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  Against the Grain or Against Nature

  Joris-Karl Huysmans

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  "Against Nature" or "Against the Grain"—is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. Let's explore this intriguing work:    Plot Summary:  The narrative revolves around a single character: Jean des Esseintes. He is an eccentric, reclusive, and ailing aesthete.  As the last scion of an aristocratic family, Des Esseintes despises nineteenth-century bourgeois society. His goal is to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation.  The novel primarily consists of a catalogue of Des Esseintes's neurotic aesthetic tastes, musings on literature, painting, religion, and hyperaesthetic sensory experiences.  "À rebours" delves into themes associated with the Symbolist aesthetic, breaking away from Naturalism and becoming the epitome of "Decadent" literature. It profoundly influenced works like Oscar Wilde's ""The Picture of Dorian Gray""1.  Background:  Huysmans, the author, underwent a significant shift in his writing style. His early works were Naturalist, depicting the drudgery of working-class life in Paris.  However, he found this approach limiting and decided to apply the minutely documented realistic detail to a portrait of an exceptional individual: Jean des Esseintes.  The character of Des Esseintes is partly based on Huysmans himself, sharing similar tastes but taken to greater extremes. Huysmans transformed this "wild and gloomy fantasy" into the novel ""À rebours""12.  "Against Nature" invites readers into a world of decadence, introspection, and aesthetic obsession."

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  Blessed Are the Meek - From...

  Mary Webb

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  Mary Gladys Meredith was born on 25th March 1881 at Leighton Lodge in the village of Leighton, near Shrewsbury in Shropshire.  
  Mary was home-schooled by her father before being sent to a finishing school in Southport in 1895. Her longs walks in the countryside helped her develop a heightened sense of observation and description, of both people and places, which later infused both her poetry and prose. 
  When she was 20 she developed symptoms of Graves' disease, a thyroid disorder that caused bulging protuberant eyes and throat goitre. This caused life-long ill health and was a possible contributor to her early death.  
  Mary was first published as a teenager when her brother sent to a local newspaper her poem on a recent rail accident.  Mary, who was in the habit of destroying her work was appalled though placated when she discovered that it had received some positive appreciation in readers letters. 
  1912 brought marriage to Henry Bertram Law Webb, a teacher. He supported her literary work which, in 1917, resulted in the publication of her novel ‘The Golden Arrow.’ 
  A few years later they acquired a property in London where, it was hoped, recognition of her literary talents would be more easily recognised.   
  Her 1924 novel, ‘Precious Bane’, won the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse, the prestigious French literary prize awarded by an all-female jury. 
  Most of her poetry and various other works were only published after her death. 
  By 1927 her health was deteriorating and her marriage failing.   
  Mary Webb died on 8th October 1927 at St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex.  She was 46.

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  The Bucket Rider - A poor man...

  Franz Kafka

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  Franz Kafka was born on 3rd July 1883 in Prague, then in Bohemia, the eldest of 6, into a middle-class Jewish family. 
   
  Life for the young Kafka and his passion for literature was often made an ordeal by his over-bearing and domineering entrepreneur of a father.   
   
  In 1889 Kafka was sent to the Deutsche Knabenschule, an elementary school in Prague. His father would only allow him to be educated in German-speaking schools and even went so far as to limit visits to the synagogue to four a year. 
   
  In 1901 he graduated from the classics-oriented Altstädter Gymnasium. Kafka did well there and across a large range of subjects.  He now enrolled at the Charles Ferdinand University, to study chemistry, but quickly switched to law for which he obtained his degree in June 1906 and then performed the mandatory year of unpaid service as clerk at the civil and criminal courts. 
   
  A job at an Italian insurance company left him little time to write and after a year he took another job with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia where he stayed until ill health led to his resignation in 1922. 
   
  Although he saw work as a means to pay the bills and to allow him time to write, he received several promotions and was noted as a good employee. 
   
  By 1917 Kafka was suffering from tuberculosis, which required frequent periods of convalescence. Interspersed with this, were several intense affairs before he settled in Berlin with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher who herself having left the ghetto now influenced Kafka's interest in the book of Jewish law, the Talmud. 
   
  Kafka’s on-going health was littered with problems. Apart from TB there were several other ailments, including migraines, insomnia, boils, depression, all usually brought on by excessive stresses and strains. He attempted to counteract all of this by naturopathic treatments, a vegetarian diet and consuming large quantities of unpasteurized milk. 
   
  His tuberculosis still worsened. He returned to Prague, where he died on 3rd June 1924. He was 40. 
   
  His literary works are few in number but towering in influence.  His masterpieces include ‘The Trial’, ‘The Metamorphosis’ as well as a number of short stories which reveal facets of humankind that truthfully could only be born from Kafka’s brain and pen.

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  The Monastery Volume 2

  Walter Scott

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  "The Monastery" by Walter Scott unfolds against the backdrop of 16th-century Scotland, during the Reformation. The narrative follows the escapades of Sir Piercie Shafton, a flamboyant English knight, and explores the interactions between the monastic and secular worlds. Amidst political turmoil, romantic entanglements, and the mystical allure of Glendearg Abbey, Scott crafts a captivating tale of intrigue and humor. Rich in historical detail and vivid characters, "The Monastery" is a compelling exploration of religious upheaval and societal change in the tumultuous era.

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  The Angel

  Hans Christian Andersen

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  When a good child dies, an angel descends from heaven and gently carries the child upward—first across the places the child once loved, then toward eternal light. Along the way, they gather flowers for God’s garden, including one small, withered bloom the world has cast aside. 
  As they fly, the angel reveals a quiet truth: that even the humblest life, lived in suffering and obscurity, can hold immeasurable beauty. A forgotten flower, once the greatest comfort of a poor, sick child, is treasured in heaven above all others—because it gave genuine joy where little else could. 
  The Angel is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most moving and spiritual tales. Tender, reflective, and deeply compassionate, it reminds us that true worth is not found in grandeur, but in love freely given and quietly received. 
  Narrated with warmth and reverence by Brett Carter, this timeless story offers comfort, hope, and a gentle meditation on loss, faith, and the unseen value of small joys.

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  War and Peace (Book Fifteen:...

  Leo Tolstoy

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  War and Peace is a literary work mixed with chapters on history and philosophy by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It was first published serially, then published in its entirety in 1869. It is regarded as one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements and remains an internationally praised classic of world literature.
  Book 15: 1812-13: When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.

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