À rebours

>>8513093
>translation
Not for this particular text.

I loved it, but it depends on your taste I guess. Definitely worth a read either way. He's a brilliant author. I preferred the older translation, whichever one has the translation by Havelock Ellis. Just be sure you get an unabridged edition:
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/jkh/rebours.html

>>8513106
Sorry, introduction by Ellis, not translation.

>>8513106
>>8513108
Thanks for the advice and the link. I frankly think I might hate it. I'm a pragmatic moralist and I suspect it will be pretty at odds with my views? I'm currently in the middle of picture of Dorian grey and having a hard time with it not because it offends me but because it's amorality seems false and uninspired.

>>8513230
>it's amorality seems false and uninspired.

You may be fine with a rebours if you accept that the amorality is true exactly because it lacks inspiration. The main character is empty and hollow and, from what I've heard of Dorian Grey (haven't read it), is similarly aesthetically obsessed. I think that at least in a rebours that's precisely intended to be insubstantial, dropping you into a setting of futility and despair in the face of extremely informed investigations into art, literature, and nature--a despair which only gets.

In fact I'd recommend it precisely because of your views, because I think you'd like how it ends. Won't spoil it, but if you can make it through the book I think you'll find it a rewarding experience.

>>8513093
It is delightful. I especially enjoyed the trip to London chapter, which features what must be one of the most memorable descriptions of the city in literature.

>>8514341
I can't tell if you're misremembering it or I'm missing something.

You remember that he doesn't actually go to London, right? He goes to an English pub on his way to London and decides he's seen enough.

Or am I forgetting something?

My favorite book, but why is it suddenly popular on /lit/?

Seem a few threads about it.

>>8513093
Nice Chromatography mate

>>8514533
Probably because Houellebecq's 2016 sensation best-seller's protagonist was a Huysmans scholar

>>8514688
wtf i hate huysmans now

I expected more from it, but it was the story of an insufferable twat who eventually makes himself ill to the point of death through his weak aestheticism and hipster views ... fucking hell it was a bore to read through, save for some entertaining cynical passages that advocate all kinds of "shocking" social messages almost just because they are "cutting edge". Maybe it has caught on because of that, but the dude is a fucking loser no matter how much he reads.

>>8513093
>translation

the best one is the one by just kill yourself.