Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy by Rüdiger Safranski

For thirty-two years, he worked as a civil servant for the French Ministry of the Interior, a job he found insufferably tedious. Huysmans was unhappy at school but gained a baccalauréat. Huysmans' father died when he was eight years old and his mother quickly remarried, leading Huysmans to feel resentful against his stepfather, Jules Og, a Protestant who was part-owner of a Parisian book-bindery. He published his works as 'Joris-Karl Huysmans', using an approximation of the Dutch equivalent of his forenames, to emphasize his roots. His mother, Malvina Badin, had been a schoolmistress. He was born in Paris to a Dutch father, Godfried Huysmans, who was a lithographer by trade. Huysmans expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism, which led him first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, then back to the Catholicism in which he had been raised. It also displays an encyclopaedic erudition, ranging from the catalogue of decadent Latin authors in À rebours to the discussion of the iconography of Christian architecture in La cathédrale. His work is remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, extensive vocabulary, detailed and sensuous descriptions, and biting, satirical wit.

He is most famous for the novel À rebours ( Against the Grain or Against Nature). Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (pronounced ) (Febru– May 12, 1907) was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans ( ).

Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy by Rüdiger Safranski