The
New York World, in the 1920s, was perhaps the premier newspaper in New York City. Leonard Cline was on its staff from around May 1923 through August 1924, though he nearly lost his job in May 1924 after he'd gone on a drinking spree. James W. Barrett, the City Editor of the
New York World, remembered Cline in 1931 as a "wonderfully good reporter when sober." Besides his work as a reporter, Cline also contributed book reviews and poems (the latter, to Franklin P. Adams's column, "The Conning Tower"). One of his book reviews caused quite a stir. This was his review of a new translation of
La Bas by Joris Karl Huysmans, published by Albert and Charles Boni under the title
Down There. I copy below the full review, which appeared in the issue for Sunday, 30 March 1924. In two subsequent blogposts I will detail the subsequent banning of the book, and Cline's reaction to it.
La Bas, in Translation, a Story
of Utter Demoniacal Content and Terror
We hasten to say—before the howl of protest arises—that it is
perfectly proper for Joris Karl Huysmans's novel, La Bas, to
be published, in spite of the fact that packed between its covers is
the heaviest load of mustiness we have ever found in a book.
La Bas comes before us now in an excellent translation by
Keene Wallis, under the title Down There, with the imprint of
Albert and Charles Boni. A curious commentary on the American idea of
what is proper is made in Mr. Wallis's elisions. He has omitted
translating some passages in the original, episodes in which may be
perceived an element of pleasure. But episodes that are written in a
vein of sheer horror, although they are much more foul than the
others he has included. Well, of course, he had to keep the foulness
of La Bas, or the whole work would lose its cleaning.
It is a novel of demonology, together with sex inversions and
perversions that accompany devil-worship.
Durtal, a writer himself, disgusted with ordinary life, is impelled
in the direction of religion, but applying logic to the fundamental
bases of Christianity he finds himself diverted into a macabre
bypath. Indeed it is serious what result a reasonable interpretation
of the Christian myth entails. If the vicarious atonement of Jesus
was necessary to the salvation of mankind, then must not Jesus be
adored as the agent that brought it about? The path that leads to the
old Gnostic and other heresies one is very likely to choose by
mistake for the main highway of truth, if one wanders far in
Christianity.
Durtal, curious albeit revolted, goes down from the hilltop into
Gehinnom.
There are two complementary stories unfolding contrapuntally in La
Bas. One of them is the story of Durtal's adventures in
contemporaneous devil-worship, He hears about incubi and succubi,
about black masses said with consecrated wafers, about poisons and
charms and incredible carnalities, about Canon Docre, who had the
image of Jesus tattooed on the soles of his feet so that he could
profane it with every step. He meets Hyacinthe Chantelouve, and in
the end she takes him to a black mass in the ruinous chapel of an
abandoned Ursuline convent, at which, in a hysteria of abominations,
Canon Docre officiates.
The other story is the history of Gilles de Rais, a Breton nobleman
of the middle ages, which Durtal is writing. Gille de Rais was
wealthy, accomplished, courageous; he fought with Jeanne d'Arc and
seemed ascending to the heights of glory. But, back from the wars, he
is seduced by the alcheny and astrology of the time. He invites
famous thaumaturges of Europe to his castle, and there they carry on
their experiments, invoking the devil. Finally they drift into orgies
and prey on the children of the region. Hundreds are slain. Gilles
becomes demented, and is finally apprehended, tried and burned at the
the stake, but not before the reader is taken with him on that
horrible raving flight through the foest of Tiffauges.
Surely nobody will be led to immoral devices by La Bas: it is
too hideous for that. The amateur of lickerish literature will not
find any amusement in it. It is superbly written, but a too sensitive
person would find his enjoyment of the craftsmanship of Huysmans
blighted by the obscenity.
Joris Karl Huysmans hated the world and humanity. Arthur Symons
pictures him at the very time he was writing La Bas as
possessed by “an almost ecstatic hatred,” as wearing “an amused
look of contempt, so profound that it becomes almost pity, for human
imbecility.” Yet at the end Huysmans, without repudiating his
earlier works, embraced the Roman Catholic faith. There was a
desquamation of the old loathing, the fever that tormented him
subsided, and thenceforth he could look with charity on life.
Leonard Lanson Cline
The New York World, in the 1920s, was perhaps the premier newspaper in New York City. Leonard Cline was on its staff from around May 1923 through August 1924, though he nearly lost his job in May 1924 after he'd gone on a drinking spree. James W. Barrett, the City Editor of the New York World, remembered Cline in 1931 as a "wonderfully good reporter when sober." Besides his work as a reporter, Cline also contributed book reviews and poems (the latter, to Franklin P. Adams's column, "The Conning Tower"). One of his book reviews caused quite a stir. This was his review of a new translation of La Bas by Joris Karl Huysmans, published by Albert and Charles Boni under the title Down There. I copy below the full review, which appeared in the issue for Sunday, 30 March 1924. In two subsequent blogposts I will detail the subsequent banning of the book, and Cline's reaction to it.
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