Living and writing in anomaly: Joris-Karl Huysmans

Abstract

From the publication of À Rebours, Huysmans’ books feature a solitary protagonist, dreaming of a situation outside society, time and space, and even the body and sex. To this desire corresponds the increasing modification of the novel formula: a reflection of life in anomaly, the novel is transformed, to become a reverse novel, sick, deformed, bizarre. The refusal of regularity hides another refusal, that of conforming to a reality that does not correspond to the depth of personal experience. The work of Huysmans, especially in its postnaturalist part, brings a constant questioning of the norm under its various aspects, and constitutes an attempt to create a universe made to measure, necessarily a universe in anomaly. The journey that leads, in the field of novel, from À Rebours to L’Oblat, allows us to trace the stages of this evolution.