Marthe: The Story of a Whore

by Joris-Karl Huysmans, Brendan King (Translator)

This new translation by Brendan King is the first for nearly fifty years. Capturing the lively linguistic inventiveness of the original, it also includes an introduction and comprehensive notes.
First published in 1876, Marthe was an important landmark in J.-K. Huysmans's literary career and propelled him into the growing ranks of the Naturalist movement, then beginning to take shape under Zola's direction. Marthe was one of the first French novels to tackle head-on the subject of prostitution, a theme that was to become a central preoccupation in the work of many novelists, painters and poets. Set in and around the demi-monde of the Parisian music hall, it centres on a would-be actress, Marthe, who works in one of the lowest dives in Paris, and tells the story of her brief and ultimately doomed relationship with Leo, a romantic searching for something to take the place of his lost illusions.

Genres: France, French Literature, Fiction, Literature, Classics, Literary Fiction

149 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1876

About the author

Charles 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.

Reviews

[Libros Prestados · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es una corta historia que se incardina dentro de la novela naturalista francesa. Está bien, es entretenida (para el dramón que te está contando en realidad), no cuesta mucho leerla y es un buen exponente de ese movimiento literario que puede servir para conocerla un poco y no te apetece leer un tochazo de Zola.

¿Cuál es el problema de la novela? La total y absoluta falta de empatía del autor por los personajes, sobre todo Marthe. Todos los personajes son seres horribles y egoístas, y como el autor pasa más tiempo describiendo lugares, personas y situaciones, queda muy poco para el desarrollo psicológico, que es esquemático. Son personas horribles porque son personas horribles. Y la que más sufre es Marthe, cuyo comportamiento muchas veces es porque sí, porque el autor piensa que las mujeres funcionan de esa manera y punto. Básicamente, la teoría de Huysmans de por qué se mete a prostituta es porque "ya era un poco viciosa de serie". Casi parece que se lo mereciera, según él. Hay dos personajes masculinos que tienen más desarrollo, o al menos, el autor parece ser más comprensivo con ellos... y uno de ellos es un maltratador. Tal vez la idea es que, por describir las partes más oscuras o "inmorales" de la sociedad, los que viven en ese mundo son bestias deshumanizadas, pero carga un poco demasiado las tintas contra Marthe.

Al final son las opiniones de un señoro del siglo XIX. Tampoco se le puede pedir más. Para pasar el rato con un clásico sencillo está bien, pero si se quiere más desarrollo de personajes o que estos te caigan bien (o al menos que no quieras quemarlos en una hoguera a todos) no es el libro más recomendable.

[Branden William · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an amateur decadent historian, Marthe, histoire d'une fille (Marthe: The Story of a Whore) is a fascinating glimpse into the literary technique known as Naturalism, as this was J.K. Huysmans' first published novel, before he renounced Naturalism as 'gross materialism and over-simplified reductionism.' As with most of Huysmans' early work, there is little plot to describe. However, like Dostoyevsky's 'Notes from Underground', 'Marthe' is filled pervasive pessimism, exposing the dark harshness of life. In this tale, Huymans evokes low-life Paris with its seedy theaters, sketchy actors, and the miserable life of a Parisian prostitute in late nineteenth-century France. If anything, it is a key text in the analysis of Huysman's development as a writer, and a fascinating insight into the social attitudes and conventions of turn-of-the-century Europe.

'Marthe' is also interesting for being one of the first French novels to tackle head-on the subject of prostitution. For this reason, the novel is more of a novella with a somewhat hurried ending. At the time of its writing, an insecure French government had begun clamping down on what it saw as threats to the moral health of the nation. In July 1876, the poet Jean Richepin had been fined and sentenced to a month in prison for publishing a collection of poems, Chanson des gueux, one of which, 'Fils de Fille' ('Son of a whore'), had been singled out by the prosecuting magistrate. Huysmans, of course fearing a similar fate for himself if he also published his novella in France, decided to publish in Brussels instead. Even worse was the news that Edmond de Goncourt was writing a novel on a similar theme and with a similar title, La Fille Elisa. Fearing both plagiarism and prison, 'Marthe' was a novel of political expediency, nevertheless Huysmans remained proud of the fact that 'his novel about a prostitute in a licensed brothel was the first of its time'.

It can be argued that Huysmans' Marthe is more interesting for its place in history than for the story itself-- and for readers of Huysmans, an important milestone in his career as a writer. For all of its faults-- its brevity, it's lack of characterization and patchy narrative as a whole-- the novel contains early indications of Huysmans' sense for detail and his upstartled eye for the strange and bizarre among the bold realities of everyday life that he would later become so infamously known for. His pessimistic tone conveys a powerfully humorous vision of a miserable world with wildly imperfect inhabitants. Describing piss-coloured couches and pugs 'whose breath stinks when they eat meat or anything sweet', the novella's Naturalism is an attack on the overidealised view of Bohemian life in Paris he found in such Romantic writers as Henri Murger, whose famous Scènes de la vie bohème had appeared in 1848.

While Emile Zola saw Naturalism as a political tool, Huysmans saw it as a means to an aesthetic end. This difference can be seen in a comparison with Zola's own 'prostitute' novel, Nana (1880), which uses the demimonde as a means for exposing the hypocrisy and corruption of society. Rather, Huysmans' novella is less interested in political consciousness-raising, and more in confidence-boosting, as the credibility of 'Marthe' allowed him to pursue further explorations in novel form, eventually formulating a new aesthetic theory referred to as 'Spiritual Naturalism'. It's without saying, that Huysmans language is willfully perverse and grimly satisfying: "She went to see one of her friends who worked as a waitress in one of the lowest dives in the Rude de Vaugirard. The saloon was almost empty when she went in and hadn't even swept yet. The mirrors on the walls, smeared with pommade from the heads that continually leaned against them, were clear at the top and tarnished at the bottom; the floor, powdered with rouge, was starred with dried spit, phlegm, cigar butts and pipe dottle, the marble table-tops were ringed with tacky stains from dirty glasses, and, at the back of the room on a sofa, a living image of infamy, lay the landlady' father, whose job it was to work the beer pumps."

In the end, 'Marthe' is a simple story about two love affairs between three people: the heroine of the story, a woman who struggles between jobs in artificial pearl casting and work in a seedy licensed brothel, a young and enthusiastic journalist called Leo, and an alcohol-ridden courtesan called Ginginet. Surpringly, 'Marthe' is more of a tale of a courtesan's rise and eventual downfall due to alcohol addiction than it is a tale of a low-life Parisian brothel. In fact, the novella lacks eroticism as a whole, and the descriptions of the brothel itself are very seldom mentioned. As an absinthe connoisseur, I must mention that even though Huysmans didn't become associated with the decadent movement until the publishing of À rebours in 1884-- after he split with Zola and renounced Naturalism-- absinthe is mentioned several times, and remains the only instances where Huysmans writes about the emerald muse. "When everyone had a mop of bouffanted hair on their heads and a mass of ribbons and flowers hanging over their foreheads, they drank absinthe, shuffled the cards again and waited until it was time to set sail, whether for Lesbos or for Cythera."

[Henry L. Racicot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huysmans’ first novel is also one of the first to attempt a realistic or *naturalistic* examination of prostitution. Limited by its artificial dialogue and character psychology, and somewhat clumsy plotting, this uneven story of a whore doesn’t quite measure up to Huysmans’ later work. Indeed, one contemporary critic rightly asked ‘what good does it do us to witness the blossoming of this venereal flower?’ BUT. . .Huysmans’ unmatched descriptive powers are already on display. No novelist ever saw the grimy truth of reality better, or could translate it so vividly. He wrote descriptions like Van Gogh painted the Night Cafe. Here is his rendering of the whore’s slum: A rusty door streaked blood-red and ochre yellow, a long dark corridor the walls of which oozed black drops like coffee, and a sinister staircase that creaked at every footstep and was impregnated with the foul stench of drains and the smell of the lavatories whose doors swung open in the slightest breeze. Also present is Huysmans’ remarkably blunt and still 144 years after its publication avant-garde assessment of the essential hopelessness of cohabitation:He also had to put up with the smell of her cooking, the heavy odour of wine in the sauces, sickening stench of onions fried in a pan, and look at bread crumbs all over the rugs and bits of cotton thread all over the furniture; the sitting room had been overturned from top to bottom. On cleaning days it was even worse. The ironing board had to be balanced across his desk and another table, and the washing had to be dried on a clothes-horse in the hall. The puddles of water on the parquet, the stale smell of lye, and the streaming laundry that left damp-stains on his brasswork and tarnished his mirrors, reduced him to despair.Page after page of both of the lovers’ resentments, which, stewing in poverty, turn the wine of love sour. As an indictment of carnality, Marthe makes Huysmans later turn to catholicism/spiritualism seem inevitable. Despite its flawed presentation of the anatomy of a prostitute, of which there is no need to detail, the book predicts Huysmans’ eclipse of other *naturalists* because his chief concern is the individual, and not the collective. He understood ruin is personal, not political:the daylight which filtered its gold-dust through the curtains showed him a face bruised by the depredations of the night, and a posture that revealed a whore who had been dragged through every gutter in the city.

[Tonymess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but does finish abruptly, the reasons put forward mainly state that Huysmans was concerned that Goncourt had a novel about a “whore” about to be published, in order not to be accused of plagiarism Huysmans rushed his first novel to a publisher (in Brussels). He was also concerned about a Govt clamp down on indecency, hence the publication outside of France.

My ratings for Huysmans are skewed highly, I love his books and reread them regularly.

[Fuzzy Dunlop · Rating 4 out of 5]

The structuring and pacing are a mess, it should’ve at least had 150/200 more pages and you can see the potential for that throughout. However, I also greatly enjoyed what I read. Huysmans has to be one of the most visceral and talented descriptive writers I’ve come across, his dialogue is good, and his overall writing has a nice amount of edge, pessimism, and humour

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huysmans first novel is a patchy affair, concerning the life and eventual downfall of the prostitute Marthe. Lots of grim description of degradation and squalor. Quite a primitive effort in comparison to his more famous pieces but interesting to see where he began.

[Aaron Puerzer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't enjoy it too much, but it was a short enough novel. I was drawn to it because of the really neat edition I found that had some illustrations by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec every couple pages. They were definitely a positive and exactly evoked the kind of story Huysmans is telling.

[J. J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

Too short and not enough substance to really be something great. Pretty simple and average story. I feel like Huysmans style will work better for his longer and better known books.

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1876 novella about a prostitute was Huysmans’ first. It was printed in Brussels and imported into France because the material and subject was too risqué. The story is more a study on Marthe and her life, booze, brothel and loves; it’s tragic and realistic. It is also unsentimental about the men buzzing around her, notable perhaps because there may be some autobiographical elements to it. The story includes STIs and death of new borns.

This edition includes some good notes and a couple of original pen drawings to illustrate the book. Apparently this was a rushed novel because Huysmans wanted this to be the first such study of a tart but fellow author Goncourt was also working on such a theme at the same time.

Quote: “That suicide of intellect that is called ‘living together’ started to weigh heavily on him”

[Vico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Très bon roman de Huysmans, qui nous décrit la vie en montagne russe de Marthe, une jeune fille tour à tour enfileuse de perles, prostituée et comédienne de cabaret. Huysmans y dépeint les affres intemporelles de la vie amoureuse assez bien: la routine et l'ennui qui s'installent (Tant qu'ils n'avaient pas habité ensemble, tant qu'ils n'avaient pas connu les défaillances de la vie commune, il s'était senti violemment épris d'elle [...] Au bout de huit jours de ces cotoiements [...] tout cela ne présente plus ce mystère sans lequel toute passion se lasse), la perte de liberte (cette absence des amis que la presence de la femme eloigne) et ces petits riens qui agacent sur le moment, mais que l'on regrette une fois la relation terminée (De loin, tous les défauts de l'idole s'évanouirent; il la voyait, en quelque sorte, idéalisée et plus belle qu'elle ne lui sembla jamais; le poète reparut dans l'amant, il replaçait sur un piédestal de déesse la poupée dont il avait entrevu le son sous la couverte de peau rose; bref il se mourait de l'envie de l'adorer encore). Tout cela est saupoudré de pas mal de misogynie (Allez donc parler litterature et beaux arts devant une femme qui baille dans sa main, qui regarde furtvement le pendule, qui semble vous dire: Mais allez donc vous-en, que nous nous couchions ! Ce suicide d'intelligence que l'on nomme "un collage d'intelligence" commencait a lui peser).

Ce roman est aussi l'occasion pour le lecteur d'en apprendre beaucoup sur le quotidien des filles de joie de Paris, jouant au chat et à la souris avec le bureau des mœurs, mais aussi et surtout de la populace qui y vit. Par la même occasion, malgré toute cette misère, je note qu'il n'y a pas plus de violence qu'aujourd'hui, des sergents patrouillant dans la ville et n'hésitant pas à ramasser régulièrement les ivrognes troublant l'ordre publique, à la manière des éboueurs qui ramassent les poubelles pour assurer la salubrité et la sécurité de ce Paris d'antan... Pour nous plonger dans cette ambiance populaire, Huysmans décrit tout et sans détours jusqu'à la description burlesque des nez, des dents, même des cous (!) des Français de l'époque. Il use toute sa science du parler vrai avec des dialogues crus parfois digne des tontons flingueurs, comme celui entre Ginginet et Marthe qui forment un couple infernal:

Bas les pattes, vieux ! dit-elle. Je joue la comédie, et c'est toi qui me l'a apprise. Ni vu, ni connu, je t'embrouille. Tout bien considéré, vois-tu, ta bedaine me choque avec son va-et-vient perpétuel; tes joues pelent, ton nez se truffe, ta figure ne me revient pas décidément plus. Bonsoir !

À cette trivialité volontiers agressive, Huysmans oppose par moments des tableaux d’une étonnante douceur, lorsqu’il s’attarde sur Marthe elle-même. Il sait alors suspendre la laideur du monde pour faire surgir une image presque onirique, comme dans cette évocation de la fille sommeillant dans ses cheveux qui s’épandaient en un torrent vermeil sur le ravin des oreillers blancs . Ces éclaircies de grâce ne durent pourtant jamais longtemps: Marthe demeure une figure instable, capable de brèves élévations mais toujours rattrapée par ses penchants et son milieu. Elle est, en ce sens, la Nana de Huysmans: une héroïne qui tente parfois de se décrotter sans jamais parvenir à s'arracher durablement à la fange, ce diablotin déplacé dans un décor feutré dont l’illusion ne tient qu’un instant, et c’est précisément ce que cette phrase suggère en creux.

Enfin j'ai parfois trouvé les descriptions de Huysmans sur la misère la plus crasse encore plus vivides, comparée à celles de Zola. Ses descriptions poignantes du dénuement le plus total et du retour à la bestialite des miséreux atteignent leur paroxysme en fin de roman:

Une pelletée de misérables avait été jetée dans le ruisseau au pied de ces trois arbres. Il y avait là des pauvresses aux poitrines rasées et au teint glaiseux, des ramassis de bancroches, des borgnes et des ventrées de galopins morveux qui soufflaient par le nez d’incomparables chandelles et suçaient leurs doigts, attendant l’heure de la miche. Accotés, accroupis, couchés les uns contre les autres, ils agitaient des récipients inouïs : casseroles sans queue, pots de grès cravatés de ficelles, bidons cabossés, gamelles meurtries, bouillottes sans anses, pots de fleurs bouchés par le bas. Un soldat leur fit signe et tous se précipitèrent en avant, tête baissée, aboyant comme des dogues, puis, quand leurs écuelles furent pleines, ils s’enfuirent avec des regards voraces et, le derrière sur le trottoir, les pieds dans le ruisseau, ils avalèrent goulûment leur bâfre[...] Marthe frémit à la vue d’un vieillard qui buvait sa soupe à même d’une chaufferette et elle regarda, toute interdite, ce visage feutré d’une barbe grise, ces yeux clignotants et troubles, ce nez qui perçait, tout praliné de rouge, la croûte flasque et comme morte des joues. Ce crâne peluché, ces loques cousues avec des ficelles, ces habits couleur de bouse, cette culotte mangée des mites, étoilée de trous, cuirassée de fange, ce gilet racorni, rongé, ratatiné par tous les soleils et par toutes les pluies, ces savates sans nom, éculées et avachies, ouvrant, pour laisser passer l’orteil, des lucarnes de cuir roux; cette figure enfin, ravagée par tous les excès, ce hideux tremblotement des jambes, ces mains qui dansaient toutes seules sans que l’homme les remuât...

Huysmans est à Zola ce que Paganini est à Mozart, un auteur moins connu que le maître du réalisme certes, mais un génie du verbe maniant avec virtuosité tout le corpus linguistique de la langue française, en y exhumant des trésors de mots oubliés.

[Keith [on semi hiatus] · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now Messieurs, alcoholism...

[Hélène Lamboley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une très belle langue qui entraîne le lecteur au cœur du tourbillon infernal qu’est la vie de Marthe. Cependant, je trouve que le roman se complaît beaucoup dans le plus ordurier : la boue et la misère ne nous sont pas épargnés, d’autant que le roman finit à la morgue.
Par ailleurs, le point de vue adopté sur la « fille » qu’est Marthe est plus le point de vue des hommes qui la désirent et la repoussent tout à la fois car elle incarne le plaisir coupable que celle de la femme poussée à cette situation, ce qui me dérange pour un livre centré sur « l’histoire d’une fille ». Marthe est souvent abrutie, spectatrice passive de sa vie, entraînée par l’ivresse de sa vie mais le récit s’attarde peu sur ses ressentis et sa souffrance

[Fred Dameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I read this I kept seeing where Huysmans later works came from. Even though La Bas, and Against Nature are still in this world, I see why, eventually Huysmans, is lead to the spiritual. My disappointment with this work is it is Ginginet ( Ginginet is a theater producer/manager when Martha first meets him.) who is on the autopsy table as a stand in for Marthe who WILL die of alcoholism, being beaten, or suicide. interesting that Huysmans had to substitute Ginginet for Martha in France where Dostoevsky in Notes from Underground (?) flat out tells the prostitute that she will die in the Hay market from alcoholism. Different countries different censors. Huysmans goes on to lead a life of spiritual enlightenment and Dostoevsky went on to a life of gambling and sensualism.

[Kezia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going with the majority here of a 3.5 rating. Glimpses of Huysmans' genius with some very satisfying passages/scenes, but overall it shows his rush to publish. Still, a valid effort, and one that helps expand our knowledge of the author and his times.

[Dylan Rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a good novel and a nice piece of naturalist or realistic fiction, especially for a first novel, but no near the quality of Huymans later work.

[Δκнғ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ah, you got to give him that hawk tuah; and spit on that thing!" -Ginginet to Marthe

[Gabriel Mazur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huysmans pinta cenas muito bonitas nesse breve romance. Daí tem a parte meio misógina neah :(

[Lowsleeperr :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Je suis complètement bluffé. Quelle plume, quel talent ! Je ne m’attendais pas à découvrir un Zola presque poète (son ami, au passage) capable de parler avec autant de justesse de l’amour, des femmes et des hommes. C’est drôle, touchant, parfois ridicule, mais toujours captivant. Pour les amateurs de Nana, Marthe apparaît comme un préquel plein de style, condensé en moins de 100 pages.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huysmans earliest novel, thrown together quickly in order to beat Goncourt's novel of prostitution to market, and then banned in France as soon as it was released. Huysmans was criticised for the shocking subject matter of the novel, but even by the standards of its time, despite its title, it must have been relatively tame. What's most remarkable is his opulent turns of phrase, and his graphic, almost beautiful depiction of the ugliest parts of Parisian life: "Green pustules or rosy flesh, it makes little difference to me; we touch them both, because they both exist, because the lout merits study just as much as the most perfect of men, because fallen women swarm in our cities and have a right there just as much as honest women."

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have to agree with some of the other reviews that whilst a fascinating read, the whole story lacked any real depth & I did feel completely disengaged from those characters depicted. Even had Marthe herself had me despising her, that would have felt better than putting the book down, thinking a plain "oh". I didn't want to know more, because I didn't care. Did get a few interested looks on the train though - not sure if that was the title or the fact I was holding a real book in a sea of e-readers - the horror!

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not nearly as depraved as his “La-Bas”, Marthe is still quite a scandalously dark story. Being one of the first writers and books to address prostitution, it is no wonder that it caused a complete shock and outrage at it’s publication in the late 19th century. J.K. Huysmans, along with Emile Zola and Rachild are among some of my most favorite writers of the Decadent Movement in fin-de-siecle Paris.

[aya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny, tragic and light. Huysmann's first novels hints at the depth and skill that is to come in his later works, but his characters seem barely written in this one. Gorgeous description, but rushed as admitted in the introduction.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Other reviewers are much more eloquent, so I shall be brief: this book, and Naturalism in general, seems to be about setting, Society, and the state of Nature, more than the characters themselves - for these, all are quite shallow.

[Tom Newth · Rating 3 out of 5]

all well and good but a bit unengaging; the milieu rings grubbily true, but the characters are sketches of literary types.

[Julian · Rating 2 out of 5]

rushed