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Rating: 
Summary: FROM THE BROTHEL TO THE CLOISTER
Review: 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 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 & literary 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, & is 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."
Rating:
Summary: "Progress is the Hypocrisy which Refines the Vices"
Review: 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 & 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."
Rating: 
Summary: Down There
Review: Billed as a classic book on satanism, the book turns out to be a bit of a letdown. It is endless chat between characters, who go around talking about how they wish they could live in the Middle Ages, where wickedness wasn't watered down. The Black Mass scene the author was (sort of) building up to at the end is quick and tame; the characters who infiltrated it even comment on how disappointing it is...not that I needed to be told. Durtal is an occasionally interesting main character, with some rather intriguing views on women and Christianity, mostly negative in both cases, but he has nothing to do in this story, except hang about with friends who talk a lot, and research Gilles de Rais--so that the reader can get a capsule description of said scoundrel. All in all, a disappointment. It certainly does not qualify as an effective horror novel.
Rating:
Summary: Capturing a soul in descent
Review: Huysmans' Durtal, the main character in this and 'The Cathedral', was an autobiographical character to many degrees. As such, he was able to capture with such vivid imagery that of a man fascinated with the lives of monsters (Gilles De Rais in particular), and only slowly becoming aware of his descent into hardcore, introspective reality. Though his life is full of dinner table coonversations and interesting people, he, himself cannot avoid the ultimate conclusion that his complete dissassociation and overanalyzation of his emotion has left him without a soul. Nothing is of value but the sinful imagination which, in his mind, is so built up that nothing in reality can ever match the dream. Heavy stuff for one to contend with. A warning, this book can make you re-evaluate your own life and make you pose a question: Are your priorities out of whack?
Rating:
Summary: They could've corrected the 1928 edition's typos...
Review: J. K. Huysmans, La-Bas (Dover, 1891) Ah, Huysmans, the author who pioneered the novel of "two people spending a whole chapter talking about things that have absolutely nothing to do with the plot, theme, or story." La-Bas (translated, "Down There") is billed by the blurb-writer who did the back cover as "the classic of Satanism" thanks to a description (I warn you, it comes very, very late in the book; those seeking a quick fix of prurience should certainly look elsewhere) of a Black Mass. One thinks that perhaps the blurb writer has been living in a cave for fifty years; Huysmans' black mass is about as scandalous today as a Jennifer Lopez dress. Even Ernest Borgnine got more sacreligious in The Devil's Rain. Sheesh. The story (what there is of it) revolves around a young French writer named Durtal and his best friend, Des Hermies. Durtal is working on a sensationalized biography of Gilles de Rais, Joan of Arc's main lieutenant who later inspired the Bluebeard legend (or so common wisdom has it; Durtal counters that argument at one point in the book). Des Hermies suggests that Durtal's research might go better if he uncovered various occult sciences still extant in fin-de-siecle Paris, and the two of them, aided unwittingly by a monastic bell-ringer named Carhaix and an ancient astrologer named Gevingey, set out to do so. They are also helped along by Durtal's rather odd relationship with a fan (anonymous in her first letters to him in the book, and so not revealed here) who has indirect connections with some practicing Satanists in the Catholic church (hmm, a bit of anti-Catholic bias in Paris in the 1890s? Who'd'athunk?). All of it could have made for a fine adventure story, the kind of thing A. Merritt and G. A. Henty were writing a few years after this; unfortunately, Huysmans turns it into endless conversations. A few fast-moving scenes where Durtal is imagining pieces of Rais' life as he's writing save the book from utter despair, but ultimately, the fact that La-Bas is Huysmans' best-known novel these days is a disservice to the man; other books would be a better starting point for him (especially Against the Grain). **
Rating: 
Summary: .
Review: La Bas is often shocking-- there are long, stomach turning descriptions of ritual cruelties and tortures-- but more often that that, it is charmingly silly and ironic. In fact, its best parts are the scenes in which morbid protagonist and his friends get together to discuss satanism over.... watch out!... dandelion salad, or mashed potatoes. The affair between Durtal and his secret Ms. H. is suggested to be demonic (one book jacket calls her enthrallingly evil, or something like that), but it is so painfully awkward that you never really feel creeped out, only empathetic toward its suffering participants. La Bas is a very nice book. If it weren't for all the Satanism, it could even be called lighthearted. It's kind of similar to a Confederacy of Dunces, actually.
Rating:
Summary: Once-notorious true story of Occultist literature
Review: La Bas was read a century ago for its scandalous first-person accounts of Satanic rites (including those indulged in by the notorious Abbe Boulan, here fictionalized as Canon Docre), but there's little in this once-notorious and widely-banned book that would titillate today. Instead, what's memorable about La Bas is its view of Satanism as one logical repsonse to modernism-- Huysmans affected to hate his then-modern world, of Edison lightbulbs and the execrable Eiffel Tower, and sought a refuge from it in an affected medievalism. Yet he couldn't be comfortable in the Church, at least not right away (eventually he did become a Catholic oblate, a kind of lay monk), and so the type of Satanism practiced by the notorious medieval sadist Gilles de Rais became one refuge... or at least a reverse-chic fashion to affect for one season and shock the old folks. (Huysmans would have hated California in the late 60's, but it dug him-- and it's a wonder the Gothic movement hasn't picked up on this book.) It's the philosophical discussion of this surprisingly contemporary position that provides the real interest of the book today
Rating:
Summary: Difficult but rewarding
Review: This book can be, at times, so wordy your head will nod. Huysmans' typical writing style is florid, enwrapped in detail. Yet the moments of gorgeous writing are deeply worthwhile, and if you're looking for a plunge into the bizarre, this is it. It is the tale of a man who sets out to write about the life of his historical subject, Gils De Rais, the legendary Bluebeard, who was renowned as a Satanist and sadist. To become closer to his subject, the protagonist wrangles his way into the seemier side of Paris life, witnessing Satanic rites. Life imitates art as he finds himself pulled into a world that at once reviles and fascinates him. Yet, delighfully, the reader is left to his or her OWN moral judgements. Ahead of his time, Huysman left morality ambiguous and is never heavy-handed, merely inviting the reader on an erudite and strange jouney that is worth every effort.
Rating:
Summary: Quite Remarkable
Review: This is a study of Satanism is the 19th century. The focus is on a bloke who is doing some research into Gilles de Rais. Much of the book is rather dull, and it does contaon some good information, but it tells one less about Satansim and more about one maniac than some believe. Also fascinating is the emphasis placed on "decadence" in art and literature. The Bell-rigner was an interesting character as well. Some of the scenes of the Black Mass were amusing, but all in all I wasn't that impressed. The style of Huysmans, however, I liked considerably. For a more realistic look at Satansim, one would do better to consult some of LaVey's work.
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