Decadence: Obscure literature of the fin de siecle and Belle Epoque - and other literary obsession

For the last several years, I've been obsessed with literature from the French Decadent Movement, with a bit of Symbolism tossed in. It’s why I started this blog.  The Fin de Siècle was a time of glittering beauty and pernicious darkness, with amazing social and technological progress creating both dizzying excitement and poisonous angst. In addition, the vitality of the period’s avant-garde art, music, and writing, and the beauty of its crafts, posters, and design aesthetics deeply appeal to me. So much so that, if I believed in so-called past lives, then I was a bohemian artist, writer, or journalist in the Fin de Siècle demimonde. Someone who died at a relatively young age without achieving fame. On a more grounded note, my exploration of French Decadent literature has given me insight into a question I've had since I was young: What happened during a mere 20 years in Paris to transform the arts from Hugo-Zola-Monet-Rodin-Debussy to Gide-Proust-Matisse-Picasso-Satie? The sta...

My Blue Notebooks (Tacher) is one of three books available in English by fin de siècle demimonde celebrity and author Liane de Pougy. The other two are her semi-autobiographical first and second novels, L’insaisissable and Idylle saphique . My Blue Notebooks are de Pougy’s posthumously published journals/memoirs, and they are a fantastic read, an engrossing time capsule, and the compelling spiritual journey of a woman who lived more life than twenty people combined. When she began journaling in 1919, de Pougy’s life as one of Paris’ most feted courtesans was behind her. Almost a decade earlier, she’d formed a romantic relationship with Prince Georges Ghika of Romania, and they were married. de Pougy was 41 and he was 24 so, even in the honorable institution of marriage, she managed to scandalize. de Pougy, however, seems to have been remarkably grounded about the whole thing.  As one reads My Blue Notebooks , it’s easy to see why. Not much would faze someone whose life was a rev...

As mentioned in a prior post, my path into Decadent literature was partially through reading Modernist works by openly - or as open as they could be - gay men. French avant-garde author Andre Gide (1869 - 1951) was one such. He had an additional draw in that he influenced modern masters like Sartre and Camus. The Immoralist (1902) was the first Gide novel I’d read (Modern Library edition, translated by Richard Howard). Aside from being a brilliant writer, Gide's life - even in overview - is a fascinating story of a man who continually found himself outside the norms of society and culture norms. A gay man who enjoyed an active romantic life, despite the bigotry of the time, he married a woman in an apparently asexual relationship and had a brief affair with Oscar Wilde in 1895. After a period of intellectual inactivity, he founded a literary magazine in 1908. In 1916, when Gide was 47, he left his wife for a 15-year-old boy. They were together for 11 years and travelled through Afr...