*It was a novel without a plo...

*It was a novel without a plot:
Huysmans‘s <A rebours> which was regarded as one of the most significant writings of literary Decadence in France. Huysmans‘s novel features a wealthy aesthete, Duc Jean des Esseintes, who sequesters himself in his luxurious home in order to savour erotic fantasies and sensuous experiences that generate sensations that he fears he will not find in reality.(106p. ch.10) - P211

*nine large-paper copies of the first edition:
Huysmans‘s <A rebours> was published by the Parisian publisher Charpentier in a standard edition, as well as an exclusive edition of ten copies on Dutch handmade paper and ten copies on Japanese handmade paper.
*the hero were strangely blended:
implicitly, Des Esseintes in Huysmans‘s <A rebours>.
*that somewhat grotesque dread of mirrors... still water:
Des Esseintes in Huysmans‘s <A rebours> has no such dread; in chapter 1, the narrator states that Des Esseintes designed a ‘boudoir‘ or bedroom that featured the following furnishing, textures, and scents: "This bedroom, where mirrors mirrored one another and reflected an infinite series of pink boudoirs on the walls, had been celebrated among the prostitutes, who loved to soak their nakedness in this bath of rosy warmth, perfumed by the minty aroma coming from the wood of the furniture‘ (Huysmans, 10). (108p. ch.11) - P212

*French school of Symbolistes...

*French school of Symbolistes:
known in English as Symbolists; a literary movement, inspired by the work of Baudelaire, headed by a group of French poets, such as Jules Laforgue (1860-87), Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91), and Paul Valéry (1871-1945). The Symbolists aimed at producing poems that represented correspondences between the senses by emphasizing colour, harmony, and tone.(107p. ch.11) - P211

The style in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot* and of archaisms, of technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes.*
There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids,*and as subtle in colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some medieval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book.(107p. ch.11) - P107

There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie.

The Picture of Dorian Gray | 오스카 와일드 저

리디에서 자세히 보기: https://ridibooks.com/books/111000010 - P228

[오늘의 한문장] To Kill a Mockingbird

WHEN HE WAS nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right-angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt. - P3

He procured from Paris no les...

He procured from Paris no less than nine large-paper copies of the first edition,* and had them bound indifferent colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the changing fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost control. The hero, the wonderful young Parisian, in whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely blended,* became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. And, indeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it. - P108

The very sharpness of the contrast used to quicken his sense of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul. He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He would place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture, and smile. He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs. - P109

That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as they sat together in the garden of their friend,
seemed to increase with gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them. - P109

그런데 이제는 그것이 죽음의 부패보다 더 지독하게 그...

그런데 이제는 그것이 죽음의 부패보다 더 지독하게 그 자체로 썩어 가는 어떤 것 ― 공포를 낳고, 더욱이 결코 사라지지 않을 그 무엇 ― 을 감추는 데 사용될 참이었다. 벌레가 시체에 손상을 가하듯 그의 죄가 캔버스에 그려진 그의 모습에 손상을 가하고 있었다. 그의 죄가 얼굴의 아름다움을 훼손시키고 얼굴의 우아함을 갉아먹고 있었다. 그래서 그 모습을 흉측하게 만들고 치욕스러운 것으로 만들고 있다. 그럼에도 그 초상은 계속 살아 있다. 영원히 살아 있을 것이다.

도리언 그레이의 초상 | 오스카 와일드, 윤희기 저

리디에서 자세히 보기: https://ridibooks.com/books/1242000789 - P232

과거는 언제든지 지워 버릴 수가 있다. 후회나 부인 혹은 망각이 그렇게 해줄 수 있다. 그러나 미래는 불가피한 것이다. 그에게는 어떻게든 배출시켜야 할 열정이 있었고, 사악한 실재의 모습을 감춰야 하는 꿈이 있었다.

도리언 그레이의 초상 | 오스카 와일드, 윤희기 저

리디에서 자세히 보기: https://ridibooks.com/books/1242000789 - P233

그는 기묘한 의상을 걸친 세상의 죄악이 부드러운 피리 소리에 맞춰 소리 없이 자기 앞을 지나가는 느낌이 들었다. 아련한 꿈으로만 생각했던 것들이 별안간 자기 앞에 실제의 것으로 등장한 것 같았다. 그리고 꿈도 꿔보지 못했던 것들도 서서히 드러나기 시작했다.

도리언 그레이의 초상 | 오스카 와일드, 윤희기 저

리디에서 자세히 보기: https://ridibooks.com/books/1242000789 - P243

플롯이 없는 소설이었다. 등장인물도 딱 한 사람이었다. 어떻게 보면 파리의 어느 젊은이에 대한 심리학적 연구서 같은 느낌이 들었다.

도리언 그레이의 초상 | 오스카 와일드, 윤희기 저

리디에서 자세히 보기: https://ridibooks.com/books/1242000789 - P243