En Route

12 hrs. 12 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Joris-Karl Huysmans

Narrator Kirill Petrov

Description

J.-K. Huysmans published the novel “In the Way” (“On the Road”) in 1895, when he was already a world-famous writer and art critic. This is a continuation—the second part of the “Catholic Trilogy” about the writer and journalist Durtal, whose prototype was Huysmans himself. “In the Way” begins with the words of Saint Bonaventure. The epigraph makes it clear that Durtal will seek truth not among satanists (as in the first part, “There Below, or the Abyss”), but in a monastery: “Flee to the cities of refuge, where you can repent for the sins of the past, live in grace in the present, and with faith look to the future.” Yet despite the depiction of the hero’s attempts at a righteous life, the novel was met with hostility from the Catholic Church and was condemned for indecency.