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Durtal #2
En Route
A novel, translated by W. Fleming, and introduced by David Blow. The second in Huysmans' series of four autobiographical novels (the others being La-Bas, La Cathedrale, and The Oblate of St. Benedict), En Route tells of the religious dissolution and spiritual reedification of Durtal, the decadent anti-hero par excellence. Huysmans' decadence, Blow writes in his introduction, "was a moral predicament, an artistic posture, and the natural outcome of his loss of religious faith." The novel narrates Durtal's progression from a crisis of faith, through Trappism, to a new inspiration in the art, architecture, and music of Rome.
314 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1895
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1141 people want to read
About the author
Joris-Karl Huysmans
376 books693 followersCharles Marie Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans. AKA: J.-K. Huysmans.
He is most famous for the novel À rebours (Against Nature). His style is remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, wide-ranging vocabulary, wealth of detailed and sensuous description, and biting, satirical wit.
The novels are also noteworthy for their encyclopedic documentation, ranging from the catalogue of decadent Latin authors in À rebours to the discussion of the symbiology of Christian architecture in La cathédrale. Huysmans' work expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism, which led the author first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer then to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
He is most famous for the novel À rebours (Against Nature). His style is remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, wide-ranging vocabulary, wealth of detailed and sensuous description, and biting, satirical wit.
The novels are also noteworthy for their encyclopedic documentation, ranging from the catalogue of decadent Latin authors in À rebours to the discussion of the symbiology of Christian architecture in La cathédrale. Huysmans' work expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism, which led the author first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer then to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
January 5, 2018
In this brilliant yet bizarre work, J.K. Huysmans incorporates nineteenth century Catholic monasticism into "Fin-de-Siècle" decadence despite intending to do the opposite.
"En Route" is the second of four novels that trace the spiritual progression of Huysman's literary alter ego Durtal. The first novel "La Bas" describes Durtal's experiences with satanic practices such as Black Masses and orgies. In "En Route" Durtal will begin a conversion to Catholicism by spending ten days in a Trappist monastery. As a practicing Catholic my problem with the project is that Huysmans albeit unintentionally presents Satanism not as a straying from the path of righteousness but rather as an essential step in achieving Christian redemption.
During the first several days, Durtal wages a heroic battle against his sexual desires. It is only his great love for art that allows him to overcome the demon of concupiscence. "Ultimately it would be art not disgust at sin that would bring Durtal to religion. Art would be the great magnet that would draw Durtal to God." (p. 34)
It is Durtal's estheticism that will drive all his actions. He will become Catholic because be perceives that it is the Catholic Church in the medieval period that have mankind its greatest art. "The true proof for Catholicism is the art that it has created and which has never been surpassed. Look at the mystic poets, the sculptors of our great Cathedrals, plain-song, and Romanesque and Gothic architecture."
For Durtal, kitsch is the greatest sin. "What I dislike above all are the tasteless objects that one finds for sale at gift shops of Lourdes." ( p. 104)
Durtal finds that he adores the living in the monastery. The only problem is that he is highly addicted to smoking which appears to be forbidden. Fortunately, the Abbot comes to his rescue. "- Mon Dieux, tobacco did not exist when Saint Benedict wrote the rules. As Abbot I can allow you to smoke and in fact encourage you to smoke as much as you want." (p. 231)
Due to the outstanding support of the Abbot and the other members of the community, Durtal resolves to confess for the first time in forty years. His sins are both numerous and serious. "Stammering, Durtal explains to his confessor that Mme Chantelouve who accompanied him to the Black mass tricked him by hiding a communion wafer in her body thus causing him to soil the host when he ejaculated. It was a vile trick by a satanic woman." (p. 208)
Despite the enormity of his sins, Durtal is absolved of his sins and starts a new life. He performs his penance, takes communion and leaves the convent a redeemed man. The possibility is raised that he will return to the monastery at a later date to join the Trappist order.
"En Route" is a brilliant novel about the psychology struggle of a cultured man as he resolves to enter into a life of contemplation in a holy order. Unfortunately for the vast majority of GR readers this novel will be next to impossible to follow as it is essentially series of discussions of the great mystics in the Catholic tradition including Saint John of the Cross, Sainte Teresa of Avila, Saint Lydwine of Schiedam, Ignace de Loyola, Hildegarde of Bingen, sister Cathérine Emmerich, Saint Cathérine of Genoa and St. Bernard de Clairvaux. This book would simply be incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with these mystics.
"En Route" is the second of four novels that trace the spiritual progression of Huysman's literary alter ego Durtal. The first novel "La Bas" describes Durtal's experiences with satanic practices such as Black Masses and orgies. In "En Route" Durtal will begin a conversion to Catholicism by spending ten days in a Trappist monastery. As a practicing Catholic my problem with the project is that Huysmans albeit unintentionally presents Satanism not as a straying from the path of righteousness but rather as an essential step in achieving Christian redemption.
During the first several days, Durtal wages a heroic battle against his sexual desires. It is only his great love for art that allows him to overcome the demon of concupiscence. "Ultimately it would be art not disgust at sin that would bring Durtal to religion. Art would be the great magnet that would draw Durtal to God." (p. 34)
It is Durtal's estheticism that will drive all his actions. He will become Catholic because be perceives that it is the Catholic Church in the medieval period that have mankind its greatest art. "The true proof for Catholicism is the art that it has created and which has never been surpassed. Look at the mystic poets, the sculptors of our great Cathedrals, plain-song, and Romanesque and Gothic architecture."
For Durtal, kitsch is the greatest sin. "What I dislike above all are the tasteless objects that one finds for sale at gift shops of Lourdes." ( p. 104)
Durtal finds that he adores the living in the monastery. The only problem is that he is highly addicted to smoking which appears to be forbidden. Fortunately, the Abbot comes to his rescue. "- Mon Dieux, tobacco did not exist when Saint Benedict wrote the rules. As Abbot I can allow you to smoke and in fact encourage you to smoke as much as you want." (p. 231)
Due to the outstanding support of the Abbot and the other members of the community, Durtal resolves to confess for the first time in forty years. His sins are both numerous and serious. "Stammering, Durtal explains to his confessor that Mme Chantelouve who accompanied him to the Black mass tricked him by hiding a communion wafer in her body thus causing him to soil the host when he ejaculated. It was a vile trick by a satanic woman." (p. 208)
Despite the enormity of his sins, Durtal is absolved of his sins and starts a new life. He performs his penance, takes communion and leaves the convent a redeemed man. The possibility is raised that he will return to the monastery at a later date to join the Trappist order.
"En Route" is a brilliant novel about the psychology struggle of a cultured man as he resolves to enter into a life of contemplation in a holy order. Unfortunately for the vast majority of GR readers this novel will be next to impossible to follow as it is essentially series of discussions of the great mystics in the Catholic tradition including Saint John of the Cross, Sainte Teresa of Avila, Saint Lydwine of Schiedam, Ignace de Loyola, Hildegarde of Bingen, sister Cathérine Emmerich, Saint Cathérine of Genoa and St. Bernard de Clairvaux. This book would simply be incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with these mystics.
June 24, 2015
This book is the saga of Durtal, the character from La-Bas, which I read and reviewed previously. Out of repugnance for society and his own dissolute life, Durtal turns to the Church. This is apparently roughly based on Huysmans’ own life. His path eventually leads him to a 10-day retreat at a Trappist monastery, where he receives the sacraments, battles against his inner demons, and in the process learns all about monastic life. This book is remarkable both for its protagonist and for its exploration of medieval Christianity, with which the former is obsessed. Dorothy Day wrote that Huysmans was one of the first authors she read that made her feel as if there could be a place for her in the church. Indeed, it is the fact that Durtal is such a snooty, jaded, cynical aesthete that makes his spiritual conversion all more compelling and draws the reader to sympathize with him.
For example, although he is drawn to go to church, he is a connoisseur of medieval Gregorian chant, and finds all modern innovations or deviations irritating to his sensibilities, and disruptive of his ability to meditate. So he wanders across Paris to various convents, churches, cathedrals, etc. in search of the perfect liturgy, never really finding it, though he is impressed by the Trappist monastery and a couple of similar locales. He has a similarly tortured relationship with church statuary, painting, and architecture, not to mention the demeanor of the clergy performing the sacraments. The specificity of his nitpicking is by turns funny, fascinating, and maddening. And yet he is nonetheless drawn to reform his life, to become more spiritual. These inner conflicts, almost spasmotic in intensity, make for good reading.
With regard to the book’s depiction of medieval Christianity, there are topics addressed in some detail that many modern Christians would likely consider to be primitive superstition, but which were nonetheless apparently fundamental aspects of faith in earlier periods. For example, there is the notion that some monks and nuns are given power to take on, i.e. transfer to themselves, the temptations of others who lack the strength to endure them, such that monasteries and convents function as a sort of absorptive rampart or heat-sink against the efforts of the devil, with those inside suffering incredible psychological torment on our behalf. It is even suggested that the destruction of monasteries during the French revolution helped to produce the excesses of the latter, as the temptations overflowed onto the laypeople in the absence of the transference. Again, this is not a sort of logic that finds its way into the Sunday homily these days, at least in most places.
And finally of course there is the fact that Durtal seeks in Christianity a retreat from the world and from society, with which he is disgusted and tired. This is an aspect of Christianity with a long pedigree, from the desert fathers to the many of contemplative orders of today, but it is an aspect that is somewhat out of step with the more socially engaged, charitable, and humanistic church promoted by recent popes. Nonetheless, it is interesting to consider how the church is able to make room for and provide a legitimate conceptual space for people who are probably in reality deeply antisocial and maladapted, not to say misanthropic. I would call that inclusiveness a strength. For Durtal, and maybe for Huysmans, that notion the church as asylum or place of respite was perhaps its essential characteristic.
For example, although he is drawn to go to church, he is a connoisseur of medieval Gregorian chant, and finds all modern innovations or deviations irritating to his sensibilities, and disruptive of his ability to meditate. So he wanders across Paris to various convents, churches, cathedrals, etc. in search of the perfect liturgy, never really finding it, though he is impressed by the Trappist monastery and a couple of similar locales. He has a similarly tortured relationship with church statuary, painting, and architecture, not to mention the demeanor of the clergy performing the sacraments. The specificity of his nitpicking is by turns funny, fascinating, and maddening. And yet he is nonetheless drawn to reform his life, to become more spiritual. These inner conflicts, almost spasmotic in intensity, make for good reading.
With regard to the book’s depiction of medieval Christianity, there are topics addressed in some detail that many modern Christians would likely consider to be primitive superstition, but which were nonetheless apparently fundamental aspects of faith in earlier periods. For example, there is the notion that some monks and nuns are given power to take on, i.e. transfer to themselves, the temptations of others who lack the strength to endure them, such that monasteries and convents function as a sort of absorptive rampart or heat-sink against the efforts of the devil, with those inside suffering incredible psychological torment on our behalf. It is even suggested that the destruction of monasteries during the French revolution helped to produce the excesses of the latter, as the temptations overflowed onto the laypeople in the absence of the transference. Again, this is not a sort of logic that finds its way into the Sunday homily these days, at least in most places.
And finally of course there is the fact that Durtal seeks in Christianity a retreat from the world and from society, with which he is disgusted and tired. This is an aspect of Christianity with a long pedigree, from the desert fathers to the many of contemplative orders of today, but it is an aspect that is somewhat out of step with the more socially engaged, charitable, and humanistic church promoted by recent popes. Nonetheless, it is interesting to consider how the church is able to make room for and provide a legitimate conceptual space for people who are probably in reality deeply antisocial and maladapted, not to say misanthropic. I would call that inclusiveness a strength. For Durtal, and maybe for Huysmans, that notion the church as asylum or place of respite was perhaps its essential characteristic.
June 17, 2022
Chatisiiiiimoooooo. Adorei.
February 18, 2022
mon avis en vidéo : https://youtu.be/Mr3-9z3hGjk
April 25, 2021
Naklada Jurčić
Zagreb, 2012.
S francuskog preveo Božidar Petrač
Sam jezik je izrazito usporen, refleksivan, naracija se prekida brojnim retardacijama.
Pripovjedač je autodijegetički.
Radnja prati proces inicijacije samog protagonista, duhovna preobrazba se ogledava u fizičkom prelasku iz Pariza u jedan samostan.
Očekivao sam daleko više od ovog romana.
Ne mogu reći da je psihološka karakterizacija protagonista površna, no njegove introspekcije su uistinu često dosadne.
Pogled kakav se putem protagonista usmjerava na katoličanstvo je po mom sudu pogrešan.
Katoličanstvo nije nekakva neživotna, netjelesna smjesa.
Katoličanstvo je stvaranje djece, demografska i prostorna ekspanzija, zauzimanje područja koje drže heretici.
Sviđa mi se isticanje važnosti molitve, njezine apotropejske snage u borbi protiv metafizičkih sila zla.
Samostani su užasno bitni za obranu protiv moralne propasti društva.
No, velika većina katolika se ne treba boriti povlačenjem u samostan, već zasnivanjem obitelji.
Budućnost pripada onima koji imaju najviše djece.
Jedino je metafizička fronta bitnija od demografske fronte.
Proces kontrainicijacije i lgbtizacije nas je i doveo do ovoga gdje smo sada. Opisi srednjovjekovne arhitekture u ovom romanu svjedoče o veličanstvenosti duhovnog stanja srednjovjekovlja, o veličanstvenosti društvenog poretka srednjovjekovlja.
Spremite se na jednu red pill bombu.
Neka se feministkinje i djeca maknu.
Upravo je toliki broj dužnika, ljudi koji su zaglibili u dugove, ogled toga da su društvena uređenja koja su jako hijerarhijska izuzetno prirodna.
Umjesto da se ljudi stresiraju od dugova koje često nikada ne mogu vratiti, trebalo bi uvesti neki oblik sužanjstva, rada u domaćinstvu, ili nečeg sličnog, kao načina na koji se mogu vratiti dinosaurski dugovi.
Žalosno je da ljudi kupuju automobile na kredit.
Ispada da se ne može živjeti bez automobila.
Ovo navodim da odmah odgovorim na sve one koji bi me napali radi divljenja prema srednjovjekovlju, feudalizam je bio samo ogled ljudske prirode koja je nepromjenjiva.
Pogledajte neku staru katoličku crkvu, pogledajte kad god možete ljepotu romanike ili gotike.
To ste vi, to smo mi.
Na kamenu smo podigli Crkvu i nećemo se ni pedlja povući!
Smrt svim idealima Francuske revolucije!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NT5D...
Zagreb, 2012.
S francuskog preveo Božidar Petrač
Sam jezik je izrazito usporen, refleksivan, naracija se prekida brojnim retardacijama.
Pripovjedač je autodijegetički.
Radnja prati proces inicijacije samog protagonista, duhovna preobrazba se ogledava u fizičkom prelasku iz Pariza u jedan samostan.
Očekivao sam daleko više od ovog romana.
Ne mogu reći da je psihološka karakterizacija protagonista površna, no njegove introspekcije su uistinu često dosadne.
Pogled kakav se putem protagonista usmjerava na katoličanstvo je po mom sudu pogrešan.
Katoličanstvo nije nekakva neživotna, netjelesna smjesa.
Katoličanstvo je stvaranje djece, demografska i prostorna ekspanzija, zauzimanje područja koje drže heretici.
Sviđa mi se isticanje važnosti molitve, njezine apotropejske snage u borbi protiv metafizičkih sila zla.
Samostani su užasno bitni za obranu protiv moralne propasti društva.
No, velika većina katolika se ne treba boriti povlačenjem u samostan, već zasnivanjem obitelji.
Budućnost pripada onima koji imaju najviše djece.
Jedino je metafizička fronta bitnija od demografske fronte.
Proces kontrainicijacije i lgbtizacije nas je i doveo do ovoga gdje smo sada. Opisi srednjovjekovne arhitekture u ovom romanu svjedoče o veličanstvenosti duhovnog stanja srednjovjekovlja, o veličanstvenosti društvenog poretka srednjovjekovlja.
Spremite se na jednu red pill bombu.
Neka se feministkinje i djeca maknu.
Upravo je toliki broj dužnika, ljudi koji su zaglibili u dugove, ogled toga da su društvena uređenja koja su jako hijerarhijska izuzetno prirodna.
Umjesto da se ljudi stresiraju od dugova koje često nikada ne mogu vratiti, trebalo bi uvesti neki oblik sužanjstva, rada u domaćinstvu, ili nečeg sličnog, kao načina na koji se mogu vratiti dinosaurski dugovi.
Žalosno je da ljudi kupuju automobile na kredit.
Ispada da se ne može živjeti bez automobila.
Ovo navodim da odmah odgovorim na sve one koji bi me napali radi divljenja prema srednjovjekovlju, feudalizam je bio samo ogled ljudske prirode koja je nepromjenjiva.
Pogledajte neku staru katoličku crkvu, pogledajte kad god možete ljepotu romanike ili gotike.
To ste vi, to smo mi.
Na kamenu smo podigli Crkvu i nećemo se ni pedlja povući!
Smrt svim idealima Francuske revolucije!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NT5D...
April 12, 2018
This is a very sweet--and bittersweet--novel of our hero Durtal's desperate desire to have done with evil and the tawdriness of Parisian literary life and convert to Catholicism wholly, coming as close to a medieval experience as the modern, fin-de-siecle world was probably willing to allow. To do so he visits a Trappist monastery for a few days and gains inspiration from the hardships that the monks face as an example of total medieval-style devotion. Yeah, that's about it. And it takes 300+ pages.
As a sequel to La Bas, En Route is something of an aesthetic failure. So much of what is fabulous and engrossing about La Bas is absent here--the dramatic juxtapositions of good and evil, modern and medieval, simple faith and backstabbing Parisian society, the terse and thoughtful dialogues and fascinatingly oddball characters of bell-ringer Des Hermies, cynical Dr. Johannes, and the mysterious and tortured Madame Chantelouve, as well as the stunning climaxes of Gilles de Rais's repentance and the scene of the Black mass that Durtal attends with the Satanic Chantelouve.
The action here, on the other hand, is all interior and revolves wholly around Durtal's struggle between his inclinations toward the shattering excesses of medieval spirituality and the cynical conformity of the literary bachelor's life to which he's become so accustomed. There have been great books of religious conversion--Augustine's Confessions springs to mind immediately, but--as En Route itself laments--those were other times, when such a story was fraught with drama. In a decadent culture so long accustomed to its tamed, mediocre, bourgeois, nonthreatening, and conformist Christianity, this is quite a lot of pages about a battle with almost no stakes and very little chance of success. And of course it's only the second of 5 novels recounting the story of Durtal's spiritual struggles. I had planned to read them all in sequence but I'm a bit hesitant now--despite the fact that I enjoyed this moderately--about pushing on to volume three. I missed the drama and the literary fireworks of La Bas!
As a sequel to La Bas, En Route is something of an aesthetic failure. So much of what is fabulous and engrossing about La Bas is absent here--the dramatic juxtapositions of good and evil, modern and medieval, simple faith and backstabbing Parisian society, the terse and thoughtful dialogues and fascinatingly oddball characters of bell-ringer Des Hermies, cynical Dr. Johannes, and the mysterious and tortured Madame Chantelouve, as well as the stunning climaxes of Gilles de Rais's repentance and the scene of the Black mass that Durtal attends with the Satanic Chantelouve.
The action here, on the other hand, is all interior and revolves wholly around Durtal's struggle between his inclinations toward the shattering excesses of medieval spirituality and the cynical conformity of the literary bachelor's life to which he's become so accustomed. There have been great books of religious conversion--Augustine's Confessions springs to mind immediately, but--as En Route itself laments--those were other times, when such a story was fraught with drama. In a decadent culture so long accustomed to its tamed, mediocre, bourgeois, nonthreatening, and conformist Christianity, this is quite a lot of pages about a battle with almost no stakes and very little chance of success. And of course it's only the second of 5 novels recounting the story of Durtal's spiritual struggles. I had planned to read them all in sequence but I'm a bit hesitant now--despite the fact that I enjoyed this moderately--about pushing on to volume three. I missed the drama and the literary fireworks of La Bas!
June 14, 2017
Conversion Story
This is a book that, despite some imperfections, makes you want to embrace a life of solitude and silence. It has some beautiful lyrical passages.
This is a book that, despite some imperfections, makes you want to embrace a life of solitude and silence. It has some beautiful lyrical passages.
March 25, 2016
Should be read definitely after (or before) reading the "Submission" by Houelbecq. I think "En Route" wasn't just a peculiar case of a peculiar man in (spiritual) dire straits. You can really see that the 20th century spiritual crisis began and matured in late 19th century and that contemporaries were keenly aware of monumental changes ahead. Therefore, there is a strange kinship between the two books. As if two authors communicate with eachother, each from its own slightly perverted and elevated place. The difference is, late 20th and early 21th century are marked by tedium, apathy and decline of creative powers - in that sense, Houlbecq is a mere spectator and a witness to a process started more than 150 years before him - while the 1870's were the wild, decadent, orgiastic rippening of a culture at the verge of its decay.
That being said, it is a brilliant and a difficult book to read. Its clarity and openness are shameful, being disgusting and inspiring at the same time. On the other hand, one cannot altogether escape the feeling that the generations who lived before us, especially the late 19th, early 20th century ones, lived to their fullest, traspassing where they shouldn't, making the metaphorical (or not so metaphorical in case of this book's anti-hero) bargain with the devil. A bargain whole Europe, and the rest of the world with it, pay dearly to this day and will continue to do so.
That being said, it is a brilliant and a difficult book to read. Its clarity and openness are shameful, being disgusting and inspiring at the same time. On the other hand, one cannot altogether escape the feeling that the generations who lived before us, especially the late 19th, early 20th century ones, lived to their fullest, traspassing where they shouldn't, making the metaphorical (or not so metaphorical in case of this book's anti-hero) bargain with the devil. A bargain whole Europe, and the rest of the world with it, pay dearly to this day and will continue to do so.
March 29, 2014
The continuance of the conversion of Durtal as begun in the richly descriptive La-Bas (Down There), as he wanders from church to church in Paris trying to obtain some sort of divine encounter particular to how he sees fit for such a discriminating individual as himself. Eventually, he is pointed to a Trappist monastery where he finally finds the mystical vision he seeks. This sequel falls flat in almost every conceivable manner even though Huysmans maintains his propensity for observance of the virtually eternal theological details of the prayers, offices, and Masses of the Church. Best read, and probably would have been much better written, as a diary of the conversion-story of the author which in real life was as interesting and as compelling as it gets. Disappointing as a novel.
August 9, 2023
" L'art a complètement perdu la tête. Après avoir cherché ses types dans les régions de l'ombre, après avoir oublié que le soleil est sa patrie, après avoir tenté l'apothéose du mal, après avoir célébré de sa voix déshonorée le suicide et l'adultère, (…) il s'est écrié, dans la logique de son délire : le beau, c'est le laid ! » Ernest Hello. Auteur méconnu de tous - ou presque, par lequel je choisis d'aborder cette chronique, non pas que je sois en accord avec les propos sus-cités, mais parce qu'ils résument à eux seuls, le chemin qu'a accompli Huysmans de Là-bas à En route.
L'art, dans la définition qu'en fait Hello, celui dont « le caractère évident est la sérénité », a été pour Huys' son chemin menant vers Dieu, vers cet état d'insensibilité à la faute, de dormance aux choses de la vie. Il a tutoyé la grâce par le biais de l'art et rien d'autre ; notion clairement incarnée dans les diverses descriptions du plain-chant qui ont surchauffé les pages de ce livre - et ma rétine par la même occasion 🥹, et dans lesquelles on observe une admiration allant crescendo avec une certaine forme de dépouillement : n'est réellement beau que le chant le plus épuré, l'art le plus propre.
J'ai goûté à l'extrême avec En route. Il y est comme une saveur mystique qui vous frappe par petites touches, qui se clame chaste mais se veut sensuelle accidentellement, et qu'on imagine se déshabillant derrière les paupières des mots qui la portent, des mots qui assènent, sans répit... sans pause…. inlassablement.
Vous souvenez-vous de cette dualité chair-divinité que je ne cesse de répéter ces derniers temps ? Elle y est, et on la voit s'accentuer durant le séjour de l'auteur dans la Trappe. Ce lieu, comme un élargissement du banal, où le besoin de distinguer nettement cette séparation corps-âme, le besoin de se faire le géographe de cette dernière devient l'unique aspiration.
Ce livre, comme l'émanation d'un être devenue extérieure à lui, l'extériorisation du Divin qui est en nous... de la douceur, et des apparences de douceur.
L'art, dans la définition qu'en fait Hello, celui dont « le caractère évident est la sérénité », a été pour Huys' son chemin menant vers Dieu, vers cet état d'insensibilité à la faute, de dormance aux choses de la vie. Il a tutoyé la grâce par le biais de l'art et rien d'autre ; notion clairement incarnée dans les diverses descriptions du plain-chant qui ont surchauffé les pages de ce livre - et ma rétine par la même occasion 🥹, et dans lesquelles on observe une admiration allant crescendo avec une certaine forme de dépouillement : n'est réellement beau que le chant le plus épuré, l'art le plus propre.
J'ai goûté à l'extrême avec En route. Il y est comme une saveur mystique qui vous frappe par petites touches, qui se clame chaste mais se veut sensuelle accidentellement, et qu'on imagine se déshabillant derrière les paupières des mots qui la portent, des mots qui assènent, sans répit... sans pause…. inlassablement.
Vous souvenez-vous de cette dualité chair-divinité que je ne cesse de répéter ces derniers temps ? Elle y est, et on la voit s'accentuer durant le séjour de l'auteur dans la Trappe. Ce lieu, comme un élargissement du banal, où le besoin de distinguer nettement cette séparation corps-âme, le besoin de se faire le géographe de cette dernière devient l'unique aspiration.
Ce livre, comme l'émanation d'un être devenue extérieure à lui, l'extériorisation du Divin qui est en nous... de la douceur, et des apparences de douceur.
August 19, 2021
Une œuvre étrange mais pénétrante.
Un personnage principal qui se saisit de toutes les questions que l'âme humaine puisse se poser sur la vie spirituelle et le monde surnaturel. Huysmans réussi le pari de nous montrer que nous sommes tous des Durtal en puissance. À quand une retraite à la Trappe ?
Un bémol cependant : quelques phrases franchement pas valorisantes pour le sexe féminin. Un sujet sur lequel Huysmans me semble pour le moins arriéré et qui contraste avec la bizarre modernité de son œuvre.
Un personnage principal qui se saisit de toutes les questions que l'âme humaine puisse se poser sur la vie spirituelle et le monde surnaturel. Huysmans réussi le pari de nous montrer que nous sommes tous des Durtal en puissance. À quand une retraite à la Trappe ?
Un bémol cependant : quelques phrases franchement pas valorisantes pour le sexe féminin. Un sujet sur lequel Huysmans me semble pour le moins arriéré et qui contraste avec la bizarre modernité de son œuvre.
April 11, 2010
One of my favorite books of all-time. I'm not even remotely religious but the book was so sincere that I felt continually grateful that Huysmans was sharing such a personal story about religious conversion. I also found the work to be remarkably intense; I think every line was on the subject of conversion and the protagonist's struggles with it. Highly, highly recommended to anyone with an open mind, even an atheist.
August 18, 2020
Cronaca di un cammino di fede stimolato dalla bellezza delle “cose religiose”, tormentato da dubbi e scrupoli, estremo. In quest’opera “pia” sono ben presenti sia l’esteta di Controcorrente, sia l’indagatore delle perversioni protagonista dell’Abisso.
Ricordo delle belle pagine dedicate al canto religioso.
Ricordo delle belle pagine dedicate al canto religioso.
March 14, 2023
A great, at times graphic, autobiography of a man’s conversion after his mistress took him to see a Black Mass. Witnessing the desecration of the Blessed Sacrament he realized that such hatred of God necessitates the existence of God.
November 30, 2013
A brilliant evocation of the interior journey of religious conversion: the reluctance, the glory, the resistance, the horror. I read, as students will, Au Rebours, and La Bas, for their shimmering decadence and self-loathing. The common thread through these novels for me is the search for authentic experience, and the tension between finding oneself and losing oneself (and the possibility of doing the former through the latter).
June 12, 2022
En Route makes no pretense to being a novel; it is, above all, a document of confession, exhaustive and exhausting in its prolix introspective honesty. It tells the history of a soul and its conversion and purification from the life of corruption to the life, or living death, of spiritual contemplation.
March 23, 2016
I'd say this is one of the best books of the 19th century.
July 4, 2020
Not for the faint of heart - and only book one of a trilogy.
April 21, 2024
The soul-searching in the first part of the book is a little tedious, as it contains a lot of erudition and interior monologues. I found more rhythm and satisfaction in the much more straightforward second part, when Huysmans has found his way through christian mystique. It is still mostly a solitary quest.
The topic of conversion, especially in a mature man, interested me. Huysmans pours a lot of efforts and sincerity in his project, so that the development in the book reflects his spiritual path. His hopes and hesitations, scruples, are well rendered. The description of the Trappist monastery and spiritual ideas are handled with art. And while the book is serious, it is not unfunny : Huysmans does not spare himself more than he spares his contemporaries.
Beyond the question of faith and personal convictions, several questions addressed in En Route make the book interesting: finding a way between dogmatism and pragmatism, the amount of discipline you can inflict on your body and mind, the power of symbols to guide us. I cannot say that I particularly relate with the Christian mystique, compared to the Islamic or Taoist traditions, or the finer points of liturgical tradition, but globally they are put to good use.
The topic of conversion, especially in a mature man, interested me. Huysmans pours a lot of efforts and sincerity in his project, so that the development in the book reflects his spiritual path. His hopes and hesitations, scruples, are well rendered. The description of the Trappist monastery and spiritual ideas are handled with art. And while the book is serious, it is not unfunny : Huysmans does not spare himself more than he spares his contemporaries.
Beyond the question of faith and personal convictions, several questions addressed in En Route make the book interesting: finding a way between dogmatism and pragmatism, the amount of discipline you can inflict on your body and mind, the power of symbols to guide us. I cannot say that I particularly relate with the Christian mystique, compared to the Islamic or Taoist traditions, or the finer points of liturgical tradition, but globally they are put to good use.
March 12, 2025
J K Huysmans character, Duarte, is a model of JKH's life. In La Bas Duarte almost completes the black mass of Satanic worship, but is saved by his own moral code. En Route is the next step after this almost black failure to God. Duarte is moving from church to church in Paris trying to find peace within himself. JKH did the same, searched all over for peace within himself and the love of the mystic side of Catholicism. My self has looked for settled with in myself and over the last eight tears have found the peace and a certain amount of mysticism. I feel a kinship with both JKH and his character Duarte. As I laid down at night while reading En Route I found myself looking at my day in line with how Duarte looks at his day while visiting the Trappist Monastery . I also found the normal mysticism I experience in my day to day meditations has been just a little more intense. If your looking for a mans journey back to God JKH has given us an autobiographical, kinda sort of, maybe, look at how to get back to God for himself. And, if you have started this journey ALL of JKS's Duarte works or any of JKH's later works will help along the way. May these works help you on your journey back to or closer to God.
April 4, 2018
'En route' est un fascinant roman de conversion écrit à la façon d'un long monologue intérieur et dans une langue superbement maniérée. Il ne s'y passe à proprement parler presque rien, mais chaque mouvement d'âme du protagoniste, chaque étape de la conversion, fait l'objet d'une longue et profonde analyse. Comme 'À rebours' cependant, 'En route' souffre parfois du trop plein d'érudition de son auteur : si les nombreuses références à d'obscures traités de mystique avivent l'intérêt, elles frustrent également par leur façon de faire reposer trop systématiquement les réflexions du protagoniste sur l'intertextualité. Les notes sont donc les bienvenues ; mais placées en fin de livre, elles sont peu commodes et rendent la lecture parfois laborieuse.
July 14, 2025
Huysmans, the great decadent French writer, famously said you either end up at the foot of the cross or with a gun to your head. This is the story of how he ended up at the foot of the cross. It’s a beautiful and entirely Huysmansian (?) response to Catholicism—the endless details about saints, religious orders, and church furnishings reminds the reader that this is also the author of A Rebours, but here his writing style is employed to draw the reader away from the world and toward the eternal. His struggles with the church are all too familiar to modern Catholics—mediocre clergy, ugly churches, indifferent choirs—all things we should think of as trivial, but things that play a vital role in creating a spiritual environment on which to build faith.
March 30, 2019
The first of Huysmans' Catholic cycle. Durtal the penitent forgoes Parisian life for the Trappist monastery. Huysmans' descriptive prose is as good as ever but there's something about Catholic dogma that gives me the willies. As a non-Catholic, the church's fascination with suffering seems downright sadistic and heretical.
I'm all out of Huysmans so this is where I'll leave Durtal for now.
I'm all out of Huysmans so this is where I'll leave Durtal for now.
December 23, 2019
An excellent synthesis of the Decadent literary movement with French Parisian/monastic Catholicism. While the plot is lacking, like other novels of this type, and the dialogues may perplex readers unfamiliar with the writings of the mystics and liturgical arcana, this book nevertheless is a work of art, effort, and care.
October 20, 2021
A fine translation of Joris Karl Huysmans sequel to La Bas. Possibly the only example of a decadent Catholic novel but a fine novel none the less a gentler more angelic but no less powerful follow up to perhaps one of the most satanic novels ever written
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February 8, 2024“I am condemned to live apart, for I am still too much a man of letters to become a monk, and yet I am already too much a monk to remain among men of letters.”
May 13, 2014
Huysmans continues his personal semi-autobiographical journey that began in 'A Rebours', continued through 'La Bas' and now in 'En Route'. After dragging himself through the extremes of decadence, Satanism and intellectual transgression, Huysmans' character Durtal awakens one day to suddenly find his religious faith returned. Durtal then goes on the hunt for religion to correspond with his newfound fervour.
For a man like Durtal however, this is far from easy. His sensitive artistic soul is confounded by every little thing which deviates from his ideal of a simple, pure aestheticism. He finds something to offend at least one of his sensibilities in almost every church in Paris and probably would have abandoned God as quickly as he'd found him again, if not for his friendship with an elderly Abbé who introduces him to Catholic High Mysticism. It is here where Durtal finds a high-minded religiousity which occupies the same rarefied air as his own spirit.
At the urging of the Abbé, Durtal goes on a retreat to a Trappist monastery which is where he finds himself sorely tested. The great beauty of this novel is how viscerally real Durtal's conversion appears to be. Being naturally pompous, misanthropic and elitist, the slightest thing plunges him into the greatest doubt and self-revulsion. Immediately Durtal wants to live a monkish life, but fears that his sins are too great, or that he lacks the necessary fibre or that any one of a hundred tiny setbacks are proof that he should immediately scurry back to Paris. Even when his doubts do not nag him, it is Durtal's supercilious attitude which ever threatens to be his undoing.
Durtal might well have proven to be a thoroughly remote and impossible character if not for the introduction of the Oblate, Monsieur Bruno who provides a link between the lay world and the mystical environment occupied by the monks. Huysmans is always acutely aware of Durtal's shortcomings (which are also his own), though he cannot resist lengthy discourses on art and history which are a very typical feature of Huysmans' books.
Although Durtal necessarily fails to reach the perfect enlightenment of the Saints whom he admires, he is sufficiently transformed to find the idea of returning to his former debauches to be impossible. What then is the conclusion? The clue is in the title of the novel - the answer is the journey itself.
For a man like Durtal however, this is far from easy. His sensitive artistic soul is confounded by every little thing which deviates from his ideal of a simple, pure aestheticism. He finds something to offend at least one of his sensibilities in almost every church in Paris and probably would have abandoned God as quickly as he'd found him again, if not for his friendship with an elderly Abbé who introduces him to Catholic High Mysticism. It is here where Durtal finds a high-minded religiousity which occupies the same rarefied air as his own spirit.
At the urging of the Abbé, Durtal goes on a retreat to a Trappist monastery which is where he finds himself sorely tested. The great beauty of this novel is how viscerally real Durtal's conversion appears to be. Being naturally pompous, misanthropic and elitist, the slightest thing plunges him into the greatest doubt and self-revulsion. Immediately Durtal wants to live a monkish life, but fears that his sins are too great, or that he lacks the necessary fibre or that any one of a hundred tiny setbacks are proof that he should immediately scurry back to Paris. Even when his doubts do not nag him, it is Durtal's supercilious attitude which ever threatens to be his undoing.
Durtal might well have proven to be a thoroughly remote and impossible character if not for the introduction of the Oblate, Monsieur Bruno who provides a link between the lay world and the mystical environment occupied by the monks. Huysmans is always acutely aware of Durtal's shortcomings (which are also his own), though he cannot resist lengthy discourses on art and history which are a very typical feature of Huysmans' books.
Although Durtal necessarily fails to reach the perfect enlightenment of the Saints whom he admires, he is sufficiently transformed to find the idea of returning to his former debauches to be impossible. What then is the conclusion? The clue is in the title of the novel - the answer is the journey itself.
December 10, 2017
Жоріс-Карл Гюїсманс, автор, можливо, мого найулюбленішого роману, має у своєму доробку трилогію про письменника Дюрталя. Після подій першого роману, де головний герой поринає у вивчення сатанізму і окультизму, у другій книзі він осмислює пережиті страхіття, змінює свої переконання і стає на шлях католицизму.
Як і у двох інших книгах Гюїсманса, які я читав раніше, «На шляху» відзначається перш за все не сюжетом, насиченим подіями, а описом переживань героя. Сприйняття світу передається виключно з точки зору Дюрталя. Автор уміло відображає душевні метаморфози літератора, створює йому об’ємний образ в уяві читача. Не в останню чергу йому це вдалося тому, що Дюрталь – це ледь не автобіографічний персонаж: Гюїсманс написав його з себе, після того, як сам звернувся до релігії. Проте не слід розглядати цей роман лише як осмислення місця людини в релігії, радше як осмислення місця людини в житті загалом, оскільки будь-які пошуки свого «я» відбуваються так само, на шляху завжди постають ті ж перешкоди.
Як і у двох інших книгах Гюїсманса, які я читав раніше, «На шляху» відзначається перш за все не сюжетом, насиченим подіями, а описом переживань героя. Сприйняття світу передається виключно з точки зору Дюрталя. Автор уміло відображає душевні метаморфози літератора, створює йому об’ємний образ в уяві читача. Не в останню чергу йому це вдалося тому, що Дюрталь – це ледь не автобіографічний персонаж: Гюїсманс написав його з себе, після того, як сам звернувся до релігії. Проте не слід розглядати цей роман лише як осмислення місця людини в релігії, радше як осмислення місця людини в житті загалом, оскільки будь-які пошуки свого «я» відбуваються так само, на шляху завжди постають ті ж перешкоди.
December 29, 2024
Don't be deterred by the slow beginning. This novel starts off like a tripadvisor review of Paris' churches and cathedrals, albeit written with amazing eloquence, but it turns out this study of the spiritual sites of fin du siècle France is just as much a window into the narrator's psyche and his own interior spiritual journey. He is not a mere tourist - we see him changed by the places he visits and the people he meets. The conversion here is entirely believable and, more importantly, moving.
I think Huysmans has one of the best narratorial voices I've ever had the fortune to read, and he certainly captures the flow of thought and a character's interior monologue more elegantly than any other author I know. He's also one of very few authors who can drop some ridiculous vocabulary and have it sound natural, not forced.
I think Huysmans has one of the best narratorial voices I've ever had the fortune to read, and he certainly captures the flow of thought and a character's interior monologue more elegantly than any other author I know. He's also one of very few authors who can drop some ridiculous vocabulary and have it sound natural, not forced.
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