In this Francophilic video, enjoy lots of pretty pictures and some sympathetic talk about Huysmans' 1884 cult classic, "Against Nature," which is also translated as "Against the Grain." The idea of this book is that the French Decadent period was sort of the end of an age. Ennui was dominating French intellectuals and the opium dens and brothels were lining the streets of Paris. Some visionaries like Baudelaire and Rimbaud challenged the optimistic narrative of Progress and secularism. Some became political liberals, but some decided that that was a path leading nowhere. Swimming against the stream, cutting against the grain, not following the pack -- all that stuff -- Joris-Karl Huysmans wrote a book in the exact opposite direct, and it scandalized the French literati. Degeneracy is a real thing, and some people actually oppose it smartly!

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