Downstream — Joris-Karl Huysmans / J.K. Huysmans

Downstream, the shortest and most autobiographical of Huysmans' novels, is the perfect example of what the French naturalists wanted a novel to be. This dark and mordantly comic masterpiece of everyday pessimism about a Parisian clerk seeking spiritual contentment is the perfect introduction to the pleasures of Joris Karl Huysmans (1848â€"1907), whose exquisite style is ironically the most perfect remedy for any reader's taedium vitae.