{"product_id":"against-the-grain","title":"Against the Grain","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat if you shut out the world and tried to live on beauty alone?\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJean Floressas des Esseintes, the sickly last heir of an old noble family, leaves Paris to build a private world of exquisite tastes. In Against the Grain, Joris-Karl Huysmans follows him through rooms arranged for lamplight, shelves of chosen books, rare flowers and carefully composed scents. Artifice promises what ordinary life cannot give.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith almost no plot, this strange, often funny novel lets each obsession take the lead. Des Esseintes turns away from an age of factories and money toward paintings, Latin writers and sensations he can control. Yet a life devoted to the senses and the mind cannot silence the body—or settle the troubling question of faith.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWhat you'll discover\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eA house shaped by taste\u003c\/strong\u003e – Enter rooms whose colors answer to lamplight and whose details serve one man's exacting desires.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBeauty beyond nature\u003c\/strong\u003e – Explore rare flowers and Moreau's Salome paintings through a mind drawn to cruel, unreachable beauty.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eA library of obsessions\u003c\/strong\u003e – Follow his love of late Latin writers into the literary tastes of Decadence.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eExperiments in sensation\u003c\/strong\u003e – Discover perfumes and a cabinet of liqueurs that turn private pleasure into an elaborate art.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe cost of retreat\u003c\/strong\u003e – Feel the strain between a dream of perfect independence and the needs that resist it.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003ePerfect for readers who prefer ideas, art and language to brisk action, and anyone curious about the roots of Decadence and Symbolism.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOpen the first page and enter a house where every taste becomes a rebellion.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Library of Alexandria Press","offers":[{"title":"eBook","offer_id":58289387667804,"sku":"LOA-C2024-EB","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audiobook — Coming soon","offer_id":58289387700572,"sku":"LOA-C2024-AU","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":58289387733340,"sku":"LOA-C2024-PB","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":58289387766108,"sku":"LOA-C2024-HC","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1027\/9442\/8764\/files\/2024_Against_the_Grain__standard__ebook__pages-186__trim-6x9in__1800x2700px.jpg?v=1784150806","url":"https:\/\/libraryofalexandria.com\/de\/products\/against-the-grain","provider":"The Library of Alexandria","version":"1.0","type":"link"}