Publisher's Synopsis
The misfortunes of Jean Folantin, a downtrodden clerk working for the Ministry of Interior in Paris, form the subject of J.-K. Huysmans' blackly comic novella, 'Drifting.' At first glance, Folantin's problems seem to be a world away from those of Jean Floressas des Esseintes, the aristocratic anti-hero of Huysmans' decadent classic 'Against Nature,' written just two years later in 1884. But the two men share more than just a first name: like des Esseintes, Folantin is in the throes of an existential crisis: alienated from a Paris undergoing rapid modernisation, the pace of social change leaves him feeling out of place, impotent, a small cog in an impersonal commercial world.
