A Dish of Spices was Huysmans' first, self-published collection of writings. These twenty "bagatelles" include prose-poems inspired by Baudelaire; evocations of the forgotten byways of Paris; sketches of a night-time city peopled by the "nymphs of the gutter"; faux-antique ballads; and illuminated, symbolist reveries.
What unites this miscellany is the allure of decay, the charm of distaste and disappointment, and, above all, Huysmans' unparalleled style--studded as it is with the baroque and barbarous, the arcane and archaic.
What unites this miscellany is the allure of decay, the charm of distaste and disappointment, and, above all, Huysmans' unparalleled style--studded as it is with the baroque and barbarous, the arcane and archaic.
Used availability for Joris Karl Huysmans's A Dish of Spices