Huysmans & the Decadence

BOOK REVIEWS munity and the strains of his marriage. Page suggests, for instance, that Hardy's radical view of incompatibility within marriage and of divorce as a plausible alternative stems from his troubled marriage to Emma Gifford. He also discusses the intertextual relationship between Hardy's fiction and his poems, arguing that, despite Hardy's lifelong demurrals about his fiction, he treated the writing of his novels with the same craftsmanship that he applied to his poetry. In a brief mention of the critical reception of Hardy's fiction, Page notes that, while reviewers of his early novels concentrated on their aesthetic effects, reviewers of later novels shifted to commenting on moral issues, especially questions of sexuality. In Chapter Eight, Page returns to his argument that Hardy documents the dying agrarian world in his novels; Page also extends his discussion of Hardy's influences to mention the extensive use of Biblical allusions in his works, the legacy of the Orthodox Christian religion which Hardy rejected in adulthood. The final section of the book consists of an annotated bibliography of notable Hardy studies, and an additional brief bibliography of biographies, reference materials and critical works of Hardy. Although advanced scholars of Hardy may find Thomas Hardy: The Novels to be too elementary, beginning students will discover many valuable insights into Hardy's works. As well, the beginning student of Hardy will also benefit from Page's demonstrations of passage analysis; through Page's work, the student will learn both how to conduct an analysis of a passage and appreciate Hardy's skills as a novelist. This book is an excellent introduction to both the study of Hardy and to the study of literature in general. Heather Marcovitch ______________ University of Florida Huysmans & the Decadence G. A. Cevasco. The Breviary of the Decadence: J.-K. Huysmans's A Rebours and English Literature. New York: AMS Press, 2001. xiv + 227 pp. $64.50 FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS, G. A. Cevasco has been publishing books and articles on Joris-Karl Huysmans, the latest work a critical study focusing on Huysmans's most famous novel: "One of the most unusual novels ever written was published in May 1884." In 1893, in his seminal essay "The Decadent Movement in Literature," Arthur Symons wrote of A Rebours: "Elaborately and deliberately perverse, it is in its very perversity that Huysmans' work—so fascinating, so repellent , so instinctively artificial—comes to represent, as the work of no 203 ELT 46 : 2 2003 other writer can be said to do, the main tendencies, the chief results, of the Decadent movement in literature." In a chapter on Symons, Cevasco traces Decadence to Symbolism, which Symons analyzed in his major critical work, The Symbolist Movement in Literature (completed in 1899, published in 1900), including a chapter on "Huysmans as a Symbolist." Symons's close friend, W. B. Yeats, who helped clarify ideas for The Symbolist Movement, later called Symons "the best critic of his generation." Cevasco writes that Symons, who alluded to A Rebours as the "breviary " of the Decadence, was struck by the term, which refers to "a special prayer book of psalms, hymns, and selected parts of Holy Scriptures read daily by ordained clergymen of the Roman Catholic Church." In Huysmans's novel, the bizarre hero, Des Esseintes, in his extraordinary house outside of Paris, creates a lofty hall to receive tradesmen, who take seats in rows of church stalls ; he then mounts an imposing pulpit to preach a sermon on dandyism and, to his tailors, to give instructions in the latest fashions. In short, Huysmans employs, as did writers at the time, the notion of the Religion of Art (the use of religious imagery and rhetoric for aesthetic purposes). A Rebours has attracted readers by its shocking depictions of perverse sexuality, notably involving Miss Urania, an American acrobat with arms of iron and muscles of steel, clearly an androgyne. Growing weary of her, Des Esseintes is attracted by a female ventriloquist, who participates in experiments, such as having her project her voice outside the door of his bedroom as though imitating a jealous lover. The most bizarre experiences occur in Des Esseintes's nightmares, which are filled with images...