Là-Bas by J. K. Huysmans (translated by Terry Hale)

As with A rebours, I really don't know if this was intended to be funny, but for some reason I found the whole book really absurd and overdramatic. The main character, Durtal, makes a full-time occupation of being jaded and discussing everything that is wrong with the world and how dreadful social life and sexual activity are. He seeks refuge from the modern world in the composition of a biography of the fifteenth-century murderer and rapist Gilles de Rais and investigations of Satanism. Luckily, the lover he reluctantly takes (amid whining about sex that I found totally hilarious) happens to be in touch with some friendly neighbourhood Satanists, and gets Durtal in to see the Black Mass performed. The language is exceptionally, even overwhelmingly, rich and beautiful, and draws the reader into the inner world of the characters. But my favourite part of the novel (and what I found so funny) is the constant intrusion of the real world on the vivid inner fantasy world of Durtal and his friend des Hermies. Sex is described as ludicrous and bizarre, the wife of an overzealous bell-ringer keeps interrupting learned discussions by offers of food, Durtal's cleaner periodically swoops downs to turn his life upside-down by attempts at sweeping, the Black Mass itself, filled with sacrilegious ecstasy to those participating, is disgusting, disappointing and bewildering to the observing Durtal. I keep forgetting that French writers could be much more frank than English writers of the time, and I was surprised by the amount of sexual and violent detail, including some interesting scientific descriptions of sex with succubi. I'm not sure how seriously spiritualism and Satanism are supposed to be taken, since occult belief was very wide-spread at the time, and I had a hard time understanding where skepticism begins and ends for Huysmans. I also wasn't sure if any or some of the characters are voicing Huysmans' own views. Many chapters are a sort of classical dialogue, as characters debate various points of philosophy, religion and mysticism, but whose views Huymans himself adheres to was hard to understand.