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À Vau-l'eau
''À vau-l'eau'' (English: ''With the Flow'' or ''Downstream'' ) is a novella by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published by Henry Kistmaeckers in Brussels on January 26, 1882. Plot Summary 21µThe work - which has little in the way of plot - tells the story of Jean Folantin, a downtrodden Parisian civil service clerk whose quest for even a modicum of happiness or material comfort always ends in failure. The book chronicles Folantin's everyday disappointments, typified by his search for a decent meal (there are numerous descriptions of the disgusting food he has to eat). At the end of the novella, Folantin pessimistically resigns himself to giving up hope and "going with the flow":"...he realised the futility of changing direction, the sterility of all enthusiasm and all effort. 'You have to let yourself go with the flow; Schopenhauer is right', he told himself, '"Man's life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom". So there's no point trying to speed up or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts. Definition The Italian term is a feminine of ''novello'', which means ''new'', similarly to the English word ''news''. Merriam-Webster defines a novella as "a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel". No official definition exists regarding the number of pages or words necessary for a story to be considered a novella, a short story or a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines a novella's word count to be between 17,500 and 40,000 words. History The novella as a literary genre began developing in the Italian literature of the early Renaissance, principally Giovanni Boccaccio, author of ''The Decameron'' (1353). ''The Decameron'' featured 100 tales (named n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel '' À rebours'' (1884, published in English as ''Against the Grain'' and as ''Against Nature''). He supported himself by way of a 30-year career in the French civil service. Huysmans's work is considered remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, large vocabulary, descriptions, satirical wit and far-ranging erudition. First considered part of Naturalism, he became associated with the decadent movement with his publication of ''À rebours.'' His work expressed his deep pessimism, which had led him to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. In later years, his novels reflected his study of Catholicism, religious conversion, and becoming an oblate. He discussed the iconography of Christian architecture at length in '' La cathédrale'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest), is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels, which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is located in the central portion of the country and is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the Flemish Region (within which it forms an enclave) and the Walloon Region. Brussels is the most densely populated region in Belgium, and although it has the highest GDP per capita, it has the lowest available income per household. The Brussels Region covers , a relatively small area compared to the two other regions, and has a population of over 1.2 million. The five times larger metropolitan area of Bruss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the List of cities proper by population density, 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, Fashion capital, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called Caput Mundi#Paris, the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France Regions of France, region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance. His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism. Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism is a literary movement beginning in the late nineteenth century, similar to literary realism in its rejection of Romanticism, but distinct in its embrace of determinism, detachment, scientific objectivism, and social commentary. Literary naturalism emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality. Naturalism includes detachment, in which the author maintains an impersonal tone and disinterested point of view; determinism, which is defined as the opposite of free will, in which a character's fate has been decided, even predetermined, by impersonal forces of nature beyond human control; and a sense that the universe itself is indifferent to human life. The novel would be an experiment where the author could discover and analyze the forces, or scientific laws, that influenced behavior, and these included emotion, heredity, and environment. The movement largely traces to the theories of French author Émile Zola. Background Literary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
À Rebours
''À rebours'' (; translated ''Against Nature'' or ''Against the Grain'') is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes loathes nineteenth-century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. The narrative is almost entirely a catalogue of the neurotic Des Esseintes's aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, painting, and religion, and hyperaesthesic sensory experiences. ''À rebours'' contains many themes that became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from Naturalism and became the ultimate example of "Decadent" literature, inspiring works such as Oscar Wilde's '' The Picture of Dorian Gray'' (1890). In his preface for the 1903 publication of the novel, Huysmans wrote that he had the idea to portray a man "soaring upwards into d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English film, television and voice actor, director, narrator and writer. He was twice nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his roles in ''A Room with a View'' (1985), and '' Four Weddings and a Funeral'' (1994). He has also starred in '' Amadeus'' (1984), '' Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls'' (1995), '' Shakespeare in Love'' (1998) and ''Victoria & Abdul'' (2017). His television work includes '' Chance in a Million'' (1984) and '' Outlander'' (2014). Early years Callow was born on 15 June 1949 in Streatham, south London, the son of Yvonne Mary (née Guise), a secretary, and Neil Francis Callow, a businessman. His father was of French descent and his mother was of Danish and German ancestry. He was raised as a Roman Catholic. Callow was a student at the London Oratory School in west Brompton, and then went on to study briefly at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, where he was active in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Baldick
Robert André Edouard Baldick, FRSL (9 November 1927 – April 1972), was a British scholar of French literature, writer, translator and joint editor of the Penguin Classics series with Betty Radice. He was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. He wrote eight books including biographies of Joris-Karl Huysmans, Frédérick Lemaître and Henry Murger and a history of the Siege of Paris. In addition he edited and translated '' The Goncourt Journals'' and other classics of French literature including works by Gustave Flaubert, Chateaubriand, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jules Verne, and Henri Barbusse, as well as a number of novels by Georges Simenon. His sons are Julian Baldick, an author specialising in Sufism, and English academic Chris Baldick. Bibliography * ''The Life of Joris Karl Huysmans''. (Published originally by Oxford University Press, 1955. New edition revised by Brendan King, Dedalus Books 2006) * ''Dinner at Magny's'' (Published by Victor Gollancz, London) * ''The Life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turtle Point Press
Turtle Point Press, founded in 1990, publishes new fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, memoirs, works in translation, and rediscovered classics. History Jonathan D. Rabinowitz established Turtle Point Press in 1990. During his tenure the press had two imprints, Jeannette Watson’s Books & Co. and the eponymous Helen Marx Books. In 2016, longtime Turtle Point Press editor and associate Ruth Greenstein took over running the press. Founding publisher Jonathan D. Rabinowitz stays on as editor-at-large. Awards and Distinctions Two books by Turtle Point Press were named by ''The New York Times Book Review'' as notable books of the year: ''Bertram Cope's Year'' by Henry Blake Fuller, which is regarded as the first American gay novel, and was originally published in 1919. The other is a 1997 memoir by Leila Hadley of her travels in India, ''A Journey With Elsa Cloud''. The latter was published under the dual imprint Books & Company/Turtle Point. Additional Turtle Point Press books t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dedalus Books
Dedalus Books is a British publishing company specialising in European literature. As stated on their website, Dedalus specialises in "its own distinctive genre, which we term distorted reality, where the bizarre, the unusual and the grotesque and the surreal meld in a kind of intellectual fiction which is very European." Established by Geoffrey Smith, Eric Lane and Robert Irwin, Dedalus was launched on 30 November 1983 with the publication of three novels including Irwin's ''The Arabian Nightmare'' and Smith's vampire novel ''The Revenants'' (bylined "Geoffrey Farrington")."Dedalus" in ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'' by Brian Stableford. Scarecrow Press,Plymouth. 2005. (pp. 103-4) Dedalus publishes novels and anthologies, featuring both contemporary and historical European works. Dedalus publishes both translations and original English language works. Dedalus brought a number of European writers such as Sylvie Germain and Herbert Rosendorfer into English for the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1882 French Novels
Year 188 (CLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known in the Roman Empire as the Year of the Consulship of Fuscianus and Silanus (or, less frequently, year 941 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 188 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Publius Helvius Pertinax becomes pro-consul of Africa from 188 to 189. Japan * Queen Himiko (or Shingi Waō) begins her reign in Japan (until 248). Births * April 4 – Caracalla (or Antoninus), Roman emperor (d. 217) * Lu Ji (or Gongji), Chinese official and politician (d. 219) * Sun Shao, Chinese general of the Eastern Wu state (d. 241 Year 241 ( CCXLI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Gordianus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
