Journal of Decadence: Innocence Spoiled – Sebastien Roch by Octave Mirbeau

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Decadence by Dedalus, fin de siecle, French decadents, Journal of Decadence, Octave Mirbeau, Sebastien Roch, third eye cinema podcast

And so we come to another installment of the early Octave Mirbeau; a further entry in his de facto trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels of doomed young men bearing some measure of the author’s own persona and past experience, albeit with each coming to some untoward early demise – a closure which the long lived Mirbeau himself would be spared.

Sebastien Roch follows the titular character, a sensitive, artistically inclined and intellectually curious young man whose only crime was to be born of a petty bourgeoise with aspirations to higher social status, through the course of a brief and tragic life – a life driven and hemmed in by the invisible fences of a ridiculous and hypocritical society and those who live by its mores.

Journal of Decadence: Diary of a Chambermaid – Octave Mirbeau

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Criterion collection, Decadence by Dedalus, fin de siecle, French decadents, Journal of Decadence, Luis Bunuel, Octave Mirbeau, third eye cinema podcast

Regular readers of the Journal should be well aware that outside the storied J.K. Huysmans, probably my favorite author of the fin de siecle French Decadent movement is Octave Mirbeau, scribe of the unforgettable confessional Le Calvaire and the mind blowing social critique that is Torture Garden.  But one work we had not yet addressed is perhaps the one he is best known for.  This is a story which had been filmed twice, and by two much beloved directors of the French Nouvelle Vague; often considered his literary apotheosis by the powers that be.

Journal of Decadence – Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau

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Decadence by Dedalus, fin de siecle, French decadents, Journal of Decadence, Octave Mirbeau, Rachilde, third eye cinema podcast, Torture Garden

“You’re a child,” repeated Clara. “You speak as you would in Europe, dear.  And you have stupid scruples, just as they would have in Europe…life is free, happy and boundless, free from conventions and without prejudices and laws.  At least for us…Liberty has no other limits than yourself…nor love anything but the triumphant variety of your desires.  Europe and its hypocritical barbaric civilisation is a lie.  What else do you find there but lies?  You lie to yourself and others – you lie about everything that, in the depths of your soul, you recognise as the truth.

You are forced to pretend outward respect for people and institutions which you find ridiculous…you remain cowardly, attached to moral or social conventions you despise, condemn and which you know lack all foundation…it’s the permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires on one hand and all the dead forms and vain phantoms of your civilisation on the other that makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced.

In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality because every moment the free play of your strength is restrained, impeded, and checked.  That’s the poisonous and mortal wound of the civilised world.  With us, there’s nothing like that…everything is conducive to a free life and to love.  What are you afraid of?  What are you leaving behind?”

– Clara, femme fatale of Octave Mirbeau’s Le Jardin du Supplices (Torture Garden).

No less a personage than Oscar Wilde apparently described this book as “revolting…a sort of grey adder”, and once we get to the heart of the matter, it’s hard to disagree.  The fact that both Wilde, a noted bon vivant and deliberate satirist and transgressor of traditional mores, and myself agree on this point should give fair warning to the skittish among us: this is strong stuff, particularly for the period, and should be approached with trepidation by the bourgeoise in mentality, the moralist, the uptight.

Still with me?  Good, let’s begin.

Journal of Decadence: capsule reviews of French (and Italian) Decadent literature of the fin de siecle

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Camillo Boito, Decadence by Dedalus, Dedalus books, fin de siecle, French decadents, Gabriele D'Annunzio, J.K. Huysmans, Joris Karl Huysmans, Journal of Decadence, literature, Octave Mirbeau, Paul Leppin, Rachilde, Remy de Gourmont, third eye cinema podcast

As this has become something of a running feature on my personal blog over the past month, I’ve decided to transpose some of this material over to the website for a greater audience.  Keep in mind this was written in a more impersonal style for a smaller group of friends and literati; nonetheless, these may prove of some small interest to the more high minded philosophers and aesthetes among us.

This is, by definition, hardly the last word on the subject, and more or less picks up in the middle – those whose interest may be piqued by the contents herein are well advised to seek out Emanuelle by Emanuelle Arsan, L’Histoire D’O by Pauline Reage, perhaps Venus in Furs by Leopold Sacher-Masoch and, at the very least, the excellent Grove Press reprint of Sade’s Justine (which also contains the important short tale Eugenie de Franval, freely adapted several times by Jesus Franco Manera (aka “Jess Franco”), with the best version being the intimate and extremely decadent Eugenie de Sade (aka Eugenie ’70) with Paul Muller and Soledad Miranda), all of which equal or prove far superior to the majority of the books discussed herein.

So with that being duly noted, let’s begin:

1.  La-Bas – Joris-Karl Huysmans
Just finished this excellent and bizarrely contemporary novel by the great J.K. Huysmans.

Journal of Decadence: A Rebours (Against Nature) – Joris Karl Huysmans

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A Rebours, Against Nature, Decadence by Dedalus, fin de siecle, French decadents, Joris Karl Huysmans, Journal of Decadence, third eye cinema podcast

“I seek new fragrances, larger flowers, pleasures as yet unexperienced.”

And so we come to what has often been noted as being the linchpin of Decadence, and the book upon which the Decadent movement of fin de siecle France rests.  As the first and most prominent group of authors to subscribe to the tenets, principles and stylistic aesthetic of the genre, it could even be put forth therefore that this book is the rock upon which the abandoned and deconsecrated church of Decadence has been built.

Yes, we’re talking about the great Joris Karl Huysmans, and the infamous A Rebours (Against Nature).

Journal of Decadence: Teutonic Decadence – Voices of the Abyss and Venus in Furs

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Decadence by Dedalus, Dedalus Book of German Decadence, fin de siecle, german decadence, Journal of Decadence, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, third eye cinema podcast, Venus in Furs, Voices of the Abyss

First up today, we’ll be looking into one of the final “books of decadence” Dedalus has to offer to the interested reader – one that looks a bit further East than Paris or Rome.  Today, we’re taking a look at The Dedalus Book of German Decadence: Voices of the Abyss.

Journal of Decadence: En Rade (Stranded) – Joris Karl Huysmans

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Decadence by Dedalus, En Rade, fin de siecle, French decadents, French literature, J.K. Huysmans, Joris Karl Huysmans, Journal of Decadence, La-Bas, Stranded, third eye cinema podcast

Damn.

Regular readers of the Journal of Decadence should be aware of the earliest entries in the series, which consisted of a compilation of short commentaries culled from postings to friends on the books that accompanied my most recent commencement into the world of fin de siecle Decadence.

Journal of Decadence: Decadence du Jour – the Medlar Lucan / Durian Gray series

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Decadence by Dedalus, durian gray, Journal of Decadence, medlar lucan, The Decadent Cookbook, The Decadent Gardener, The Decadent Traveler, third eye cinema podcast

The Decadent Cookbook (1997)
The Decadent Gardener (1998)
The Decadent Traveler (2000)

As readers of the Journal are well aware, Decadence as a style, movement and literary genre hails from (and all but ends with the passing of) the fin de siecle of the 19th century.

Primarily concentrated in the late 1880s and throughout the 1890s, its authors and notable works began to peter off into inconsequentiality and human wreckage, with several passing on at a fairly young age (Lorrain, de Nerval, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, even Aubrey Beardsley), and others settling into the mediocrity of a more tempered bourgeoise existence (Rachilde), inanity and absurdism (Mirbeau) and the (apparent) opposition and bane of Decadence, religion (Huysmans, Wilde).

Despite its surprising relevance to the modern era and the striking applicability of its analyses and assessments of life, love, and the course of history to the modern day, this would seem to mark it as much of a time and place as its related cousins of a bygone era, Dandyism, Symbolism and Romanticism.

But not so! Somewhere in the realms of hallucinatory imagination, only semi-real in the sense of the love interests of a typical Gautier protagonist, there exist two men, perhaps not quite in the flower of their putative youth, but elegant and refined aficionados of the aesthetic, well versed in literature and the darker corners of history.

Two dandies, as effete as they are cultured, with a razor sharp wit marked by its dry British overtones, yet well acquainted with the true Decadence of the French school.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my two favorite literary personae of the modern age: Medlar Lucan (whispered to be a mask for author Alex Martin) and Durian Gray (rumored alias of author Jerome Fletcher).

Journal of Decadence: The Juggler by Rachilde

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Decadence by Dedalus, fin de siecle, French decadents, Journal of Decadence, Marquise de Sade, Monsieur Venus, Rachilde, The Juggler, third eye cinema podcast, women's studies

And now we come to a novel that comes fairly late in the canon of Marguerite Emery-Vallette, more popularly known by her nom de plume of Rachilde.  Written at the ripe old age of 40, nearly 20 years after her much hyped debut of Monsieur Venus and closing on 15 from her true masterwork The Marquise de Sade, Rachilde brings us The Juggler.

Popular opinion, driven by the revival of interest in her work by post-modern feminist critique, would have you believe this to be her apotheosis, her final “important” novel and one which encapsulates and subsumes all the themes and stylistic flourishes to which all her earlier, more scandalous work aspired.  In effect, they claim, everything Rachilde had written was a build to, or decline from, this one defining moment.

To which I inform the reader: that is absolute and utter bullsh*t.

Once again proving you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, in attempting to bring some well deserved attention to a once popular female novelist of the Decadent era, who had been unfairly neglected and pushed aside by the tide of time and history as well as the snotty vagaries of critical review, these misguided would-be revisionist historians wind up missing the boat entirely, misunderstanding what the appeal and power of said authoress is or where her respective strengths and weaknesses lie, and in the plain fact of the matter, just don’t get it.

Moreover, I’m concerned for the mental, emotional, and sexual health of anyone who reads this bizarre missive and comes away identifying with the heroine in any real respect, much less finding her approach and philosophical standing towards sexual politics one with any currency in this or any other era, much less one worthy of adoption.

Journal of Decadence: Road to Darkness by Paul Leppin

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Austrian decadents, Daniel Jesus, Decadence by Dedalus, fin de siecle, German decadents, Ghost of a Jewish Ghetto, Gustav Meyrink, Journal of Decadence, Octave Mirbeau, Paul Leppin, Road to Decadence, Severin's journey into darkness, third eye cinema podcast

Wow, is this a corker.

Almost from the very start, having read the vignette and the first two chapters of the first novella, the sheer force and power of the narrative and Leppin’s vivid and directly descriptive style made itself quite apparent.

This is no dry, hesitant English attempt at Decadence, nor is it an emasculated translation (ala DiAnnunzio’s Child of Pleasure).  While the strong overtures towards philosophy and sentiment directed against the politics and mores of the zeitgeist that runs through all the best French Decadence are clearly missing (and much missed by their absence), the raw intensity and vibrant, lifelike portrait of a city and the people who inhabit it are practically incomparable.  There are few parallels I’ve encountered in literature where you can feel to this degree the sleaze, the passion, the sheer sweat-drenched atmosphere of the time, place and people involved.