To the customer’s liking: the image of Huysmans in the newspaper A união

Abstract

J.-K. Huysmans is usually known for his book À rebours (Against Nature). This work was launched after the publication of four other books, whose content fits into the Naturalism movement. Nevertheless, this work gave way to a new form of writing and it started the Decadent Movement. Without fear of molding his books in a way that pleased himself, even his religious conflicts were drawn into his literature. At first, he preferred Satanism and black magic rituals, however, after a certain time, he converted himself to Catholicism and started including topics related to Christianity in his works. He used convents as shelters, he attended churches and used his art to represent his faith; but many believed that this was only a strategy to sell his books. That was not the point of view of A União, a religious newspaper that came up with topics related to the Catholic Church. In about thirty articles dated from 1905 to 1949, Huysmans was commented and referred to as an example of Christian. Among many other newspapers and hundreds of articles that focused on J.K. Huysmans’s literary aspect, A União managed to show an author’s side that was certainly useful for reaching its believers and incite the repentance and the conversion no matter how distant it seemed to be.