Critic Steven J. Mariconda suggests that the story is a tribute to the Decadent literary movement in general and in particular Joris-Karl Huysmans' A rebours, an 1884 novel that Lovecraft greatly admired. (Huysmans is mentioned by name in the story, along with Baudelaire.) Like The Hound's protagonists, victims of a devastating ennui, the main character of A rebours suffers from an overpoweri