Durtal, the convert of Huysmans’s earlier En Route, has settled at Chartres, and every morning at five he enters the cathedral’s dim forest of pillars. Between conversations with a priest and his housekeeper and doubts about entering a monastery, the novel becomes a long meditation on the cathedral’s architecture, sculpture and windows and on the symbolism of the Middle Ages.
A strange, gorgeous book for anyone who loves Gothic cathedrals. Download the free EPUB.