Parents and Early Life
He was born in Paris in 1848. His father Godfried Huysmans was Dutch and a lithographer by trade. His mother, Malvina Badin Huysmans, had been a schoolmistress. Huysmans' father died when the boy was eight years old. After his mother quickly remarried, Huysmans resented his stepfather, Jules Og, a Protestant who was part-owner of a Parisian book-bindery.
During childhood, Huysmans turned away from the Catholic Church. He was unhappy at school but completed his coursework and earned a baccalauréat.
Read more about this topic: Joris-Karl Huysmans
Famous quotes containing the words parents, early and/or life:
“The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education. School is where you go between when your parents can’t take you and industry can’t take you.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“Some would find fault with the morning red, if they ever got up early enough.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Is marijuana addictive? Yes, in the sense that most of the really pleasant things in life are worth endlessly repeating.”
—Richard Neville (b. 1941)