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The Angels of Perversity
The stories in The Angels of Perversity are key examples of early Symbolist prose shaped and inspired by the French Decadent consciousness and must rank among the best short stories of the 1890s. The tone of the stories is unique, with an unusual mixture of decadence and eroticism, balanced by an ironic and sentimental view of the world.
176 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1992
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About the author
Remy de Gourmont
332 books62 followersPeople widely read works of Symbolist poet, novelist, and critic Remy de Gourmont of France, an important influence on Blaise Cendrars, in his era.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 18, 2020
The Angels of Perversity - a collection of 30 short tales by French philosopher/aesthetician/literary critic/fiction writer Remy de Gourmont (1858 - 1915), a leading voice of the fin-de-siècle decadent and symbolist schools who was heralded as the `critical conscience of a generation'. Although handsome as a young man, a skin disease ravaged his face when Gourmont was in his early 30s, prompting him to become a recluse and devote the next 25 years of his life to writing, enough writing to fill 50 thick volumes.
Back on his fiction, here is what translator Francis Amery aka Brian Stableford says about Gourmont in his 15 page introduction to the author's life and times: "His one and only subject matter was sex; he was deeply fascinated by the essential capriciousness of the sexual impulse, by the ill-effects of social and religious repression of sexuality, and by the intellectual strategies which might maximize the quasi-transcendental experience of sexual rapture." Thus, with this sexual repression and how men and women deal with their twisted sexual energy, we have the book's title. And to provide a more specific glimpse of what one will encounter in this provocative collection, I offer the following comments on three of the tales:
ON THE THRESHOLD
An oddball tale where the narrator visits the gloomy, depressing French chateau of an old aristocrat. And what is really weird is there is a tame heron with the name of `Missionary' who stalks from room to room as if on a ominous mission. The narrator accidentally bumps into the heron and says, "Go on then, Remorse." This rebuke initially upsets the old marquis and then triggers him to disclose the sad story of his life.
When the men retire to his den, the marquis confesses to the narrator that he himself is like the heron: he never sleeps. He goes on, "My heart, at least, never sleeps. I am familiar with drowsiness, but I am a stranger to unconsciousness. My dreams are simply the continuation of my waking thoughts . . . And what do I dream about in this fashion, during all the interminable hours of my life? Of nothing - or rather of negation, of that which I have not done, that which I will not do, that which I could not do, even if my youth were given back to me. For that is my nature. I am one who has never been active, who has never lifted a finger in order to accomplish a desire or duty."
At this point, the marquis recounts his boyhood, where an orphan cousin was brought into his home, a beautiful blonde young girl of the same age. However, some years after, at the time when he became more rational, he had the experience that would define his life forever: he plucked a rose from his garden and saw that the rose faded and withered away within the hour. He concluded: no matter how much one yearns for roses, one must not pluck roses. He applied this principle to every aspect of life, including his relationship with his beautiful cousin. Indeed, although he lived side-by-side with his cousin for another 20 years and loved her with a burning intensity, he never `crossed the threshold', never acted on his feelings, never permitted himself to be subject to the disenchantment born of desire or action. And what of his beautiful cousin? She became weak and died of love for the marquis. And, so, he has lived alone for many years in his chateau called `Gallows-Tree House' with the black swans swimming among broken reeds and a heron clacking its beak and staring out of its cheerless and ironic eyes.
One can reflect on this tale in light of ongoing decadent themes: rotting civilization, moral transgression and emotional extremes. I wouldn't be surprised if Gourmont was inspired to write On the Threshold after ruminating on a famous aphorism of Arthur Schopenhauer, the favorite philosopher among decadent writers, "No rose without a thorn but many a thorn without a rose."
THE FAUN
A young wife and mother returns from a Christmas Eve dinner nauseated by her husband's hypocritical show of affection and weary of the laughter of little children. Once her bedroom door is locked, she stands naked before her mirror and, rebelling against any memory of her youth and innocence, she turns her thoughts to sensuality. The author writes, "She gave herself up to a dream of sumptuous fornication, imagining she might sink into an unexpected stupor, a complaisant victim of desire, right there beside the fire with the fur about her . . . " But such intense pleasure doesn't last forever, for as Gourmont observes, society and religion have turned men and especially women against their own bodies and dreams of sensuality.
THE DRESS
A young man experiences an intense yearning for the fulfillment of his lovesick heart. To this end he searches out beautiful women strolling along the streets of Paris. But, wait - is the beauty he seeks in women? No, not at all, for we read, "A naked woman seemed to him to be an absurdity, an anomaly- something like a bald parrot or a plucked chicken." What his lovesick heart yearns to unite with is a beautiful dress. That's right - this young man has a dress fetish, a fetish leading to a warped and sick encounter with a young woman and ultimately leading to murder. One of the most memorable tales of sexual perversion you will ever read.
One final note: The cover photo with Bridget Bardot is completely inappropriate as noted by a Goodreads friend below. Dedalus Press made a mistake with such a cover.
December 8, 2010
Curiosity about Decadence as a genre led me to this book, which Dedalus has translated as part of a program to make the literature of the EEC states available in other languages. The book comes in two parts, Studies in Fascination, a series of short stories, and The Phantom, a novella running about 46 pages.
Almost all these stories are among the best short stories I've read, and if the book had been longer I would have given it five stars. As it stands, this collection leaves readers wanting more. Someone, look in the shelves and drawers and see if Gourmont left anything else behind!
The reputation for sexual frankness shouldn't leave people with the idea that the stories are salacious. The author is interested in the hand resting upon the thigh, not where that hand might go next. The writing is more sensual than sexual.
Two distinctive characteristics of the collection are the fusion of sensuality and death, and the fusion of sensuality and religion. I often quote from a book to give an example of the author's style, but that won't do here. The effect Gourmont achieves grows from the whole and can't be captured in short quotes. It's also not possible to describe precisely how religion and death factor in because they do so in unexpected ways that differ with each story.
What I can say is that this innovative collection is well worth reading, often outclassing later and better known books that broach the sex drive. Decadence is a style on the edge of literature that I hope will become more accepted and more widely read. Angels of Perversity is an excellent place to branch out from mainstream reading.
Almost all these stories are among the best short stories I've read, and if the book had been longer I would have given it five stars. As it stands, this collection leaves readers wanting more. Someone, look in the shelves and drawers and see if Gourmont left anything else behind!
The reputation for sexual frankness shouldn't leave people with the idea that the stories are salacious. The author is interested in the hand resting upon the thigh, not where that hand might go next. The writing is more sensual than sexual.
Two distinctive characteristics of the collection are the fusion of sensuality and death, and the fusion of sensuality and religion. I often quote from a book to give an example of the author's style, but that won't do here. The effect Gourmont achieves grows from the whole and can't be captured in short quotes. It's also not possible to describe precisely how religion and death factor in because they do so in unexpected ways that differ with each story.
What I can say is that this innovative collection is well worth reading, often outclassing later and better known books that broach the sex drive. Decadence is a style on the edge of literature that I hope will become more accepted and more widely read. Angels of Perversity is an excellent place to branch out from mainstream reading.
March 12, 2009
Dedalus revives another forgotten writer as part of their Decadence series with this sampler of the short fiction of Remy de Gourmont. ANGELS OF PERVERSITY consists of selections from STUDIES IN FASCINATION and edits from the long-form THE PHANTOM.
de Gourmont is quite a find. Not translated much into English (his reputation for unflinching sexual content made him somewhat notorious), it's a pleasure to read this delicate work now. First, a word of discouragement - those expecting salacious material will be sorely disappointed. "Unflinching sexual content" in the 19th century did not mean what it does now, where the suggestion that an unmarried man and women might sleep together (and for PLEASURE!) or, even worse, sleep with someone other than their spouse, was still shocking. Or, to be more precise (since people weren't fools back then), it wasn't the suggestion of this but the writing about it, making it a topic for literature, that was shocking.
Nowadays, a title like ANGELS OF PERVERSITY would imply a carnal algebra: orifices X appendages X devices X participants / fetishes = X. But de Gourmont's stories aren't necessarily perverse, they're about perversity, specifically the perversity created in human sexual drives by stifling social, moral and religious customs. In a way, de Gourmont applies Edgar Allan Poe's approach to stories, but instead of madness and morbidity, sex and love are his brushes and subjects.
Some of these could be reprinted today in a horror anthology with barely a ripple. "Pehor", which illustrates the dangers of directing a young girl's burgeoning, healthy sexual energies into religious drives, is horrifying (things don't turn out well). It could be read as a story of demonic possession, but a subtler intent can be divined by the patient. "The Dress" is a masterpiece about the dangers of fetishism and the terminal urges that underlay them, as a man becomes obsessed with a dress, but not the woman who wears it.
Not everything here is horrifying, however. Most of the stories are poignant, emotionally cruel, or just plain sad. "On The Threshold" sketches a man who decided early in life that achieving one's desires inevitably ruins them, so he lives his whole life always bringing things to the edge of satisfaction, but never committing (it ends badly). "Sylvie's Sister", "The Other" and "The Dead One Cannot Mourn" are variations on a theme: marital affairs and deathbed confessions. "The Adulterous Candle" must have surely tweaked some mores at the time, with it's presentation of an adulteress as "woman in control of her life."
Only the latter half of the book, sections from THE PHANTOM, disappoints. Not because the writing is any weaker, its just as strong as the shorts. The subject, in which a man and woman engage of an exploration of sexual limits, is okay but it's presented behind such a heavy symbolic screen as to be inscrutable to the modern reader (it reminded me of some of the opaque metaphysical meanderings that muddy works by E.T.A. Hoffmann).
de Gourmont is a fine writer, amazingly subtle in his understanding that it's not what one says but what one doesn't say that helps create a story's strange atmosphere and gives it punch (many of the stories are only a page or two). Suggestion, not detail, is probably the smartest approach to writing about matters of the body and the heart and de Gourmont was a master. I'd like to read more. You should too.
de Gourmont is quite a find. Not translated much into English (his reputation for unflinching sexual content made him somewhat notorious), it's a pleasure to read this delicate work now. First, a word of discouragement - those expecting salacious material will be sorely disappointed. "Unflinching sexual content" in the 19th century did not mean what it does now, where the suggestion that an unmarried man and women might sleep together (and for PLEASURE!) or, even worse, sleep with someone other than their spouse, was still shocking. Or, to be more precise (since people weren't fools back then), it wasn't the suggestion of this but the writing about it, making it a topic for literature, that was shocking.
Nowadays, a title like ANGELS OF PERVERSITY would imply a carnal algebra: orifices X appendages X devices X participants / fetishes = X. But de Gourmont's stories aren't necessarily perverse, they're about perversity, specifically the perversity created in human sexual drives by stifling social, moral and religious customs. In a way, de Gourmont applies Edgar Allan Poe's approach to stories, but instead of madness and morbidity, sex and love are his brushes and subjects.
Some of these could be reprinted today in a horror anthology with barely a ripple. "Pehor", which illustrates the dangers of directing a young girl's burgeoning, healthy sexual energies into religious drives, is horrifying (things don't turn out well). It could be read as a story of demonic possession, but a subtler intent can be divined by the patient. "The Dress" is a masterpiece about the dangers of fetishism and the terminal urges that underlay them, as a man becomes obsessed with a dress, but not the woman who wears it.
Not everything here is horrifying, however. Most of the stories are poignant, emotionally cruel, or just plain sad. "On The Threshold" sketches a man who decided early in life that achieving one's desires inevitably ruins them, so he lives his whole life always bringing things to the edge of satisfaction, but never committing (it ends badly). "Sylvie's Sister", "The Other" and "The Dead One Cannot Mourn" are variations on a theme: marital affairs and deathbed confessions. "The Adulterous Candle" must have surely tweaked some mores at the time, with it's presentation of an adulteress as "woman in control of her life."
Only the latter half of the book, sections from THE PHANTOM, disappoints. Not because the writing is any weaker, its just as strong as the shorts. The subject, in which a man and woman engage of an exploration of sexual limits, is okay but it's presented behind such a heavy symbolic screen as to be inscrutable to the modern reader (it reminded me of some of the opaque metaphysical meanderings that muddy works by E.T.A. Hoffmann).
de Gourmont is a fine writer, amazingly subtle in his understanding that it's not what one says but what one doesn't say that helps create a story's strange atmosphere and gives it punch (many of the stories are only a page or two). Suggestion, not detail, is probably the smartest approach to writing about matters of the body and the heart and de Gourmont was a master. I'd like to read more. You should too.
December 21, 2007
There should be a genre called phantasmagoric fiction. Writings that threaten with an opium-tinged lethargy and hallucinogenic seduction. Haunted plots inhabited by characters imbued with a particular cobalt, tedium vitae. Angels of Perversity would befit this genre. De Gourmont's collection of short stories- very short,some only a few pages long, carry a languor and slight Satanic gleaming. The story, "The Dress," where a man falls in love with a dress, seems to cross a shadow in my mind every once and again.
August 16, 2015
"As Sarah had suggested – and certainly intended – Aubert returned the next day to the same spot. The seagulls were dancing lightly on the gentle air-currents.
Sarah’s dress flapped in the wind.
A white butterfly alighted on her hand; she took it by the wings and slowly tore it in two. Aubert stared at her in horror – but having committed her little murder she passed her hand sensuously through her flaming tresses, entirely tranquil. Then, as if performing a ritual, she opened her arms wide as if to receive the applause of a crowd of imaginary admirers – and brought them back again to rest upon her bosom. She smiled, very sweetly."
----
"Rebelling against her memories of youth and innocence, she turned her thoughts instead to the delights of sensuality. The warmth which flooded the hearth now that the logs burned more brightly was changed by the alchemy of her imagination into a wicked titillation. She amused herself with the notion that peculiar caresses were flowing over her, like little angels without wings, hotter and more agile than the capering flames which played like demons about the burning logs."
----
" Galatea, I kiss the blue-green of the veins which ramify upon your wrists … Green? What green? No, it is decidedly blue, this wrist, by virtue of the veins which encircle it with their blue tracery … O blood, carry me towards the heart of Galatea! O fabulous labyrinth of the veins, carry me! Take me there, fabulous labyrinth of the arteries, take me and conduct me by the secret ways through the intimacy of her flesh … I will follow the contours at this very moment … But the dream gives way to the hands: Galatea abandons herself to my precise hands: here are the arms formed in their perfect posture, with the complex junction of the elbow: the crook where the tensed muscles are opposed, and where the double point of the bone is exposed beneath; and towards the shoulder, the adorable and fugitive curve of the muscles of the embrace … The shoulders, the neck, the nape where the little vertebrae stand out, the lobed ears like sea-shells, mysterious conches in whose depths there sounds a susurrus of love … The back shudders like a billowing wave, and lo! the wave divides into two breakers: a marine ridge dedicated to Aphrodite! … Hips … The complexity of the female sexual parts! … Waist, I design you with my joined hands, and with such delicate finger-play I model you, breasts of Galatea, and you, abdomen of Galatea, a pillow softer than that pillow of clouds where Phoebe rests her lunar forehead...
The artful night has stolen upon us: Adieu, Galatea."
Sarah’s dress flapped in the wind.
A white butterfly alighted on her hand; she took it by the wings and slowly tore it in two. Aubert stared at her in horror – but having committed her little murder she passed her hand sensuously through her flaming tresses, entirely tranquil. Then, as if performing a ritual, she opened her arms wide as if to receive the applause of a crowd of imaginary admirers – and brought them back again to rest upon her bosom. She smiled, very sweetly."
----
"Rebelling against her memories of youth and innocence, she turned her thoughts instead to the delights of sensuality. The warmth which flooded the hearth now that the logs burned more brightly was changed by the alchemy of her imagination into a wicked titillation. She amused herself with the notion that peculiar caresses were flowing over her, like little angels without wings, hotter and more agile than the capering flames which played like demons about the burning logs."
----
" Galatea, I kiss the blue-green of the veins which ramify upon your wrists … Green? What green? No, it is decidedly blue, this wrist, by virtue of the veins which encircle it with their blue tracery … O blood, carry me towards the heart of Galatea! O fabulous labyrinth of the veins, carry me! Take me there, fabulous labyrinth of the arteries, take me and conduct me by the secret ways through the intimacy of her flesh … I will follow the contours at this very moment … But the dream gives way to the hands: Galatea abandons herself to my precise hands: here are the arms formed in their perfect posture, with the complex junction of the elbow: the crook where the tensed muscles are opposed, and where the double point of the bone is exposed beneath; and towards the shoulder, the adorable and fugitive curve of the muscles of the embrace … The shoulders, the neck, the nape where the little vertebrae stand out, the lobed ears like sea-shells, mysterious conches in whose depths there sounds a susurrus of love … The back shudders like a billowing wave, and lo! the wave divides into two breakers: a marine ridge dedicated to Aphrodite! … Hips … The complexity of the female sexual parts! … Waist, I design you with my joined hands, and with such delicate finger-play I model you, breasts of Galatea, and you, abdomen of Galatea, a pillow softer than that pillow of clouds where Phoebe rests her lunar forehead...
The artful night has stolen upon us: Adieu, Galatea."
September 21, 2008
Angels of Perversity features selections from Remy de Gourmont's 1891 novel Le Fantome and his 1894 short story collection Histoires Magiques. They're meditations on sex and death with something of a mystical tinge. He's not well-known in English-speaking countries because most of his work was for many years considered much too sexually explicit to be published. The stories from Histoires Magiques in particular are exquisite - they're like strange and dangerous hot-house flowers.
November 3, 2025
This is an exquisite collection of short stories of passionate love in the genre of French Symbolism by now forgotten Remy de Gourmont. Even in translation, each piece exudes much of the cadence of prose-poetry!
July 23, 2025
Gourmont's work in this collection is entirely centered on the subject of sex, but I would not call these stories eroticism as such. Rather, they are *about* sex/sexuality, operating largely through elegant suggestion when it comes to sexual acts in themselves and relatively frank about sexual desires, if not exceedingly explicit. The influence on Batailles, whose erotic works are more explicit, makes sense, as sex is used as a field for thematic exploration, rife with interconnected imagery and motifs.
According to the translator, Gourmont was heavily influenced by Mallarme, a poet I have not read much of. But I have read a good deal of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and there is plenty connection there as well. The best moments particular evoke the sensuously rich and hallucinatory imagery of the Symbolist and decadent poets, and Gourmont stands up pretty well. However, these stories were largely published in the 1880s-1890s, some decades after other French writers were really innovating these techniques, so it feels a bit more like working in an established style than pushing the medium forward.
The stories consistently explore the theme of the unsatisfactory nature of sexual desire and ultimately love. Characters consistently want or have an ideal of wanting that brings them either to ruin or simply dissatisfaction. So pretty much in line with Schopenhauer, who had a deep influence on Gourmont's thinking. The publisher of my edition has this labeled as "fantasy," but only a handful of stories truly veer into this territory, with demons or curses. But much of the dialogue is non-naturalistic, characters inclined to long philosophical rambles, and there is something about the heady imagery that makes the description fit (if we're using "fantasy" in its broadest sense).
Undoubtedly worth a read if you're interested in Symbolist and decadent writers of the 19th century. Not quite an antecedent to Surrealism in the same fashion as Rimbaud or Lautreamont, but the direct relationship to Jarry and influence on Bataille makes it worth a read for those curious about that lineage.
According to the translator, Gourmont was heavily influenced by Mallarme, a poet I have not read much of. But I have read a good deal of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and there is plenty connection there as well. The best moments particular evoke the sensuously rich and hallucinatory imagery of the Symbolist and decadent poets, and Gourmont stands up pretty well. However, these stories were largely published in the 1880s-1890s, some decades after other French writers were really innovating these techniques, so it feels a bit more like working in an established style than pushing the medium forward.
The stories consistently explore the theme of the unsatisfactory nature of sexual desire and ultimately love. Characters consistently want or have an ideal of wanting that brings them either to ruin or simply dissatisfaction. So pretty much in line with Schopenhauer, who had a deep influence on Gourmont's thinking. The publisher of my edition has this labeled as "fantasy," but only a handful of stories truly veer into this territory, with demons or curses. But much of the dialogue is non-naturalistic, characters inclined to long philosophical rambles, and there is something about the heady imagery that makes the description fit (if we're using "fantasy" in its broadest sense).
Undoubtedly worth a read if you're interested in Symbolist and decadent writers of the 19th century. Not quite an antecedent to Surrealism in the same fashion as Rimbaud or Lautreamont, but the direct relationship to Jarry and influence on Bataille makes it worth a read for those curious about that lineage.
January 23, 2024
~3.25
Note: The cover picture grossly misrepresents the themes found within the writing in my opinion.
Note: The cover picture grossly misrepresents the themes found within the writing in my opinion.
June 5, 2024
not the best victorian writing to come from France... 2nd half better than the 1st
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January 13, 2025My favorites: "Péhor;" "The White Dress;" "The Red Marguerite;" "The Death One Cannot Mourn;" and "The Magnolia"
July 11, 2014
I have read so much about the Symbolist it is time to read some Symbolist writing.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews