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The Twilight of the Gods
Long out of print in English, and here offered for the first time in a restored format The Twilight of the Gods, Élémir Bourges acknowledged masterpiece, was originally published in March, 1884, just two months before J.-K. Huysmans’ groundbreaking À rebours.
Both novels at once laid the groundwork for the Decadent Movement, and presented a striking challenge to Naturalism by, instead of depicting common existence, offering case studies of exceptional, extravagant beings.
In Bourges’ highly aesthetic work, we follow Charles d’Este, Duke of Blankenburg, who, along with his eccentric family, is exiled to Paris, where his excessive, luxurious lifestyle and the Wagnerian fate that follows him are like a chandelier falling from the sky.
Both novels at once laid the groundwork for the Decadent Movement, and presented a striking challenge to Naturalism by, instead of depicting common existence, offering case studies of exceptional, extravagant beings.
In Bourges’ highly aesthetic work, we follow Charles d’Este, Duke of Blankenburg, who, along with his eccentric family, is exiled to Paris, where his excessive, luxurious lifestyle and the Wagnerian fate that follows him are like a chandelier falling from the sky.
- GenresFiction
236 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1884
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August 19, 2019Limited to 70 hardcover copies.
January 6, 2023
If Huysmans' "À Rebours" introduced the world to decadent writing by way of its novel's morbid, dandyish young anti-hero Jean des Esseintes, Bourges gives us his opposite, in the form of the entitled, opulent buffoon Charles d’Este, the disgraced, aging Duke of Blankenburg. Both novels have a similar aesthetic, investigating beauty in a pre-World War I world of decay, but they're almost mirror opposites in some ways.
Where des Esseintes delights in intellectual and aesthetic indulgence, seeking out Parisian underworlds in drugs, parties and unrepentant debauchery, the Duke is debauchery itself, at times a cruel despot to his family members and employees, at other times a clown, a coward and a cuckold, building new houses and suing his architects along the way.
Where Des Esseintes takes solace from the decay and dissolution of the modern world in classical beauty and forbidden activities, the Duke is simply in decay, surrounded by the trappings of wealth and the world he inherited and railing against the modern world, with its new aesthetic and middle class, its Americans and — in a bit of surprise at the end of the book — its Jews.
Bourges' writing lingers on the architecture, the scent of perfume and the feel of the fabric, but it's almost completely barren when talking about the Duke and the book's many other characters, making it a little difficult at first to tell them apart. It seems fitting by the book's end, though, when you realize the Duke's attention has always been devoted to the luxury -- and much less the people -- that surround him.
Decadent contemporaries like Huysmans, Rachilde and Barbey d'Aurevilly delighted in the societal collapse they saw around them after the Prussian War. For them, it was a time of possibility, and they went straight at challenging prevailing sexual mores, gender assumptions, aesthetics and ideas. Bourges' book, which predated "À Rebours" by just two months, is mocking, but less playful than his contemporaries. The fall of the French aristocracy that the Duke's fall seems to represent has a kind of bitter, tragic feel to it. But as the two or three lines of shocking antiSemitism at the book's end remind us, there's very little about the twilight of "God-given" social supremacy that feels tragic to modern readers.
Where des Esseintes delights in intellectual and aesthetic indulgence, seeking out Parisian underworlds in drugs, parties and unrepentant debauchery, the Duke is debauchery itself, at times a cruel despot to his family members and employees, at other times a clown, a coward and a cuckold, building new houses and suing his architects along the way.
Where Des Esseintes takes solace from the decay and dissolution of the modern world in classical beauty and forbidden activities, the Duke is simply in decay, surrounded by the trappings of wealth and the world he inherited and railing against the modern world, with its new aesthetic and middle class, its Americans and — in a bit of surprise at the end of the book — its Jews.
Bourges' writing lingers on the architecture, the scent of perfume and the feel of the fabric, but it's almost completely barren when talking about the Duke and the book's many other characters, making it a little difficult at first to tell them apart. It seems fitting by the book's end, though, when you realize the Duke's attention has always been devoted to the luxury -- and much less the people -- that surround him.
Decadent contemporaries like Huysmans, Rachilde and Barbey d'Aurevilly delighted in the societal collapse they saw around them after the Prussian War. For them, it was a time of possibility, and they went straight at challenging prevailing sexual mores, gender assumptions, aesthetics and ideas. Bourges' book, which predated "À Rebours" by just two months, is mocking, but less playful than his contemporaries. The fall of the French aristocracy that the Duke's fall seems to represent has a kind of bitter, tragic feel to it. But as the two or three lines of shocking antiSemitism at the book's end remind us, there's very little about the twilight of "God-given" social supremacy that feels tragic to modern readers.
February 25, 2019
¡Qué divino es leer historias de otras épocas y descubrir nuevos escritores!
Esta novela me ha encantado. Me parece que es una de esas novelas que no han tenido la "fama" o el mérito que merece. Te atrapa desde las primeras páginas en la que te comienza a presentar un montón de personajes cada cual más pintoresco. Incluso, podría ser una obra de teatro (o así me la iba imaginando yo!) Lástima que este escritor no es más reconocido, deberíamos hacer eco y comenzar a leer escritores que merecen serlo.
No es un libro para todo el mundo.
Mejor me explico. La historia de este libro sí que es para todo el mundo y es fácil de entender para cualquiera que lo lea. Sin embargo, la narrativa es compleja y amerita bastante concentración (e incluso un diccionario). Es de esos libros que para valorarlos en su totalidad, no debemos limitarnos a leer el libro, sino también sobre ellos (en este caso sobre el decadentismo, sobre sus orígenes y sus representantes).
Esta novela me ha encantado. Me parece que es una de esas novelas que no han tenido la "fama" o el mérito que merece. Te atrapa desde las primeras páginas en la que te comienza a presentar un montón de personajes cada cual más pintoresco. Incluso, podría ser una obra de teatro (o así me la iba imaginando yo!) Lástima que este escritor no es más reconocido, deberíamos hacer eco y comenzar a leer escritores que merecen serlo.
No es un libro para todo el mundo.
Mejor me explico. La historia de este libro sí que es para todo el mundo y es fácil de entender para cualquiera que lo lea. Sin embargo, la narrativa es compleja y amerita bastante concentración (e incluso un diccionario). Es de esos libros que para valorarlos en su totalidad, no debemos limitarnos a leer el libro, sino también sobre ellos (en este caso sobre el decadentismo, sobre sus orígenes y sus representantes).
August 23, 2022
Leider bin ich sehr enttäuscht von diesem Buch. Als große Bewundrerin der französischen Dekadenzliteratur UND Wagnerianerin war ich so glücklich, dass es mit diesem Buch eine Verbindung der beiden Sphären gibt...
Doch ist diese "Götterdämmerung" nicht sehr einfallsreich und kommt aus trivialen Auflistungen des Hoflebens (in denen freilich immer Kritik - auch diese ist nicht sehr elegant - mitschwingt) nicht hinaus... dabei finde ich weder Form noch Inhalt interessant genug weiter zu lesen... schade.
Nicht zu vergessen: dabei gibt es noch einige antisemitische Bemerkungen, die auch nicht gerade dazu beigeragen haben, mir die Lektüre angenehmer zu gestalten - ganz im Gegenteil!
Doch ist diese "Götterdämmerung" nicht sehr einfallsreich und kommt aus trivialen Auflistungen des Hoflebens (in denen freilich immer Kritik - auch diese ist nicht sehr elegant - mitschwingt) nicht hinaus... dabei finde ich weder Form noch Inhalt interessant genug weiter zu lesen... schade.
Nicht zu vergessen: dabei gibt es noch einige antisemitische Bemerkungen, die auch nicht gerade dazu beigeragen haben, mir die Lektüre angenehmer zu gestalten - ganz im Gegenteil!
December 22, 2024
Der Niedergang eines deutschen Fürstenhauses im französischen Exil - Selbstzerfleischung und Borniertheit schaufeln Karl von Estes Familie ihr Grab. Untermalt von Wagners Opern - leider auch garniert mit antisemitischen Einschüben.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews