I am reading Huysmans The Cathedral and I am mostly just wishing I could remember more about his earlier novel, The Damned. During my late teens through my mid-twenties, I read a great deal of nineteenth century fiction. My mother would like to credit her deep love for Jane Austen for this fascination, but, in truth, I only read Austen later in this stage. The real point of entry was Alexandre Dumas’ and his rollicking, romantic adventures. But the fascination came about by the discovery of nineteenth century sex. I had been given a very chaste impression of the period (no doubt inspired by second hand images of official Victorian mores), so the discovery of some truly wicked (if not graphically described) sex in these novels was something of an eye opener. Madame Bovary, Dorian Gray, Jude the Obscure, and, finally The Damned followed.

The Cathedral contains, so far, none of the sex, Satanism, and black masses that made The Damned so delicious. But is does, so far, have a great deal of lush language which I can appreciate. For a convert to the Catholic faith and a would-be writer and intellectual (like myself); Durtal (the name of Huysmans doppelganger in the novels) is a fine figure to follow.