Là-bas (1891) by J.-K. Huysmans

Readers unfamiliar with Là-bas may prefer to read the below note only after reading the novel.

From ch 20:

     "I was certain to perish. A day had passed since I was bewitched. Two days more and I should have been ready for the cemetery."

     "How's that?"

     "Every individual struck by magic has three days in which to take measures. That time past, the ill is incurable. So when Docre announced to me that he condemned me to death by his own authority and when, two hours later, on returning home, I felt desperately ill, I lost no time packing my grip and starting for Lyons."

     "And there?" asked Durtal.

     "There I saw Dr. Johannès. I told him of Docre's threat and of my illness. He said to me simply. 'That priest can dress the most virulent poisons in the most frightful sacrileges. The fight will be bitter, but I shall conquer,' and he immediately called in a woman who lives in his house, a voyant.

     "He hypnotized her and she, at his injunction, explained the nature of the sorcery of which I was the victim. She reconstructed the scene. She literally saw me being poisoned by food and drink mixed with menstrual fluid that had been reinforced with macerated sacramental wafers and drugs skilfully dosed. That sort of spell is so terrible that aside from Dr. Johannès no thaumaturge in France dare try to cure it.

*   *   *

What a delightful, funny, and acerbic novel! I am so glad I read Là-bas (1891) by J.-K. Huysmans. To think, I kept putting it off because I thought it was a Dennis Wheatley-style thriller. Well, it is thrilling. I wish I could send this message back in time to myself 40 years ago. 

It takes its time.

It's curious about people and how they live.

Context: a thin social layer in Paris.

Durtle, having given up on Naturalism, is laboring over a biography of Gilles de Rais, and several times we are given a look at his mental reveries reconstructing Bluebeard's Medieval world.

And it ends perfectly, and still has me smiling!

     "Hurrah for Boulanger!"

     The noise as of a stormy sea mounted from the Place Saint Sulpice, and a hubbub of cries floated up to the tower room. "Boulange—Lange—" Then an enormous, raucous voice, the voice of an oyster woman, a push-cart peddler, rose, dominating all others, howling, "Hurrah for Boulanger!"

     "The people are cheering the election returns in front of the city hall," said Carhaix disdainfully.

     They looked at each other.

     "The people of today!" exclaimed Des Hermies.

     "Ah," grumbled Gévingey, "they wouldn't acclaim a sage, an artist, that way, even—if such were conceivable now—a saint."

     "And they did in the Middle Ages."

     "Well, they were more naïf and not so stupid then," said Des Hermies. "And as Gévingey says, where now are the saints who directed them? You cannot too often repeat it, the spiritual councillors of today have tainted hearts, dysenteric souls, and slovenly minds. Or they are worse. They corrupt their flock. They are of the Docre order and Satanize."

     "To think that a century of positivism and atheism has been able to overthrow everything but Satanism, and it cannot make Satanism yield an inch."

     "Easily explained!" cried Carhaix. "Satan is forgotten by the great majority. Now it was Father Ravignan, I believe, who proved that the wiliest thing the Devil can do is to get people to deny his existence."

     "Oh, God!" murmured Durtal forlornly, "what whirlwinds of ordure I see on the horizon!"

     "No," said Carhaix, "don't say that. On earth all is dead and decomposed. But in heaven! Ah, I admit that the Paraclete is keeping us waiting. But the texts announcing his coming are inspired. The future is certain. There will be light," and with bowed head he prayed fervently.

     Des Hermies rose and paced the room. "All that is very well," he groaned, "but this century laughs the glorified Christ to scorn. It contaminates the supernatural and vomits on the Beyond. Well, how can we hope that in the future the offspring of the fetid tradesmen of today will be decent? Brought up as they are, what will they do in Life?"

     "They will do," replied Durtal, "as their fathers and mothers do now. They will stuff their guts and crowd out their souls through their alimentary canals."

 FINIS

Jay

18 September 2022