BOOK REVIEWS

      I have dispensed with my 'Books of the Year' postings  which covered the years 2009 and 2010, and now attempt to review a selection of books that I have read both good and bad, in editions old and new. Much of what I buy is often based on suggestions by others, or some train of thought that makes me think "maybe I should try..." so they are not necessarily all strange/supernatural fiction.
       With many small press books costing around £35-£40 each, and some seemingly worthy tomes changing hands on the second hand market for many times that, these reviews may also give the potential purchaser some indication of what they might receive for their money. Needless to say, my opinions should not be given any great value as I bring my own foibles to every review and these may change at any time.

J-K. Huysmans 'Parisian Sketches'

(Fortune Press n/d 1946?)
88 pages

    My copy of the book is plain red cloth, and thus not  an interesting picture, so here is a photo of the author instead.

     I believe this book to be available as a p/b titled 'A Dish of Spices' via Amazon and the like. I hope so as it is jolly good.

     J-K Huysmans (1848-1907) is best known for 'Against Nature' (1884) the novel that defined the Decadent movement and should be on every weird story lovers bookshelf.

    Before he wrote 'Against Nature' he was a student of the 'realistic school' of Zola, De Maupassant and the like and this is a collection of evocations/prose poems which were originally published in 1874,  and are in effect a bridge between the two styles. This volume includes material revised and added in 1886 and the influence of the 1884  novel.

    The Fortune Press edition has a useful introduction from the translator Richard Griffiths who points out how much smell  (especially womens') plays a part in these writings-and in 'Against Nature'. This is particually effective in his descriptions of the Folies-Bergere and a Grand Ball. There is also a controversial (at the time) piece called 'The Arm-Pit' which Huysmans terms "spice boxes in order to season and enhance the stew of love". Each to their own, but I prefer 'Low Tide' which is a survey of breast shape and size  through the ages and lifestyles of various female types (albeit via tailors dummies).

    These and many of the other twenty or so short pieces (none run to much more than 3 pages) are really quite 'decadent' in style and subject. Huysmans selects the more grotesque and bizarre aspects of his subjects to extol the virtues (or otherwise) of. Prostitutes  and their pimps, a fantasy inspired by Odilon Redons paintings and the like; but the best pieces in this vein (and the book) are his meditations on landscape especially 'The Bievre'. "Yes it is true that the Bieve is nothing more than a moving dung-heap...true it emits a fetid stench of stagnation, an aroma of the charnal house; but just  place a barrel organ at the foot of one of its trees, and make it gasp out its melodies that fill its belly; or let the voice of a begger-woman resound in this valley of misery, let her sing, as she sits by the water, a woeful lament learned at a sing-song, a ballad extolling the little birds and begging for love: and then tell me whether this wailing does not stir you to the depths of your soul, and whether this sobbing voice does not appear to be the desolate complaint if the poor suburbs themselves."

    This slim book is a great read and best savoured slowly for maximum pleasure. Highly recommended.