The Oblate

Durtal #4

by Joris-Karl Huysmans

This is the final part in the spiritual journey of Durtal, J.-K. Huysmans' alter ego. From the satanism of La-Bas (1891), he makes his way to the foot of the cross and embraces Roman Catholicism, first retreating to a Trappist monastery in En Route (1895), then living in Chartres and studying Catholic symbolism in The Cathedral (1898), and finally joining a community of monks in The Oblate (1903). Here, Durtal’s spiritual quest collides with contemporary political reality when the monastery is closed down by an anti-clerical Republican government and the religious community at Val-des-Saints is forced to disperse.

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

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1903

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

[Lee Foust · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you check the date of completion below you'll see that I finished this one more than a week ago but have yet to write anything about it. There's not much more to say that I haven't already said about Huysmans's four Durtal novels in my reviews of the others. Even if, overall, I enjoyed reading the cycle to completion, sadly, the three follow-ups are all much inferior in interest, technique, and drama to the first of the set, the masterful La Bas.

The Oblate... did hold my interest a bit more than the penultimate entry, The Cathedral and yet, in my memories, I somehow think a bit more fondly of the latter because of the way it drew me into the symbolism and richness of the Medieval carvings adorning Chartres cathedral, and how much it made me want to go look at the darned thing. The Oblate, however, reads more smoothly and quickly as a narrative because events, in the form of politics, intervene in Durtal's eventual and predictable finally settling into monastic life as an oblate--the French government makes a move, in the wake of the Dreyfus affair, to get the monks the heck out of France entirely, leaving the newly confirmed Durtal high and dry when the monastery to which he's attached himself pulls up stakes and heads off to Belgium. (Most likely inadvertently this renders the whole cycle of novels more circular than linear as, in the end, poor Durtal returns to Paris where his journey from malaise to enlightenment began in La Bas.) The completed triumph, therefore, of the spiritual journey we've been following from sin and curiosity to purification and acceptance through the four novels is rather tempered at the end by this last-minute intervention of current events and world tribulation. Still, that's not unrealistic now also worthy of narrative in a sense. I did enjoy the vague parallels of the whole novel cycle with Dante's Commedia (my prime target of study as a scholar), so many other spiritual narratives, and of course the grandaddy of all Christian conversion stories, Augustine's Confessions.

Like all reviews of the capitalist period the obvious conclusion is: "If you like this sort of thing you'll enjoy it; if you don't, then read La Bas (a clear masterpiece of drama, invention, and literary excellence) and skip the others."

Oh, yeah: and I feel I should warn you of several anti-Semitic comments made in the course of the novel. Although, to Huysmans's credit, he's equally critical of all people and institutions, his decadent tastes being driven by the pure aestheticism of the epoch, we just notice them less because there are things about Catholicism, his French nation, and so many other topics featuring in the novel that he praises and celebrates. But, sheesh, paranoia among Europeans regarding the Jews is just really annoying in a post-Holocaust world.

[Oleksandr Fediienko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Після багаторічних болісних роздумів Дюрталь остаточно пов’язує своє життя з релігією. Йому пропонують стати облатом в монастирі Валь-де-Сан. Облат – це не чернець, але він сповідує ледь не чернече життя, хоча й має деяку свободу. На жаль, одночасно у Франції починаються утиски чернецтва…
Я помітив два цікаві збіги з книгами, які читав/слухав цієї ж осені. По-перше, про справу Дрейфуса багато було написано у циклі «В пошуках утраченого часу» Марселя Пруста. Там хоч і не згадувалося жодного разу, як вона вплинула на монастирі, але країна та ж і доба та ж, і теж наголос на достеменність подій, тому обидва автори не могли залишитися осторонь такого важливого процесу.
По-друге, я звернув увагу на слово «доксологія». Це молитва, яка прославляє Бога. Це слово було в «Таємному саді» Френсіс Бернет, де наприкінці вона все звернула до релігії. Той момент виглядав дивним і штучним. А у Гюїсманса його використання виглядає природним.
Твори про Дюрталя пронизані одним мотивом і водночас дуже різні. То він погрузає у містицизм, то шукає себе, то оспівує Шартрський собор. «Облат» – це зовсім інша книга, вона насичена стількома подіями, як жодна попередня. Тут Дюрталь нарешті знаходить спокій, але від цього удар стає ще сильніший. І, до речі, є багато книг, коли герої позбавляються всього, що в них є, – але в матеріальному сенсі. А чи не набагато гірше, коли позбуваєшся всього в духовному сенсі?

[Michel Van Goethem]

Een meesterwerk in zijn genre, wellicht uniek, omdat er in dat genre nauwelijks iets bestaat. In veel geuren en kleuren wordt het leven in en rond een abdij van benedictijnen geschilderd, het werk van de monniken in diverse afdelingen, de tuin met zijn geneeskrachtige planten, de erediensten in groot ornaat, de missaal en de complexe geschiedenis ervan, de vlucht naar België (een kasteel te Moerbeke)en de commentaar van de oblaat Durtal, die Huysmans, op het einde van zijn leven, zelf was, dat alles in een 'romanvorm'. Rijk aan verfijnde esthetische beschrijvingen tot in het kleinste detail, getuigt het werk van een leven en geest die nu niet meer bestaan; men kan afkerig zijn van enkele kwezelachtige details, zoals de dame die in haar hoed dagelijks een ander lint draagt, overeenkomstig de liturgie van die dag, het blijft een schat aan informatie.


L'Oblat (The Oblate) is the last novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1903. It is the final book in Huysmans' cycle of four novels featuring the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself. Durtal had already appeared in Là-bas, En route and La cathédrale, which traced his (and the author's) conversion to Catholicism.
In L'Oblat, Durtal becomes an oblate, reflecting Huysmans' own experiences in the religious community at Ligugé. Like many of Huysmans' other novels, it has little plot. The author uses the book to examine the Christian liturgy, express his opinions about the state of Catholicism in contemporary France and explore the question of suffering (one notable passage describes the Garden of Gethsemane).

[Alexandra Smithie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could have read the Durtal books in order, but they’re so hard to find… what a book, though! Like La Bas, this book is really dialogue heavy and requires prior knowledge of European Christian sects.

[Fred Dameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huysmans has done a wonderful job describing two things in this work. One, the history of the Oblate class of Christian monastic fellows. This is done against the back round of the French Government trying and succeeding in driving the religious orders either out of the country or under government control. It's the second issue that is most revealing. I know that later in life Huysman became a Catholic Mystic and I believe that this work is actually his feelings about the end of the orders in France. Through Durtal we hear about the spiritual uplift of the various Catholic Masses. From Matins to Vespers we see and feel Durtal's spirit lift in the beginning and as the work goes on we see his spirit slowly drown in the realization that the life of an Oblate will not be for him as the Benedictine order is being forced out of France. It is this spiritual loss that Durtal feels that leads to the pathos of this work. The work is sad while being informative and also lifts one up as you realize that you can still find that same peace in your own life with work. Just as Durtal finds peace and then looses it, but I don't have to. The work also brings up another point that will become extremely important in the next year. That is how do we, Americans and our Constitution that says "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." in a post attempted revolt against the established government by the MAGA's. Many of these MAGA Fascist ideas are being preached from various pulpits across the nation especially in any state that has an SEC college sport teams. I have another work on the way that addresses this exact issue in France post revolution.

[Dylan Rock · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final part of J.K Huysmans semi autobiographical novels that cover Durtal's spiritual awaking as a Oblate at a Benedictine monastery

[Per · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14323