Down There (La-Bas) [Paperback]

Also permeating the whole of the text is a genuine succubus of sorts, an 'idol of perversity', "one of the butcher-girls of Love" who like virtually ALL the charcters is modelled on real-life personages whose actual titles I will not assault any interested persons with, allowing them their own rewarding historical investigations. However, anyone with art-historic or occultic knowledge regarding the turn of the 19th century in France will probably recognize some of the cast from these "Lower Depths"--which is what "La-Bas" means. Such as "Dr. Johannes", a Healer from the mystical center of France, Lyons; in actuality this is the abbe Boullan, successor of the Prophet Eugene Vintras(1807-1875), founder of an apocalyptic cultus prophesizing a great explosion signalling all Hell on Earth. The abbe Boullan was famous/infamous for his sexual magic and Healing techniques such as his curing of diabolical illnesses by spitting in the afflicted's mouths, or rubbing poultices of excreta on their psychic wounds, and compelling the nuns whom he serviced, invested with the titles of the Catholic church, to drink their urine. In 1860 he sacrificially murdered his own child born of his primary voyant, sister Adele Chevalier. Abbe Boullan's own death, so Huysman's believed, was resultant of the curses of another famous Mage. What is important to grasp is that during the fin-de-siecle Art History reached its zenith, its pinnacle, its furthest point culminating after millennia in the Symbolists/Decadents/Aesthetes; and it was in Occultism that the Artist found a definition of their own position & state of being; thus was this the day when born was our modern conception of Art as a religion, and the Artist its high priest or magician. Art will never be the same again, for after this Art seems to come in rising waves of "advanced guards"...

Joris-Karl Huysmans bridges the chasm between the Occult underground & establishment like no other; ultimately, I feel, championing the underground. This is the first book of a trilogy charting Huysman's journey from the brothels of Satanism & decadent Paris to the cloisters of Catholicism & reclusive refuge, where his interests in spirituality & occult/esoteric lore lessen none at all---The second book is titled "En Route" of 1895 & the last "The Cathedral" from 1898---all are available from Dedalus Press and apparently a new translation, the first in over 75 years, of "La-Bas" has been undertaken by one Brendan King.(?) Such could be far superior to Keene Wallace's respective 1928 translation, whose greatest errors lie in its restrictions downplaying Huysman's lyrical tone especially in relating stylized Satanic events, and though it would be difficult to seriously louse up Huysmans'prose, he has suffered omissions and the flattening or simplifying of his poetic gifts due to moral issue in the past.

Huysman's is a journey rewarding for its realism laying bare the psyche of a sensitive, intelligent man, & seductive in its romantic portrayal of the Artist/Occultist risk-taker, willing to go as far as 'the powers that be' will allow him, ever-searching for the highest truths and brutally honest in admitting what's often painful to accept for the religious seeker. I feel Huysman's trilogy is a neglected masterpiece of the Symbolist-Decadent generation, poignant in exemplifying a familiar journey so many braved.

As Huysmans says, "Such Literature has only one excuse for existing; it saves the person who makes it from the disgustingness of life...and charitably, it lessens the distress of us few who still love Art."