Very Woman (Sixtine): A Cerebral Novel

"What is that cloud, called Sixtine, which comes to trouble my royal indifference and to conceal my sun—death? I do not want to go to sleep in the shadow of her beauty...." Hubert Entragues, aesthete and litterateur, conceives a passion for the ethereal Sixtine in this "cerebral novel" of 1890. The romance remains largely imaginary, a passion localized in the skull of the intellectual Entragues. Alone with his thoughts and his literature, the narrator's baroque reflections careen from lyrical exaltation to sullen despondency according to the inscrutable actions of his elusive inamorata. In his refined loneliness, his lucid and sensual daydreams develop into a story within the story, mirroring and embellishing the inner experience of their author. Very Woman is a masterpiece of the symbolist movement of fin de siecle literature. A brilliant stylist, Gourmont's luxurious, poetic prose is full of erudition, irony, and eroticism, creating an atmosphere all its own. "A book that meant a lot to me is Sixtine, Remy de Gourmont." —Blaise Cendrars