Satisfaire sa faim : destin, dessein et vocation dans À vau l’eau de Joris-Karl Huysmans
Satisfying one's hunger: destiny, purpose and vocation in À vau l'eau by Joris-Karl Huysmans

Summary/Abstract: In his short novel published before À Rebours, entitled À vau-l’eau, Huysmans tells a story of a protagonist unable to find good food. His quest for a passable restaurant remains unfulfilled, and joins other unfulfilled needs linked to his social life. It becomes clear that behind this quest, told with numerous details and a significant emphasis, there are other, more profound needs that Huysmans will name, more and more directly, in his post-naturalist novels. At the deepest level, the quest comes down to the impossibility to accept life’s difficulties, its duality, and to the wound of an unhappy childhood and a lost mother, so little named and therefore so present in Huysmans’ works.

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