À la mémoire de l'anniversaire de J.K. Huysmans:

A lovely copy of À Rebours:

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8600236v/f19.image.pagination.r=huysmans+r...

Redon and more on Huysmans with links to Jean Lorrain, etc.:

http://odilonredon.eu/blog/odilonredon/

An LT friend has inquired as to a preferred translation of Against the Grain. My initial reaction was to go with the one that I know and love, the old Three Sirens/Illustrated Editions edition* reissued by Dover, as oppose to the Penguin translation (1959) by Robert Balwick.

The older edition with the Havelock Ellis introduction - with the added bonus, in the Illustrated Editions version, of some nice Arthur Zaidenberg's illustrations* - is my preferred text inasmuch as the florid translation fits well with the feel of the book.

But I'd like any opinions on more recent translations.

*I've also just found the Ace of Spades in my edition. Looks like it will be an interesting day.

Thanks, Makifat...

According to one of the Amazon reviews of the Dover edition, that translation has been expur-gay-ted. How much does that matter in this case?

I read La Bas in the new Penguin translation. I noticed that the line quoted on Ben Waugh's profile page was not as felicitous when it appeared in my Penguin. Significantly less so, as a matter of fact. (If anyone cares much, I will find it and type it in.) So, when I picked up Rebours I went with the Dover (Ellis intro!) I am still happy with that, but it looks like I will need to read the Penguin too, now. That's okay by me as the book/s are good enough to warrant a reread and, while offering a lot, they are not too demanding.

According to one of the Amazon reviews of the Dover edition, that translation has been expur-gay-ted. How much does that matter in this case?


Good question. My memory is dim on that. For what it's worth, the Zaidenberg illustrations (in the Illustrated Editions version), while not explicit, leave little doubt as to what's going on.

I think the dover and three sirens editions of À Rebours (Against the Grain) with the Havelock Ellis introduction are the John Howard translation. The expurgated version omits an entire chapter. The chapter with the implied homosexuality. I believe the Three Sirens illustrated edition and the 1969 Dover were both unabridged.

Censoring Huysmans is sacrilege.

The stuff dreams are made of.

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1334557472&searchurl=an%3Dh...

Holy freedom fries! You would think they might offer free shipping on that ;).

Supposedly the recent Dedalus translation is pretty good (Brendan King?). I recall reading somewhere that the Dover edition (which I read - and whose cover I prefer) did not exactly obtain to the osmazome of the original.

Way out of my price range of course. But it was a real thrill to see Huysmans very own signature on a first edition of La Bas. A museum piece.

I read a bit of the Brendan King. Updated language. I was very disappointed. I much prefer the dover/three sirens(Howard) translation.

The John Howard translation is available for free download on Project Gutenberg, if you're into the whole e-book thing...

I read the Penguin edition with the Gustave Moreau cover. The translation by Robert Baldick is really good. A great admixture of the archaic and the overwrought.

http://www.dedalusbooks.com/catalog.php?s=4&id=145

Looks like he also translated Flaubert's Sentimental Education

Gutenberg has the expurgated text unfortunately.

I have read several of Robert Baldick's other translations which I liked very much as well as his bio of Huysmans. I picked up but have not yet read his translation of À Rebours.

For anyone who is interested, this homage is a limited edition collection of stories by Huysmans and contemporary genre authors:

http://beritellingsen.com/2013/11/16/jk-huysmans-tribute-transactions-of-the-fle...

http://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/transactions-of-the-flesh/

Its table of contents: The Key to Jerusalem by Mark Valentine • Pray to the God of Flux by Jonathan Wood • Endgame Aesthete by Jeremy Reed • Ziegler against the World by John Howard • Towards Nature by Douglas Thompson • In Our Deep Vaulted Cell by Derek John • Summer Dusk, Winter Moon by Berit Ellingsen • Ash Sun, Rasberry Sky by Adam Golaski • Angel Head by Harold Billings • Starless Mornings Find Me Older by Peter Holman • An Expiatory Pessimism by Eugene Thacker • The Red Seed by Louis Marvick • Indescribable by M.O.N. • The Sulphur Remedy by Oliver Smith • Salammbo and the Zaimph of Tanit by Colin Insole • Again, the Granite, or A 21st Century Secret Experiment in Devastating Ennui by Charles Schneider • A Hive of Pain by DP Watt • Pierrot the Sceptic (1881) by Leon Hennique and J-K Huysmans.

Order from: http://www.zagava.de/

Huysmans scholar and translator Brendan King's Huysmans site:

http://www.huysmans.org/

I had intended to send this as a private message but I cannot find a way to do this on Librarything. Benwaugh, you have this most delightful passage on your profile page:

"In his classic novel of the occult, Là-Bas, Joris Huysmans wrote, “Now from lofty Mysticism to base Satanism there is but one step. In the Beyond all things touch.” Under the sign of the caduceus, Jeanne d’Arc is paired with Giles de Rais. Abomination painstakingly decocted yields its transcendental osmazome to make a monstrance of those palates too jaded to lend themselves to utterance of shopworn, vulgar prayers. The distinction between depravity and piety becomes a matter of sensibility. There are sacred precedents. In Virgil we have the story of the calf that was bludgeoned to death so that the divine bees would make a hive of its corpse and leave behind their honey. A similar story exists in the Old Testament's Book of Judges. Scientists claim that these bees were in fact droneflies and the "honey" they produced, an ichorous filth. "

Would you share the source? I love it!