>>24202301
>>24202312
It's a very good and important work. It's not like Dorian Gray, in that the plot is minimal: an aristocrat suffering from Schopenhauerian weltschmerz grows weary of Parisian life and decides to retire to a countryside villa; each chapter is his aesthetic contemplation of a particular genre of home decor as he furnishes his abode: paintings, literature, plants, pet accessories, etc. until the entire spectrum of aesthetic endeavour has been contemplated and judgements passed. A trip to England is commenced. An urchin is corrupted. Jewish prostitutes are reminisced. It presents Huysmans' manifesto against Zola's Naturalism, and the decisive start of Huysmans' Super-Naturalism, that would announce Decadence as a literary movement. The ending prefigures Huysmans', much later, conversion to Catholicism.

It is the yellow book that corrupts Dorian Gray. Heavily influential, D'Annunzio would later retire to a Brescian villa and live out his last decades as an eclectic des Esseintes collector of art and curios, albeit with dozens of women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittoriale_degli_italiani

>>24202359
I am partial to the Brendan King translations published by Dedalus. He's a Huyamsns scholar and runs the Huysmans.org website, and has written modern translations of most of Huysmans works. In truth, I think any post-war translation from a decent publisher will be successful (and the only risk with older translations is Bowdlerisation); French is generally not a risky translation.
http://www.huysmans.org/dedalus/against.htm
https://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-books/book.php?id=00000197

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