15947667
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15947667

>>15941622
They're very different books, the common strain being Huysmans descriptiveness. Against Nature is a great anti-naturalist assault. It can read like a catalogue and very little happens, making it a bit slow.

La Bas has a driving plot, eroticism, death and murder. If you were put off Huysmans by a bad translation I would read La Bas first to draw you back in, then use the energy to re-read the Brendan King translation of Against Nature afterwards.

>> No.15947676

>>15941490
The chapter comparing the qualities of various cRPGs would be fantastic.

>> No.15947742

>>15947607
Are you rich? Have you banged big titty Jewish prostitutes? If yes, then yes.

>> No.15947762

Did people (I guess some still do) idealize Des Esseintes? Youre clearly not supposed to

>> No.15947842

>>15940776
being too based

>> No.15949204

>>15947667
>the Brendan King translation of Against Nature afterwards.
Is it really that good? I've seen some weird shit pulled by Dedalus with Cazotte's The Devil in Love and these pages look like the Penguin version >>15941447 >>15941436
but I'm not sure.

>> No.15949524

>>15949204
Those pages were the Oxford World Classics edition, Mauldon's translation. I didn't do any research on translations, I just found it and bought it on a whim one day because none of the Oxfords I bought have had bad ones that I can recall.

>> No.15949688

>>15940684
>in exactly the kind of aspergers style of Patrick Bateman talking about Huey Lewis and the News

I... had never made that connection, but yeah anon, that's a good one.

>> No.15949905

>>15940684
I was interesting in this after reading The Picture of Dorian Gray and wondered what how poisonous a "poisonous French novel" could be? So I read it and it's fucking nothing. Literally nothing happens. All he does it talk about his shitty Latin book collection and paints a turtle shell. This is the "poisonous French novel" that caused Dorian to go insane?

We live in different times. They were weak back then.

>> No.15949940

>>15949905
This is assuming the "poisonous French novel" was À rebours and not something else.

>> No.15950471

>>15949905
Its reputation was bigger than the reality, like a modern day news panic about a violent game. It was the very lack of moral direction in the novel which appalled the haters.

>> No.15950634

>>15940684
The tortoise thing actually happened