En Route (novel)

En Route is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans and was first published in 1895. It is the second of Huysmans's books to feature the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself. Durtal had already appeared in Là-bas, investigating Satanism. En Route and the two subsequent two novels, The Cathedral (French: La Cathédrale) and The Oblate (French: L'Oblat), trace his conversion to Catholicism, an experience which reflects the author's own. As Huysmans explained:

"The plot of the novel is as simple as it could be. I've taken the principal character of Là-Bas, Durtal, had him converted and sent him to a Trappist monastery. In studying his conversion, I've tried to trace the progress of a soul surprised by the gift of grace, and developing in an ecclesiastical atmosphere, to the accompaniment of mystical literature, liturgy, and plainchant, against a background of all that admirable art which the Church has created."[1]

En Route
Title page of the American edition of En Route
AuthorJoris-Karl Huysmans
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
GenreNovel
PublisherTresse & Stock
Publication date
1895
Followed byThe Cathedral 

References
  1. Baldick, Robert; King, Brendan (2006). The Life of J.-K. Huysmans (Revised ed.). Dedalus. p. 288.

Further reading
  • Holland, B. (1901). "Rome and the Novelists," The Edinburgh Review, Vol. CXCIV, pp. 276–301.
  • Paul, C. Kegan (1918). "Translator's Note." In: En Route. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., pp. v–xi.
  • Ziegler, Robert (1986). "Silencing the Double: the Search for God in Huysmans' En Route," Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 203–212.


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