Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I WAITING FOR THE CONSUMER SOCIETY
- 1 Earning, Yearning and Making Do: Huysmans, Les Sœurs Vatard
- 2 Flâneurs and Shoppers: Huysmans, En ménage
- 3 From Shopping to Schopenhauer: Huysmans, A vau-l'eau
- II ECONOMIES OF CONSUMPTION (1)
- III SMALL SHOPS
- IV BIG STORES
- V ECONOMIES OF CONSUMPTION (2)
- VI REFLECTIONS ON THE CONSUMER SOCIETY
- Conclusion: A Good Buy?
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - From Shopping to Schopenhauer: Huysmans, A vau-l'eau
from I - WAITING FOR THE CONSUMER SOCIETY
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I WAITING FOR THE CONSUMER SOCIETY
- 1 Earning, Yearning and Making Do: Huysmans, Les Sœurs Vatard
- 2 Flâneurs and Shoppers: Huysmans, En ménage
- 3 From Shopping to Schopenhauer: Huysmans, A vau-l'eau
- II ECONOMIES OF CONSUMPTION (1)
- III SMALL SHOPS
- IV BIG STORES
- V ECONOMIES OF CONSUMPTION (2)
- VI REFLECTIONS ON THE CONSUMER SOCIETY
- Conclusion: A Good Buy?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Though not exactly a sequel, A vau-l'eau grew out of En ménage and indeed turned out to have so much in common with the preceding novel that Huysmans felt obliged to cut it short to avoid repeating himself. The text was therefore published as a novella in 1882. Its protagonist, M. Folantin, is an older man than the characters in the earlier texts, and this, plus the fact that A vau-l'eau was written two or three years after Les Sœurs Vatard, gives it a historical perspective lacking in its predecessors. As a result it is in this text that we see the clearest indications of the transformations that have affected the quarters that concern us – most notably the 6e arrondissement and the quartier of Saint-Sulpice where M. Folantin, like his creator, has his roots: ‘son bureau était là, puis il y était né, sa famille y avait constamment vécu; tous ses souvenirs tenaient dans cet ancien coin tranquille’ (499–500). M. Folantin observes the demolitions and new constructions that have affected his neighbourhood, ‘défiguré par des percées de nouvelles rues, par de funèbres boulevards, rissolés l'été et glacés l'hiver, par de mornes avenues qui avaient américanisé l'aspect du quartier et détruit pour jamais son allure intime sans lui avoir apporté en échange des avantages de confortable, de gaîté et de vie’ (500). The concomitants of these Haussmanian developments include the loss of certain picturesque perspectives favoured by the flâneur.
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- Consumer ChroniclesCultures of Consumption in Modern French Literature, pp. 61 - 66Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011