The Project Gutenberg EBook of La-bas, by J. K. Huysmans

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Title: La-bas

Author: J. K. Huysmans

Release Date: December 10, 2004 [EBook #14323]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LA-BAS

(DOWN THERE)

by
J.K. HUYSMANS

Translated
by
KEENE WALLACE

[Transcriber's note:
Original published 1891,
English translation privately published 1928.]

CHAPTER I

"You believe pretty thoroughly in these things, or you wouldn't abandon
the eternal triangle and the other stock subjects of the modern
novelists to write the story of Gilles de Rais," and after a silence Des
Hermies added, "I do not object to the latrine; hospital; and workshop
vocabulary of naturalism. For one thing, the subject matter requires
some such diction. Again, Zola, in _L'Assommoir_, has shown that a
heavy-handed artist can slap words together hit-or-miss and give an
effect of tremendous power. I do not really care how the naturalists
maltreat language, but I do strenuously object to the earthiness of
their ideas. They have made our literature the incarnation of
materialism--and they glorify the democracy of art!

"Say what you will, their theory is pitiful, and their tight little
method squeezes all the life out of them. Filth and the flesh are their
all in all. They deny wonder and reject the extra-sensual. I don't
believe they would know what you meant if you told them that artistic
curiosity begins at the very point where the senses leave off.

"You shrug your shoulders, but tell me, how much has naturalism done to
clear up life's really troublesome mysteries? When an ulcer of the
soul--or indeed the most benign little pimple--is to be probed,
naturalism can do nothing. 'Appetite and instinct' seem to be its sole
motivation and rut and brainstorm its chronic states. The field of
naturalism is the region below the umbilicus. Oh, it's a hernia clinic
and it offers the soul a truss!

"I tell you, Durtal, it's superficial quackery, and that isn't all.
This fetid naturalism eulogizes the atrocities of modern