Against the Grain, or Against Nature: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Against the Grain, or Against Nature, credited to Joris-Karl Huysmans, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Against the Grain, or Against Nature, by Joris-Karl Huysmans, Read by Martin Geeson. “THE BOOK THAT DORIAN GRAY LOVED AND THAT INSPIRED OSCAR WILDE”. Such is the enticing epigraph of one early translation of Huysmans’ cult novel of 1884, which is also routinely called the Bible of Decadence. Accurate descriptions, both, of this bizarre masterpiece which has reverberated ever since through high and popular culture. “Against Nature” (or in this version “Against The Grain”) explores to the furthest limit the life of the world-rejecting aesthete living a reclusive existence devoted entirely to artificial paradises of his own devising. This is no solemn tract, however: the book’s anti-hero Duc Jean Floressas Des Esseintes spectacularly fails to achieve his life’s work, as all his attempts to create worlds of perverse experience through synaesthesia and interior decoration prove ludicrously unsatisfying and injurious to health. An innocent tortoise also falls casualty to his theories, in the wonderful fifth chapter. This is probably a novel best savoured one chapter at a time, and not only because John Howard’s clunky translation makes indigestible listening. Those who can skip whole chunks without guilt would do well to avoid chapters 4, 7, 12 and 14. Revel, however, in the wonders of 5, 8, 9 and 11. Encounter the jewel-encrusted chelonian, the butch lady acrobat, the nightmarish orchids that cause the hero to exclaim “All is Syphilis”…Alas, this translation lacks a chapter, and two brief incidents are also suppressed on account of their sexual perversity. Enjoy what remains. (Summary by Martin Geeson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Against the Grain, or Against Nature
• Author credits: Joris-Karl Huysmans
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 18
• Listed recording duration: 9:14:19

Catalogue topics

• audio
• huysmans
• decadence
• dorian gray
• oscar wilde
• des esseintes
• anti-hero
• tortoise

Track guide

1. 01 - Chapter 1 — 22:56
2. 02 - Chapter 2 — 20:21
3. 03 - Chapter 3 — 22:39
4. 04 - Chapter 4 — 37:37
5. 05 - Chapter 5 — 28:18
6. 06 - Chapter 6 — 41:56
7. 07 - Chapter 7 — 34:05
8. 08 - Chapter 8 — 33:42
9. 09 - Chapter 9 — 25:16
10. 10 - Chapter 10 — 34:04
11. 11 - Chapter 11 — 40:50
12. 12 - Chapter 12, part one — 29:18
13. 13 - Chapter 12, part two — 35:18
14. 14 - Chapter 13 — 32:09
15. 15 - Chapter 14, part one — 31:58
16. 16 - Chapter 14, part two — 32:58
17. 17 - Chapter 15 — 29:02
18. 18 - Chapter 16 — 22:00

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.