{"product_id":"9781939663115","title":"A Dilemma","description":"\u003cp\u003eOriginally published in book form in French in 1887, Joris-Karl Huysmans' \u003ci\u003eA Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e remains a particularly nasty little tale, a mordantly satiric and cruel account of bourgeois greed and manipulation that holds up as clear a mirror to today's neoliberalist times as it did to the French fin-de-siècle. Written smack in-between Huysmans' most famous works—his 1881 \u003ci\u003eAgainst Nature\u003c\/i\u003e, which came to define the Decadent movement, and his 1891 exploration of Satanism, \u003ci\u003eDown There\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eA Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e presents some of Huysmans' most memorable characters, including Madame Champagne, the self-appointed Parisian protector of women in need, and the carnal would-be sophisticate notary Le Ponsart, who wages a war of words with the bereft pregnant mistress of his deceased grandson with devastating consequences. In its unflinching portrayal of how authoritarian language can be used and abused as a weapon, this novella stands as Huysmans' indictment of the underlying crime of the novel itself: a language apparatus employed to maintain the appetites of the ruling class.\u003cbr\u003eEarning a wage through a career in the French civil service, \u003cb\u003eJoris-Karl Huysmans\u003c\/b\u003e (1848–1907) quietly explored the extremes of human nature and artifice through a series of books that influenced a number of different literary movements: from the grey and grimy Naturalism of books like \u003ci\u003eMarthe\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDownstream\u003c\/i\u003e to the cornerstones of the Decadent movement, \u003ci\u003eAgainst Nature\u003c\/i\u003e and the Satanist classic \u003ci\u003eDown There\u003c\/i\u003e, the dream-ridden Surrealist favorite, \u003ci\u003eBecalmed\u003c\/i\u003e, and his Catholic novels, \u003ci\u003eThe Cathedral\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Oblate\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wakefield Press, WA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47033866060016,"sku":"9781939663115","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781939663115_p0.jpg?v=1763667306","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781939663115","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}