Georges Rodenbach – Bruges-la-Morte (1892)

Aside from J.-K. Huysmans A rebours, another work was also instrumental in sparking my appreciation for French fin-de-siecle literature: the novella Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach (author pictured). It’s an example of Symbolist literature, a movement which appears to have run concurrently with Decadence. I’m not entirely clear what the exact differences between the two movements are, and I often sense they overlap considerably. As with Decadent literature, Rodenbach's style is wordy and ornate, as if he is luxuriating in descriptions, vocabulary, and language. 

Stylistically, however, Bruges-la-Morte falls halfway between poetry and prose. Imagery (symbols) convey more meaning than plot or characterization, and the novel maintains a darkly dreamlike tonality even when Rodenbach is describing something like a dance hall. How much of this is due to adherence to the Symbolist credo and how much is Rodenbach’s own style I’m not entirely sure, but I tend to think it’s more of the latter. The atmosphere created in Bruges-la-Morte recalls Edgar Allan Poe short stories or Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There are elements of horror in Bruges-la-Morte - the air of brooding, the dreary setting, the morbid fixation on death – but Rodenbach never takes his story fully into the horror genre. This gives Bruges-la-Morte a unique feel and tone.

The thin plot concerns Hugues Viane, a melancholy widower obsessed with the memory of his late wife. Viane moves to Bruges, a city he feels a kinship with as it seems to be in mourning too (for the loss of its past greatness). There is often a personification and/or projection of Viane's emotions and psychology onto the city and vice-versa. One day, Viane encounters a woman who looks exactly like his dead wife. He becomes obsessed with her even though, beyond appearances, she is nothing like his wife. The situation slowly evolves like the opening of a narcotic black flower (don't worry; no spoilers).

Plot is not the main point here though. Rodenbach is about imagery and symbols, which convey an almost self-indulgent air of emotion and atmosphere. As in poetry, it's up to the reader to interpret the symbols and imagery to find the meaning of the work. For me, Rodenbach's symbols conveyed several things. First, I saw a parallel between the omnipresent Catholicism Rodenbach paints in his Bruges and the literal shrine Viane builds to his late wife, including a braid of her hair in a glass case. Second, Bruges seems to be lost in a fog of mysticism, while Viane is wrapped in blankets of mourning and sleepwalks through life. Neither appears to be geared towards happiness or progress.

Third, and related to this, there is an element I also notice in Poe's works and Huysmans' A rebours: a general antipathy toward human society and 'normal life'. All these works focus on reclusive, highly intelligent protagonists whose morbid melancholy or obsessive behaviors are desired as ends in themselves even though they are dreary and destructive. This embracing of voluptuously described and self-indulgent melancholy, isolation, or doom is a state of mind that may reflect both French fin-de-siecle angst and the author’s own sense of self and his place - or lack of place - in society.

I enjoyed Bruges-la-Morte, and I’ve reread it since my initial encounter. I’m sure I will do so again when I have an urge to dive even deeper into it symbolism or simply wish to re-experience the gloomy fragrance of its prose and imagery. As a read, it’s definitely a book for a gray, rainy day when you're 'in a mood'. (Note: I read the Philip Mosley translation pictured here and published by University of Scranton Press).