Opening Passage:
It was during the first week in November, the week inwhich the Octave of All Souls was celebrated. Durtal entered Saint Sulpice at eight o'clock in the evening. He would deliberately come to his church because there was a trained choir, and he could, away from the crowd, take stock of himself in peace. The ugliness of the nave, with its heavy barrel vaulting, would disappear at nightfall, the aisles were often deserted, and its few lamps shed little ligth; you could de-louse your soul here without being seen; you were at home. (p. 27)
Summary: At the end of Là-bas, Durtal was finishing up his book on Gilles de Ries and Satanism, beginning to feel a bit tired and sick of the lying of the modern age. At the beginning of En Route, he is working on a book about a Blessed Lydwine, having recently become Catholic and not entirely sure why. He enjoys some of art and music -- much of the book is structured by reflection on plainchant -- but he, of course, is an author who runs in artistic circles and finds the modern Catholic taste in these to be atrocious. His research has led him to read widely in mystical theology; he likes some of the more impassioned mystical saints, although he finds much of it unappealing. The reading has led him to a spiritual director he likes, Abbé Gévresin, who also has an interest in mystical theology. Gévresin finds that Durtal is having difficulty bringing himself to take communion, and arranges for him to visit the monastery of La Trappe and spend a week or so among the Trappist monks. He explores the monastery, the grounds, the history, the spirituality, and then takes communion and returns to Paris.
This is very much a character-focused novel; in terms of external action, very little occurs. But it would be an error to say that there is no plot. The plot is instead all internal, and Durtal's mind throughout all this is very active indeed. He is in a state of perplexity, of wavering, of repeated temptations, which he must struggle to overcome. The novel has a clear plot-climax, in Part II, Chapter V, which is brilliantly handled; this climax is an entirely internal struggle, the last great temptation that Durtal must overcome. On the outside, very little happens; on the inside, a life is changed forever.
As a sidenote, it was somewhat amusing as a historical matter to see a Catholic work written in the very early days (the 1890s) of what later would become sarcastically known as the Liturgy Wars, with Durtal fuming about people trying to replace traditional plainchant with contemporary dance tunes and the parish priests who allow such atrocious bad taste and kitsch in their churches. One of the things he likes about La Trappe, in fact, is that they still do ordinary plainchant, completely unpretentiously, which ironically is far more appealing to his sophisticated and modern artistic tastes than the would-be modern material, which he finds grating and distracting.
This was much more enjoyable to read than Là-bas. Part of this is that the material is a bit less off-putting, but part of it is that Huysmans really excels himself in some of the psychological and artistic description here. Parts of the book are just extraordinarily beautiful. The book caused a scandal when it came out, because of Durtal's sexual temptations, but I have to say (and it is a sign of our times) that, while frank, they were relatively tame compared to what would be even common fare today.
Favorite Passage:
The trees were rustling, trembling, in a whisper of prayer, as if bowing before Christ, who was no longer writing his painful arms in the mirror of the pool, but embracing these waters, laying them out before him, blessing them.
And the pool itself was different; its inky waters were filling with monastic visions, of white habits left there by the passing reflections of clouds, and the swan was splashing them amid the lapping sunlight, making great circles of oil ripple before it as it swam.
One might have said these waves were gilded by the oil of catechumens and the holy chrism the Church consecrates on the Saturday of Holy Week; and above them the heavenly sky opened its tabernacle of clouds, out of which came a bright sun like a monstrance of molten gold, like a Blessed Sacrament of flames.
It was a Benediction of nature, a genuflection of trees and flowers, singing in the wind, perfuming with their incense the sacred bread, which was gleaming on high in the blazing pyx of the star. (p. 303)
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
*************
J.-K. Huysmans, En Route, Brendan King, tr., Dedalus (Sawtry, UK: 2024).
