As an English teacher currently covering The Picture of Dorian Gray with my students, I cannot express how happy they all were to finally have an answer to "what book was he reading?"
I think Oscar Wilde uses the same techniques of writing about leisurely indulgence in the middle-portions of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', which may seem boring/tedious to many people. But in my opinion, these are exactly the portions where we need to read the novel carefully. And, thank you very much for the recommendation. This channel and the other one, to me, are nothing short of a treasure trove.
Wow - you're right :) That's a really nice thought. I personally enjoyed these passages more than the Sibyl Vane subplot, but I totally understand why one might wish to skip them, and why one, as you say, should read them carefully. Thank you for the great comment!
I agree. I actually stopped reading the book once I got those sections because I was having a hard time paying attention, but once I picked it back up and finished it I could understand the importance in context better.
I read A Rebours 30 years ago. I think it was the most memorable book I have read and I am a constant reader. You are the first person I haver ever heard mention it. Thank you so much for your comments.
Why were books depicted as the instruments of the devil in the Elizabethan plays especially 'Doctor Faustus' and 'The Tempest'. As Faustus in the end pledges to burn his books and Prospero apparently drowns his books.
Funny I came across your comment now as Kenya finally stands up against a corrupt gvt that’s desperately trying to destroy the education system. Many of us who were integral to lighting the fire under people all realized it’s because we see too many similarities in anti-corrupt literature that were part of our school curriculum. Books like “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”, or Swahili literature like “Mshtahiki Meya”
I very much recommend Julian Barnes's book The Man in the Red Coat, which is a non-fiction book that talks about the fin de siecle society in Paris in a very interesting way! That's where I heard about Huysmans and also about the guy who was the actual inspiration behind the protagonist of that book. If you like to read about French culture society of that time, it's really fun :) I have the same Penguin edition of Against Nature, but haven't read it yet :)))
I absolutely believe that art can me a huge influence on the morality and culture of a place - and it is understandable as to why governments and institutions fear them. However, I think art is always coming from a question standpoint - even a intimidating painting from Rothko, to morally grey Bukowski stuff. It is all posing a question and it is how society choses to answer that that becomes important. In my country, we have a book called 'once were warriors' (and a movie following) that posed several massive questions about race, and domestic abuse in a country that we think of as paradise. there was corners who wanted to ban it, but ultimately it lead to both wider understanding and change on a national scale. Art for art's sake is a cop out of what's going on in my opinion, however - it is not on the author to answer the question themselves.
You can tell a lot about a government/society by what art it censors. I've been thinking a lot about who we "cannot" talk about today. It shows you who holds the power.. New Zealand? I've had this book recommended to me a few times - I really must read it now. Thank you for the amazing comment :)
Got it and read about half of it a few years ago and liked it but for some reason never finished it - this video makes me want to revisit it and finish it.
I think the lack of solid narrative makes it quite easy to abandon. Enjoyable to dip in and out of, but not necessary to read all the way through from beginning to end :)
I’ve often noticed the negative catharsis effect, where people read art or say things about art, etc about art, but they use it to avoid real needed action. In America every few years we symbolically reject and denounce racism. But never actually do. When they destroyed the confederate statues, I thought it’s a rededication ceremony to racism. Also, killing the turtle to indulge his sense of beauty was definitely evil.
Found you through the how to read proust video, and was super excited to see that you had made a video on against nature as its one of the first books that got me into reading literature again. The diatribes on literature are my favourite part as they introduced me to many of my favourite writers and poets, like Mallarme who I think Huysmans captures the experience of reading perfectly. Thank you so much for everything on this Channel. Would love if you covered the Durtal Quartet eventually.
Fantastic video! Very helpful to have recommendations on translations. I do agree with the quote “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world it’s own shame.” I think any arts and/or media can be a reflection of the most beautiful and inspiring aspects of humanity as well as the most base and shameful. Your hardcover edition of Against Nature is beautiful. I’m so very excited to see more of the Literary Detective series, thank you!
First, I cannot express how much I love your channel. I discovered it as I reinvested in the study of literature that I had (sadly) neglected to read well (or at all) when I had access to exceptional teachers in high school. I have been utterly delighted with now having access to one so passionate about these works. Second, I think choosing Against Nature as a pleasure read misses the point. I think it’s meant to frustrate the reader with tedious descriptions of indulgences. The point seems to be that such an idyllic life is “against human nature.”
Benjamin, I have a request. It is Faust by Goethe. What books Mephistopheles told his student to know everything of the world? He said metaphysics at earlier list and the list goes farther. Thanks.
I have a theory, based on an idea in Plato's republic, that you shouldn't read just anything when you're young. If you're going to read Rand or Sade or whatever writers you might consider dangerous (Perhaps even Shakespeare), wait till your 30s so you don't accidentally add some of their traits to your very sense of self. I don't really believe this theory, but it's worth thinking about.
It's interesting to read A Rebours in the context of Huysmans' oeuvre. The protagonist of the preceding novel, Downstream, a bureaucrat like Huysmans himself, has been described as an impoverished Des Esseintes, while the novel that comes after, La Bas, with a change of character to someone named Durtal, is a bit of a horror story with a lurid account of the Black Mass and a flirtation with Catholic themes in the figure of a bell-ringer. I love Huysmans and have read most of his novels and Baldick's (the translator of the Penguin Edition) biography of him. But I'll offer warnings about two chapters from A Rebours: chapter 3 is probably the most boring--but not to me--chapter in the entire book. It's a "sacriligious" account of the history of Latin literature that symbolizes, in its celebration of Petronius and late Latin authors, the decadence so prevalent as a theme in the novel. The other is Des Esseintes' rendezvous in chapter 9 with an underaged (debatable) boy with whom he subsequently has an enervating affair. Could this be the scene from the novel that help to indict Wilde at his fateful trials? Perhaps. But it's interesting to note that Martin Geeson who inimitably read the book for Librivox in the old John Howard translation had this to say: "Alas, this translation lacks a chapter, and two brief incidents are also suppressed on account of their sexual perversity." Thus the aforementioned scene is cut from chapter 9 in his reading.
I wonder if Huxley got the title for his own novel "Chrome Yellow" from this book "Against Nature" (the phrase is quoted from the latter book in this video).
It sounds like a tale chronicling serial (or permanent) escapism. Reminds me a bit of that scene in Gattaca where Jude Law's paraplegic character says he "travels places in his mind" (though in one of the end scenes kills himself in an oven).
@@BenjaminMcEvoy exactly! I think it's a refuge and a sanctuary. Especially literature and music. I know we're supposed to eat in order to live but I'm of the opposite opinion when it comes to art and food for that matter, consuming and experiencing art is the main purpose of living for me..it's what makes all the rest of the drudgery well worth it.
and here I was thinking I was super smart at having figured out that it was Lord Henry who had written the book to further influence Dorian. he was, after all, asked why he hadn't written a book, to which he said that there wasn't an audience for him. with Dorian there would be.
I love 'A Rebours', it's one of my favourite books. It certainly stayed with me after I'd read it. It lingered in my mind for about a year begging me to read it again, so I gave in, and loved it even more. I've never really thought that it was what made Dorian evil though. For me it was all Henry who did that. I feel like the biggest influence the book had was actually on Oscar himself. That one Chapter after he mentions the book seemed to be heavily influenced by the Huysman's decadent style of writing, though I don't think he quite managed to capture it. Both are incredible books, and two of my all time favourites.
Always à pleasure to watch your videos. I taught The Picture of Dorian Gray in the 80ies to English trainee teachers in Rabat and Casablanca Morocco. They have never forgotten, they still speak about it when we meet!. Such a great literature book on human nature! Thank you for this video that sheds more light on Wilde's book and Joris Karl Huysman's A Rebours on it.
Great video, just subscribed to the channel ! I personally cannot agree with the statement of reality being “subjective”. I think scientific discoveries and engineering are solid evidence of reality being objective.
I’ve been referred to as Dorian Gray all my life (currently late 60s) because of my youthful appearance that hasn’t changed too much over the years. Given the story though it’s really not a compliment. I guess I should now explore Against Nature and see if it corrupts my character by making me self-indulgent (which we all are to some extent anyway). Thanks for the synopsis and the tip on your recommended translation.
This is totally not related to Dorian Gray (which is one of my favorite books of all time 😅) but you and Sebastian Vettel look so similar! I don't know if you know him but you seem to be long-lost siblings 🤣
12:33 “I spend more time looking up words I didn’t know, than I did enjoy any sort of plot, partly because there were a fuck ton of words I didn’t know”. These are my thoughts on the chapter 11 of The Picture of Dorian Gray :D
Against Nature sounds like a useful book to throw at somebody. Oh, the irony. Appearance is the hobgoblin of small minds. There are many aspects of the human condition that are not particularly edifying, and you just cannot brush them under the carpet. Wilde is a tragic figure in that he was ahead of his time. But his ideas are a little stale, coming from a ruling elite who turned on him when they were out doing the exact same thing as him. Writers who embrace the difficulties of life in an unflinching way to me are far more interesting, like Henry Miller who the university establishment woudn't touch with a barge pole and people like me have to discover this kind of stuff for ourselves.
I love that! Wilde thought books to be either well written or badly written, but I think there was a lot of social commentary, irony, and pain in his preface given the events surrounding the book!
I am here a year later as often occurs because I read or ordered a book, watched a movie or some such thing and then search for more information about it. Spoilers do not bother me anymore than books poisoned me. If it were true books poison us I would have greatly changed my moral character for the worse since I have often read of great evil being thought and done to other human beings. If anything books have helped me to grow inwardly for the better because they inspire me. A person can choose to let something influence them negatively and imitate wrong, violent or cruel behavior they have read of, but it is a choice. One should not blame a book for poisoning their mind. If one feels a book is poisoning their mind they should get rid of the book. I have never really had that happen but that is because I would not allow it and if I read a book that's really disgusting I just get rid of it usually I don't finish it if it's that bad. We are responsible for what we let poison us or not. Remember those images of the monkeys depicting see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Thank you again for your wonderful commentaries ❤️
I totally agree. I read all kind of books. A good reader masters his/her opinion through analyzing whatever he or she receives. In my 60 years of reading in several languages I only once literally threw away a book.
I love listening to your videos. About Oscar Wilde, l would like you to comment and share with us his brilliant defence he used during his trial. It's a poem.
As an English teacher currently covering The Picture of Dorian Gray with my students, I cannot express how happy they all were to finally have an answer to "what book was he reading?"
I love it how you say "he is". Shows how a person's physical body can be perished but the artist and art survive eternally.
I think Oscar Wilde uses the same techniques of writing about leisurely indulgence in the middle-portions of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', which may seem boring/tedious to many people. But in my opinion, these are exactly the portions where we need to read the novel carefully.
And, thank you very much for the recommendation. This channel and the other one, to me, are nothing short of a treasure trove.
Wow - you're right :) That's a really nice thought. I personally enjoyed these passages more than the Sibyl Vane subplot, but I totally understand why one might wish to skip them, and why one, as you say, should read them carefully. Thank you for the great comment!
I finished the book yesterday and i skipped the part you are talking about 😂.
I read it today skipped that part hihi. Chapter 11 is not there for me in the novel 🤣🤣
I agree. I actually stopped reading the book once I got those sections because I was having a hard time paying attention, but once I picked it back up and finished it I could understand the importance in context better.
Those were the toughest sections to get through for sure 😅 I definitely had to reread them a couple times
Sounds like a perfect audiobook to have on while doing chores or hobbies
I read A Rebours 30 years ago. I think it was the most memorable book I have read and I am a constant reader. You are the first person I haver ever heard mention it. Thank you so much for your comments.
Why were books depicted as the instruments of the devil in the Elizabethan plays especially 'Doctor Faustus' and 'The Tempest'. As Faustus in the end pledges to burn his books and Prospero apparently drowns his books.
That's such an awesome question. Thank you - I would love to explore this one :)
Funny I came across your comment now as Kenya finally stands up against a corrupt gvt that’s desperately trying to destroy the education system. Many of us who were integral to lighting the fire under people all realized it’s because we see too many similarities in anti-corrupt literature that were part of our school curriculum. Books like “The Caucasian Chalk Circle”, or Swahili literature like “Mshtahiki Meya”
I very much recommend Julian Barnes's book The Man in the Red Coat, which is a non-fiction book that talks about the fin de siecle society in Paris in a very interesting way! That's where I heard about Huysmans and also about the guy who was the actual inspiration behind the protagonist of that book. If you like to read about French culture society of that time, it's really fun :) I have the same Penguin edition of Against Nature, but haven't read it yet :)))
Great recommendation :) Thank you so much! I'll check it out! Let me know if you read Against Nature and what you think of it :)
as a baguette imma read it ! tks
I absolutely believe that art can me a huge influence on the morality and culture of a place - and it is understandable as to why governments and institutions fear them. However, I think art is always coming from a question standpoint - even a intimidating painting from Rothko, to morally grey Bukowski stuff. It is all posing a question and it is how society choses to answer that that becomes important. In my country, we have a book called 'once were warriors' (and a movie following) that posed several massive questions about race, and domestic abuse in a country that we think of as paradise. there was corners who wanted to ban it, but ultimately it lead to both wider understanding and change on a national scale. Art for art's sake is a cop out of what's going on in my opinion, however - it is not on the author to answer the question themselves.
You can tell a lot about a government/society by what art it censors. I've been thinking a lot about who we "cannot" talk about today. It shows you who holds the power.. New Zealand? I've had this book recommended to me a few times - I really must read it now. Thank you for the amazing comment :)
Got it and read about half of it a few years ago and liked it but for some reason never finished it - this video makes me want to revisit it and finish it.
I think the lack of solid narrative makes it quite easy to abandon. Enjoyable to dip in and out of, but not necessary to read all the way through from beginning to end :)
I’ve often noticed the negative catharsis effect, where people read art or say things about art, etc about art, but they use it to avoid real needed action. In America every few years we symbolically reject and denounce racism. But never actually do. When they destroyed the confederate statues, I thought it’s a rededication ceremony to racism. Also, killing the turtle to indulge his sense of beauty was definitely evil.
Found you through the how to read proust video, and was super excited to see that you had made a video on against nature as its one of the first books that got me into reading literature again. The diatribes on literature are my favourite part as they introduced me to many of my favourite writers and poets, like Mallarme who I think Huysmans captures the experience of reading perfectly. Thank you so much for everything on this Channel. Would love if you covered the Durtal Quartet eventually.
I’m reading this right at this moment. A Rebours, and I am loving it. Wonderful video to stumble across.
Thank you :) A Rebours is good fun - you could practically eat the prose up!
Fantastic video! Very helpful to have recommendations on translations. I do agree with the quote “The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world it’s own shame.” I think any arts and/or media can be a reflection of the most beautiful and inspiring aspects of humanity as well as the most base and shameful. Your hardcover edition of Against Nature is beautiful. I’m so very excited to see more of the Literary Detective series, thank you!
First, I cannot express how much I love your channel. I discovered it as I reinvested in the study of literature that I had (sadly) neglected to read well (or at all) when I had access to exceptional teachers in high school. I have been utterly delighted with now having access to one so passionate about these works. Second, I think choosing Against Nature as a pleasure read misses the point. I think it’s meant to frustrate the reader with tedious descriptions of indulgences. The point seems to be that such an idyllic life is “against human nature.”
Benjamin, I have a request. It is Faust by Goethe. What books Mephistopheles told his student to know everything of the world? He said metaphysics at earlier list and the list goes farther. Thanks.
Amazing request :) I can certainly add this one to the Literary Detective Agency's list of cases to crack!
I have a theory, based on an idea in Plato's republic, that you shouldn't read just anything when you're young. If you're going to read Rand or Sade or whatever writers you might consider dangerous (Perhaps even Shakespeare), wait till your 30s so you don't accidentally add some of their traits to your very sense of self.
I don't really believe this theory, but it's worth thinking about.
George Orwell wrote a great essay about Art and Morality, specifically the Art of Salvador Dali and personality of Dali.
Benjamin, your videos are an Absolute Pleasure...Highlight of my day. Thank You.
Thank you, Troy :) That means a lot to me!
It's interesting to read A Rebours in the context of Huysmans' oeuvre. The protagonist of the preceding novel, Downstream, a bureaucrat like Huysmans himself, has been described as an impoverished Des Esseintes, while the novel that comes after, La Bas, with a change of character to someone named Durtal, is a bit of a horror story with a lurid account of the Black Mass and a flirtation with Catholic themes in the figure of a bell-ringer. I love Huysmans and have read most of his novels and Baldick's (the translator of the Penguin Edition) biography of him. But I'll offer warnings about two chapters from A Rebours: chapter 3 is probably the most boring--but not to me--chapter in the entire book. It's a "sacriligious" account of the history of Latin literature that symbolizes, in its celebration of Petronius and late Latin authors, the decadence so prevalent as a theme in the novel. The other is Des Esseintes' rendezvous in chapter 9 with an underaged (debatable) boy with whom he subsequently has an enervating affair. Could this be the scene from the novel that help to indict Wilde at his fateful trials? Perhaps. But it's interesting to note that Martin Geeson who inimitably read the book for Librivox in the old John Howard translation had this to say: "Alas, this translation lacks a chapter, and two brief incidents are also suppressed on account of their sexual perversity." Thus the aforementioned scene is cut from chapter 9 in his reading.
I wonder if Huxley got the title for his own novel "Chrome Yellow" from this book "Against Nature" (the phrase is quoted from the latter book in this video).
It sounds like a tale chronicling serial (or permanent) escapism. Reminds me a bit of that scene in Gattaca where Jude Law's paraplegic character says he "travels places in his mind" (though in one of the end scenes kills himself in an oven).
This was so good! As for your question, Art Saves Lives..it's certainly saved me over and over again 😊
Beautiful. It has saved me time and time again too. I don't know where I would be without literature.
@@BenjaminMcEvoy exactly! I think it's a refuge and a sanctuary. Especially literature and music. I know we're supposed to eat in order to live but I'm of the opposite opinion when it comes to art and food for that matter, consuming and experiencing art is the main purpose of living for me..it's what makes all the rest of the drudgery well worth it.
@@1siddynickhead Absolutely. Beautifully put :)
Great video!
Thank you :)
I am LOVING A Rebours
It's fantastic, isn't it?
I am sharing this video's link with my friends they'll be amazed as well
Thank you :)
and here I was thinking I was super smart at having figured out that it was Lord Henry who had written the book to further influence Dorian. he was, after all, asked why he hadn't written a book, to which he said that there wasn't an audience for him. with Dorian there would be.
That’s what I suspected also
So nice to hear thoughtful people reflecting on what literature can teach us about the queston. What is a human being? Who am I?
Many thanks
I always assumed that Dorian was Reading The Yellow Book
the "yellow covered book"?
I love 'A Rebours', it's one of my favourite books. It certainly stayed with me after I'd read it. It lingered in my mind for about a year begging me to read it again, so I gave in, and loved it even more. I've never really thought that it was what made Dorian evil though. For me it was all Henry who did that. I feel like the biggest influence the book had was actually on Oscar himself. That one Chapter after he mentions the book seemed to be heavily influenced by the Huysman's decadent style of writing, though I don't think he quite managed to capture it. Both are incredible books, and two of my all time favourites.
Always à pleasure to watch your videos. I taught The Picture of Dorian Gray in the 80ies to English trainee teachers in Rabat and Casablanca Morocco. They have never forgotten, they still speak about it when we meet!. Such a great literature book on human nature! Thank you for this video that sheds more light on Wilde's book and Joris Karl Huysman's A Rebours on it.
Great video, just subscribed to the channel !
I personally cannot agree with the statement of reality being “subjective”. I think scientific discoveries and engineering are solid evidence of reality being objective.
I’ve been referred to as Dorian Gray all my life (currently late 60s) because of my youthful appearance that hasn’t changed too much over the years. Given the story though it’s really not a compliment. I guess I should now explore Against Nature and see if it corrupts my character by making me self-indulgent (which we all are to some extent anyway). Thanks for the synopsis and the tip on your recommended translation.
Lord Henry is just another name for Oscar Wilde.
5:22
The book is called Against Nature
You're the BEST!!!!😍
Thank you :)
This is totally not related to Dorian Gray (which is one of my favorite books of all time 😅) but you and Sebastian Vettel look so similar! I don't know if you know him but you seem to be long-lost siblings 🤣
I think this guy would have escaped into the Star Trek holodeck...or the virtual reality metaverse!
I cannot believe I read A Rebours LONG before I read Dorian Gray.
"Those who go too far below the surface do so at their peril" Oscar Wilde
can you pls recommend me good French classical novels
Hugo's Les Misérables, Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, Proust's In Search of Lost Time should keep you busy for a while, mon cher.
What book is similar to this? I remember i read it at 13 and have never been more amazed by another piece of literature ever since
Tolstoy also admired Dickens.
So it's basically chapter 11 of The Picture of Dorian Gray but with the length of a whole book? No thank you
12:33 “I spend more time looking up words I didn’t know, than I did enjoy any sort of plot, partly because there were a fuck ton of words I didn’t know”.
These are my thoughts on the chapter 11 of The Picture of Dorian Gray :D
I always assumed it was a book that Lord Henry wrote himself.
Books are static as is all art. A spectator is required to invoke life, reaction.
Against Nature sounds like a useful book to throw at somebody. Oh, the irony. Appearance is the hobgoblin of small minds. There are many aspects of the human condition that are not particularly edifying, and you just cannot brush them under the carpet. Wilde is a tragic figure in that he was ahead of his time. But his ideas are a little stale, coming from a ruling elite who turned on him when they were out doing the exact same thing as him. Writers who embrace the difficulties of life in an unflinching way to me are far more interesting, like Henry Miller who the university establishment woudn't touch with a barge pole and people like me have to discover this kind of stuff for ourselves.
Are you sure the Yellow Book that drove Dorian to evil and madness was not Chambers’s The King in Yellow?
I disagree with Mr Wilde, art does influence people to many actions on a profound level.
I am going to read it and I let you know oscar Wilde book
I think he read THE GREAT GOD PAN and was off and running. ;-7
Sounds a bit like an LSD trip on paper, but I've never experienced that, so......
Some books can be moral but no books are immoral.
I love that! Wilde thought books to be either well written or badly written, but I think there was a lot of social commentary, irony, and pain in his preface given the events surrounding the book!
I am here a year later as often occurs because I read or ordered a book, watched a movie or some such thing and then search for more information about it.
Spoilers do not bother me anymore than books poisoned me. If it were true books poison us I would have greatly changed my moral character for the worse since I have often read of great evil being thought and done to other human beings.
If anything books have helped me to grow inwardly for the better because they inspire me.
A person can choose to let something influence them negatively and imitate wrong, violent or cruel behavior they have read of, but it is a choice. One should not blame a book for poisoning their mind.
If one feels a book is poisoning their mind they should get rid of the book.
I have never really had that happen but that is because I would not allow it and if I read a book that's really disgusting I just get rid of it usually I don't finish it if it's that bad.
We are responsible for what we let poison us or not. Remember those images of the monkeys depicting see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Thank you again for your wonderful commentaries ❤️
I totally agree. I read all kind of books. A good reader masters his/her opinion through analyzing whatever he or she receives. In my 60 years of reading in several languages I only once literally threw away a book.
I absolutely adore this book
Me too, Elisa :)
I love listening to your videos. About Oscar Wilde, l would like you to comment and share with us his brilliant defence he used during his trial. It's a poem.