The Oblate: (L'Oblat)

J.-K. Huysmans

Jan 2020 · SCB Distributors

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One of Huysmans' objects in writing L'Oblat was to present a vivid but accurate account of the life of a French religious community at the beginning of the century. He wished, in fact, to emulate the Flemish sculptors who, in the figurines in Dijon Museum which are described in the book, had represented "the monastic humanity of their time, merry or melancholy, phlegmatic or fervent".'
Robert Baldick in The Life of J.-K. Huysmans

'The Oblate of 1903 is the last of his Durtal novels, and perhaps the least read of his works. But this new translation by Brendan King, for the publisher Dedalus, may help to put the novel back on the literary radar. Like all the novels featuring the writer Durtal, it is essentially autobiographical. Like Durtal, Huysmans had joined a Benedictine community as a lay associate who shared the liturgical life of the monastery, as an oblate. And like his alter ego, he had to abandon the project – in his case, at the monastery of St Martin in Ligugé, which features in The Oblate as the monastery of Val-des-Saints – when the monastery was dissolved following the passing of the law on associations by the anti-clerical government of 1901, which effectively banished the religious orders from France. What he had hoped to be a lifetime refuge turned into an intense monastic interlude of two years... Brendan King’s translation is so good as to read effortlessly, with the minor quibble that he calls children “kids”. The cover is striking: Zurbarán’s St Francis.'
Melanie McDonagh in The Catholic Herald

Autoren-Profil

.-K. Huysmans (1847-1907) changed from being an obscure author and art critic to one of the most famous authors of his day with the publication of A Rebours (Against Nature) in 1884. A Rebours is a ground-breaking novel which captures the decadent spirit of the day and marks his final break with Zola and naturalism. Dedalus have published 12 books by J.-K. Huysmans, all in new translations by Brendan King; Marthe, Parisian Sketches, The Vatard Sisters, Stranded (En Rade), Drifting, Against Nature, La- Bas, Modern Art, Certain Artists, En Route, The Cathedral and The Oblate of St Benedict.

Brendan King is a freelance writer, reviewer and translator with a special interest in late nineteenth-century French fiction. His Ph.D. was on the life and work of J.-K.Huysmans. He has translated La-Bas, Parisian Sketches, Marthe, Against Nature, Stranded, The Cathedral, The Vatard Sisters, Drifting, Modern Art, Certain Artists, En Route and The Oblate of St Benedict by J.-K. Huysmans for Dedalus. He has also edited The Life of J.-K.Huysmans by Robert Baldick for Dedalus.