If you're looking for a plot with car chases and sword fights, look elsewhere. 'En Route' is an internal road trip. We follow Durtal, a jaded Parisian intellectual, as he wrestles with a sudden and inconvenient desire for spiritual meaning. The story is simple: he visits churches, talks with a patient priest, attends monastic services, and thinks. A lot. He's repelled by the ugliness of modern faith yet drawn to the haunting beauty of Gregorian chant and medieval art. The real drama is all inside his head—the back-and-forth between his cynical, sensual past and this unsettling new hunger for something pure.

Why You Should Read It

This book surprised me. I expected something dry and preachy, but it's the opposite. Huysmans gives us a hero who is often petty, arrogant, and full of excuses. His spiritual struggle is embarrassingly real. One minute he's moved to tears by a psalm, the next he's complaining about the bad architecture of a church or plotting a luxurious meal. It's this honesty that makes it so powerful. It's a book for anyone who has ever felt a longing they can't explain, or been frustrated by their own resistance to change.

Final Verdict

Perfect for readers who love deep character studies and don't mind a novel where the biggest action scene is a internal debate. If you enjoyed the psychological intensity of Dostoevsky or the aesthetic obsession of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray,' you'll find a kindred spirit in Durtal. It's a challenging, peculiar, and ultimately rewarding portrait of a soul in transit, with no guarantee it will ever reach its destination.