The Damned (La-Bas) (Penguin Classics)
by Joris-Karl Huysmans

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Book Reviews of The Damned (La-Bas) (Penguin Classics)

Book Review: A bit wearing.
Summary: 3 Stars

In reading this book, you will learn more about historic views of demonology than you probably ever wanted to know, with characters earnestly expounding on possessions, curses, and exorcisms; this is given an extra edge by the fact that Huysmans himself was apparently a firm believer in it. It's interesting for a while, but the fact is, it does get old. Against Nature jumped from topic to topic quickly enough that tedium never really had time to set in; not so here, unforunately.

The back cover copy claims that "...when he [Durtal, the protagonist] meets the exquisitely evil Madame Chauntelouve, he is drawn into the twilight world of black magic and erotic devilry of fin-de-siecle Paris." This makes the book sound far more interesting than it actually is. The twilight world in question basically consists of people sitting around and talking about the aforementioned subjects, and the infamous black mass at the end is pretty tame by modern standards. I can see how this stuff could have been shocking a century ago, but now I think it likely to arouse, if anything, historical interest more than anything else. I would say that the most interesting part of the book consisted of the sections on the child murderer Gilles de Rais, about whom Durtal is trying to write a biography. They were vivid, frequently fairly gruesome, and they provided a good, violent, fire and brimstone view of Medieval Europe.

Still, criticisms aside, if you want more of Huysmans than Against Nature, you might find La-Bas (I can't help but note that 'The Damned,' as a translation of the title, is stretching it pretty far) a worthwhile read. Word.

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