The Cathedral

by J K Huysmans

Overview

THE CATHEDRAL, by J.K. Huysmans was originally published in French in 1898. The same year, this English translation by Clara Bell was published. THE CATHEDRAL is the second in a thinly veiled autobiographical trilogy starting with EN ROUTE and ending with THE OBLATE. These novels follow the character Durtal as he immerses himself in the mystical and aesthetic lifestyle of fin de siècle French Catholicism. You may remember our dear Durtal from his adventures in decadant Satanism (and fascination with Gilles de Rais) in Huysman's scandalous novel LA BAS. LA BAS, for obvious reasons, was not considered part of Huysmans's Catholic trilogy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798869073662
Publisher:	Inside the Castle
Publication date:	02/01/2024
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	6.63(w) x 10.25(h) x 1.35(d)

About the Author

J.K.Huysmans (1847-1907) began writing as a naturalist in the style of Zola. .He changed from being an obscure author and art critic to one of the most famous authors of his day with the publication of A Rebours (Against Nature) in 1884. His novel about Satanism, La-Bas (1891)is the cult novel of the nineteenth century.

Clara Bell was the first English translator of J-K. Huysmans' novel The Cathedral. She also translated a number of novels by Balzac including Seraphita.

Brendan King is a freelancewriter, reviewer and translator with a special interest in late nineteenth-century French fiction. His Ph.D. is on the life and work of J.K.Huysmans.
He has translated La-Bas, Parisian Sketches, Marthe, Against Nature and Stranded by J.-K. Huysmans for Dedalus.
He has also edited The Life of J.K.Huysmans by Robert Baldick for Dedalus

Editorial Reviews

Universally recognized as one of the founding figures of modern drama and theater, Pirandello is virtually unknown here as a novelist and short story writer. Written in 1904, this novel touches on some of the themes that reverberate throughout his work: illusion and reality, the enigmas of identity, art and life. The narratorprotagonist is something of a buffoon, a figure out of comic opera, the impoverished son of a once-rich family stripped bare by a villainous swindler of an estate manager. Living a dreary life as an archivist, tired of his dismal marriage, plagued by an intrusive mother-in-law, tormented by creditors, he slips away to Monte Carolo and hits it big. While he is gone, a suicide in his hometown is mistakenly identified as the very same Mattia, who, being an enterprising scamp, changes name and identity, marries anew in adopted territory, fakes his own suicide and returns to the orginal scene as his old self, to the consternation and confusion of everyone. Comedy descends to farce and slapstick here and there; but no harm done. Essentially the novel is a lark, with some shadowy overtones; and the portrait of town lifethe ``biographies of worms,'' Mattia saysis drawn in acid. (April)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Pascall abhors his life until he accidentally is declared dead and gets to start over under a new name. When that existence also flounders, he realizes he didn't have it so bad. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

"The novel is very funny, often hilariously so. It is also moving, disturbing, tragic. Pirandello's saw comedy residing in that 'fundamental contradiction...between human aspiration and human fraility,' a contradiction that induced 'a certain perplexity between weeping and laughing.'" -- The New York Times Book Review

Janette Turner Hospital