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En Ménage
''En ménage'' (English: ''Married Life'') is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in February 1881 by Charpentier. It tells the story of André Jayant, a novelist who marries a petty-minded woman called Berthe. When he finds out Berthe has been unfaithful, he leaves her to live first with a high-class prostitute called Blanche then with a working-class woman, Jeanne, with whom he had had a love affair five years before. When Jeanne is forced to leave for a job in London, André decides he cannot cope with life on his own and returns to his wife. The novel also features the artist Cyprien Tibaille, André's best friend, who had already appeared in Huysmans' previous novel, '' Les Soeurs Vatard''. ''En ménage'' is partly autobiographical and both André and Cyprien contain elements of the author's own personality. The novel was Huysmans' third and his most ambitious to date. According to Robert Baldick, it differs from its predecessors, '' Marthe'' a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the h ... [...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 cathédral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city#National capitals, Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national Government of the United Kingdom, government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the Counties of England, counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London ... [...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] |
Marthe (novel)
''Marthe, histoire d'une fille'' (English: ''Marthe, the Story of a Girl'' - where "girl" has the implication " prostitute" ) was the first novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, published in 1876. The book is autobiographical in inspiration and tells the story of the love affair between a young journalist called Léo and the heroine of the title, a would-be actress who works in a factory for artificial pearls as well as in a licensed brothel. The love affair breaks up and Marthe goes to live with the alcoholic actor-manager Ginginet. After his death, she is reduced to living on the streets. Huysmans was worried about the response to the book's controversial subject matter, since the author Jean Richepin had recently been imprisoned for a month and fined for writing a book on the theme of prostitution. In spite of this, ''Marthe'' is not pornographic. Huysmans intended its squalid realism as an attack on the overidealised view of bohemian life in Paris he found in such R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realism strives for formal perfection, so the presentation of reality tends to be neutral, emphasizing the values and importance of style as an objective method of presenting reality". He is known especially for his debut novel ''Madame Bovary'' (1857), his ''Correspondence'', and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert. Life Early life and education Flaubert was born in Rouen, in the Seine-Maritime department of Upper Normandy, in northern France. He was the second son of Anne Justine Caroline (née Fleuriot; 1793–1872) and Achille-Cléophas Flaubert (1784–1846), director and senior surgeon of the major hospital in Rouen. He began writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentimental Education
''Sentimental Education'' (French: ''L'Éducation sentimentale'', 1869) is a novel by Gustave Flaubert. Considered one of the most influential novels of the 19th century, it was praised by contemporaries such as George Sand and Émile Zola, but criticised by Henry James. The story focuses on the romantic life of a young man at the time of the French Revolution of 1848. The novel describes the life of a young man (Frédéric Moreau) living through the revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire, and his love for an older woman (based on the wife of the music publisher Maurice Schlesinger, who is portrayed in the book as Jacques Arnoux). The novel's tone is by turns ironic and pessimistic; it occasionally lampoons French society. The main character, Frédéric, often gives himself over to romantic flights of fancy. Background Flaubert based many of the protagonist's experiences (including the romantic passion) on his own life. He wrote of the work in 1864: "I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1881 French Novels
Events January–March * January 1–January 24, 24 – Siege of Geok Tepe: Russian troops under General Mikhail Skobelev defeat the Turkmen people, Turkomans. * January 13 – War of the Pacific – Battle of San Juan and Chorrillos: The Chilean army defeats Peruvian forces. * January 15 – War of the Pacific – Battle of Miraflores: The Chileans take Lima, capital of Peru, after defeating its second line of defense in Miraflores. * January 24 – William Edward Forster, chief secretary for Ireland, introduces his Coercion Bill, which temporarily suspends habeas corpus so that those people suspected of committing an offence can be detained without trial; it goes through a long debate before it is accepted February 2. * January 25 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company. * February 13 – The first issue of the feminist newspaper ''La Citoyenne'' is published by Hubertine Auclert. * Febru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
