Down There (La-Bas)

People trying to get a kind of occult/gothic aura from this book are wasting their time. This is a luxurious slice of Catholic ritual. Read it in conjunction with Saint Louis de Montfort's THE SECRET OF THE ROSARY, specifically "The Seventh Rose". La-bas is the Latin Rite in concentrate.

This novel about a writer (Durtal), struggling with his biography of Gilles de Bais aka Bluebeard is a real melting pot of influences and styles.I confess I skimmed the introduction, and my literary chronology is rusty, but I believe Huysmans was a contemporary of Flaubert, or an immediate successor at any rate. There is some of Flaubert's style and grace in this work at any rate and the fact he is mentioned in La Bas, The Damned makes me believe he was an influence on the author's literary career. Another influence strongly prevalant throughout is Hermetic thought andschool of philosophy both explicity, and implicitly. The protaganists friend is given the nom de plume of de Hermies(hmmmm). Not to start reviewing other reviewers words, but in order to not be repetive, so perusers of this review aren't going didn't I just read that I will limit myself to say other reviews make salient points i.e. shallowness of characterization, and the fact that to a jaded 21st century reader this book isn't that erotic or shocking.Huysmans shows real genius though as I started to say above, before I digressed in the marriage of styles and influences. Besides the harmonious resonance of hermeticism prominant in the text the is an almost gothic romance undertone as well as other styles and themes making this a quite intelligent, and poetic novel.

Amidst the Occult revival & the glory days of Decadence, of all places Paris, 1891, high aloft the bell-tower of Saint-Sulpice, far away from where "progress is but the refinement of the vices", the reader's granted access to the extraordinary conversations of a small group of friends: a famous & capable physician with sincere intellectual occult inclinations; a most reknown ex-court Astrologer; a kindly, aged sage with a rare, profound learning of the lost Art of Bellringing, accompanied by his wife who both occupy the tower making of it intimate & cozy surroundings for their company; and lastly, Durtal--Huysmans himself--who is deep in study & pursuit of placing contemporary Satanism in its proper historical context, revolving all the while round his writing a biography of Gilles de Rais, the infamous Black Magician & child murderer reputed to have tortured, killed & raped some 500 children for expressed Satanic purposes, who was also a friend of none other than "Joan of Arc" and who fought at her side as one of France's greatest knights. For this murderer, this monster, is in the process of becoming a saint! Durtal narrates the episodic history of Gilles de Rais throughout the entire book, forming a naturalistic vision as well of Huysmans' the writer going about his daily life in a way Occultist & Artists today might find familiar or enviable for its intrigues & dark fascinations lived & not just dreamt of. 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 Occult

Amidst the Occult revival & the glory days of Decadence, of all places Paris, 1891, high aloft the bell-tower of Saint-Sulpice, the reader's granted access to the extraordinary conversations of a small group of friends: a famous & capable physician with sincere intellectual occult inclinations; a most reknown ex-court Astrologer; a kindly, aged sage with a rare, profound learning of the lost Art of Bellringing, accompanied by his wife who both occupy the tower making of it intimate & cozy surroundings for their company; and lastly, Durtal--Huysmans himself--who is deep in study & pursuit of placing contemporary Satanism in its proper historical context, revolving all the while round his writing a biography of Gilles de Rais, the infamous Black Magician & child murderer reputed to have tortured, killed & raped some 500 children for expressed Satanic purposes, who was also a friend of none other than "Joan of Arc" and who fought at her side as one of France's greatest knights. For this murderer, this monster, is in the process of becoming a saint! Durtal narrates the episodic history of Gilles de Rais throughout the entire book, forming a naturalistic vision as well of Huysmans' the writer going about his daily life in a way Occultist & Artists today might find familiar or enviable for its intrigues & dark fascinations lived & not just dreamt of. 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 & st

One of the most riveting and thought-provoking reads I've ever had, I strongly recommend "La-Bas" to any and all disenchanted with the dismayingly distasteful age in which we are obliged to live. According to Huysmans, the late 19th Century was a hotbed of mediocrity and depravity. Sound familiar? One can only imagine his reaction to the vulgar, brutal, and fatuous present. My guess is that he wouldn't be overly surprised."La-Bas" is only nominally a novel. After all, there's no progression toward a resolution. This is hardly surprising, as there's no resolution. Rather, "La-Bas" is an ongoing and in-depth discussion of Satanism that cleverly leads us to think deeply about the broader and deeper issue of man's brutish nature and the tawdry society stemming from that nature. Indeed, the book should be retitled "My Dinner with Carhaix." I, for one, would have been delighted to have attended those dinners -- for both the scintillating conversation and the evocatively described suppers. Alas, thoughtful bell-ringers and their kitchen-wise wives are hard to come by these days.