About the book: 2010 / “Catholicism remains the axis of Western history...” wrote N. Berdyaev. “It has endured all the trials: the Renaissance, the Reformation, all the heretical and sectarian movements, and all the revolutions... Even non-believers must admit that in this exceptional power of Catholicism lies some kind of mystery, rationally inexplicable.” The French writer J. C. Huysmans (1848–1907) tried to get closer to this secret in the second part of his famous trilogy - the novel “On the Way” (1895). The book, which has become a kind of aesthetic apology for Catholicism, belongs to the “religious” period in the author’s work and is to a certain extent an autobiographical work - however, like its first part (the novel “No Bottom” - Enigma, 2006). The novel reflects the spiritual quest of the writer, who was disillusioned with the profane occultism of the late 19th century. and painfully trying to find himself on the path of canonical Catholicism. However, even on this seemingly infinitely far from the previous, “satanic” path of churching, the desperate hero becomes convinced of how deep the abyss is that separates ascetic, heaven-oriented medieval Christianity and the modern Roman Catholic Church, adapted to worldly positivism and rationalism, with its mercantile who betrayed the apostolic covenants by the clergy. The literary fabric of the novel is very complex: there are excursions into the history of monastic orders with their charters and complex hierarchical relationships, and numerous hidden and explicit quotes from the works of the Fathers of the Church and medieval chroniclers, and reflections on Catholic liturgics and religious symbolism, and meticulous analysis of church music, painting and architecture. The wide panorama of Christian mysticism and various, often contradictory religious movements presented in the novel required a detailed introductory article and detailed comments, in the compilation of which the editors decided not to limit themselves to dry lapidary information about certain historical figures, but to give preference to miniature, sometimes almost artistic hagiographic articles. The appendix presents fragments from the works of St. Juan de la Cruz, emphasizing the mystical accent of the novel. “On the Way” is Huysmans’s most interesting book...” noted N. Berdyaev. “No one has ever penetrated so deeply into the liturgical beauties of Catholicism, or interpreted the Gothic in such a way.” This alone makes Huysmans a great writer».