Against Nature by JorisKarl Huysmans Paperback Book 9780140447637

Des Esseintes is a decadent ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where her indulges his taste for luxury and excess Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art exotic jewels with which he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise