Books like Là-Bas

La-bas (English Down There)--with its explicit account of child sex-murders and its detailed description of a black mass—may benefit from its transgressive reputation but also suffers from it too. Readers who come to it seeking thrills and horrors will be alternately bored and disappointed, while serious readers, concerned—as Huymans was—with the spiritual and moral decline of civilization may be repelled by the books' shocking incidents and never read it at all.Outwardly, the book's author Huymans led an uneventful life, working as a civil servant at the Ministry of the Interior for thirty-two years. For the last two-thirds of his government career, however, he was also a prolific novelist. This Zola-style naturalist eventually decided to depict in Against the Grain a decadent, self-involved aesthete by the name of des Esseintes, and—although he used the naturalistic method to do so—he found himself spurned by the Naturalists, embraced by the Symbolists, and forever associated with the career of the notorious Oscar Wilde.This association is unfortunate, for it tends to obscure the fact that Huysmans, underneath his ornate and allusive style, is still a committed naturalist who chooses as his subject matter, neither the coal miners of Northern France nor the whores of Paris, but a gentleman who—bored with a materialistic culture—explores spirituality where he can find it—whether “up here” or “down there.”Durtal, the gentleman of La-bas, survives the empty lust of an adulterous liaison and the grubby horror of the black mass his married lover Hyacinthe takes him to, and finds himself disgusted by both. He does, though, discover evidence of spirituality both “up” and “down”: “up” (literally) in a Paris church steeple, in the life and opinions of an old bell ringer (who mourns the ancient days when each bell had a name and his profession was considered a spiritual discipline) and “down” in the confession of the child murderer Gilles de Rais and his reunion—before his execution—with the Church.I found the spiritual journey of Durtal informative and moving, and—yes—I really liked those cool transgressive parts too. I look forward to his three subsequent adventures, as he grows closer to Catholicism and eventually re-enters the church. If you wish to get an idea of Huysmans' style, there are marvelous set pieces here which may be enjoyed by themselves: the descriptions of Matthias Grunewald's Crucifixion (my favorite), the ruined castle of de Rais, the black mass itself—come immediately to mind. I prefer to end, however, with the aftermath of the child murderer's confession, the spiritual core of the novel:\ Until now, he had remained standing, speaking as if in a fog, recounting aloud to himself the memories of his imperishable crimes. But when he was finished, his strength abandoned him. He fell on his knees and shaking with fearful sobs he cried: “Oh God, my Redeemer, I beg your mercy and your pardon!” Then this savage and haughty baron, undoubtedly the first among his peers, prostrated himself. He turned toward the people and said in tears: “You, the parents of those whom I have so cruelly put to death, give me, oh give me the support of your pious prayers!”Then, in its pure white splendour, the soul of the Middle Ages shone out in that hall.Jean de Malestroit left his seat and lifted up the accused, who was beating his forehead desperately on the flagstones. The judge within him disappeared: only the priest remained: he embraced the guilty man who was repenting and bewailing his sin...And the entire hall knelt and prayed for the assassin.\