« Dans À rebours la rage paraît » Huysmans, l’anarchie et l’attraction du désastre

Receptive more than anybody to the ideas of his time, Huysmans sustained a historical pessimism that his return to the Catholic faith never curbed. Centered on À rebours, this study shows how the anarchist dream of the Grand Soir coalesces with the biblical myth of the Apocalypse. Huysmans observes with fascination the promise of an inevitable disaster, whether it takes the form of a collapse or explosion, as a result of the absurdity of human history, or obeys an inscrutable divine plan.