À vau-l'eau
Encyclopedia
À vau-l'eau is a short novel
(or novella
) by the French
writer Joris-Karl Huysmans
, first published by Henry Kistmaeckers in Brussels
on January 26, 1882.
The work - which has little in the way of plot - tells the story of Jean Folantin, a downtrodden Paris
ian civil service clerk whose quest for even a modicum of happiness or material comfort always ends in failure. The book chronicles Folantin's everyday disappointments, typified by his search for a decent meal (there are numerous descriptions of the disgusting food he has to eat). At the end of the novella, Folantin pessimistically resigns himself to giving up hope and "going with the flow":
style, with its unflinching depiction of sordid everyday reality, but several features point the way forward to the radical departure marked by Huysmans' next - and most famous - novel, À rebours
. Huysmans later noted the similarities between Monsieur Folantin and Des Esseintes, the aristocratic hero of À rebours:
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
(or novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
) by the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
writer Joris-Karl Huysmans
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans . He is most famous for the novel À rebours...
, first published by Henry Kistmaeckers in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
on January 26, 1882.
The work - which has little in the way of plot - tells the story of Jean Folantin, a downtrodden Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian civil service clerk whose quest for even a modicum of happiness or material comfort always ends in failure. The book chronicles Folantin's everyday disappointments, typified by his search for a decent meal (there are numerous descriptions of the disgusting food he has to eat). At the end of the novella, Folantin pessimistically resigns himself to giving up hope and "going with the flow":
"...he realised the futility of changing direction, the sterility of all enthusiasm and all effort. 'You have to let yourself go with the flow; Schopenhauer is right', he told himself, '"Man's life swings like a pendulum between pain and boredom". So there's no point trying to speed up or slow down the rhythm of its swings; all we can do is fold our arms and try to get to sleep...'" (Brown translation p.57)À vau-l'eau is a key work in Huysmans' literary development. It is the last book written in the author's early Naturalist
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
style, with its unflinching depiction of sordid everyday reality, but several features point the way forward to the radical departure marked by Huysmans' next - and most famous - novel, À rebours
À rebours
À rebours is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans...
. Huysmans later noted the similarities between Monsieur Folantin and Des Esseintes, the aristocratic hero of À rebours:
I pictured to myself a M.Folantin, more cultured, more refined, more wealthy, than the first, and who has discovered in artificiality a specific for the disgust inspired by the worries of life and the American manners of our time. I imagined him winging his way to the land of dreams...living alone and apart, far from the present-day world, in an atmosphere suggestive of more cordial epochs and less odious surroundings". (Quoted in the introduction to Brown, p.xii)
Translations
- As Downstream, by Robert BaldickRobert BaldickRobert Baldick was a British scholar of French literature, writer, joint editor of the Penguin Classics series with Betty Radice and a well-known translator. He was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford....
(reprint edition by Turtle Point Press, 2005) - As With the Flow, by Andrew Brown with an introduction by Simon CallowSimon CallowSimon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE is an English actor, writer and theatre director. He is also currently a judge on Popstar to Operastar.-Early years:...
(Hesperus, 2003)
Sources
- Huysmans Romans Volume One (Bouquins, Robert Laffont, 2005)
- Robert Baldick: The Life of J.-K. Huysmans (originally published by Oxford University Press, 1955; revised by Brendan King, Dedalus Press, 2006)