I’ve seen English translations of this book with the original French title, indeed. And kudos to you mentioning this lesser-known but great writer (that’s the real reason why I posted :D). Anyways, he’s one of my very favourite 19th-century writers.
There’s another novel (even better than *À rebours * IMHO) of his whose original title, Là-Bas, is sometimes kept in English. Literally : “Over There”, sometimes translated as The Damned or Down There. La Cathédrale is less satisfying, but still worth reading, a sort of Catholic rewriting of *À rebours *. And for once, the English title is easy to find.
As an inverse to this, I watch a YouTube channel by an American woman living in Germany. Her book, in German, has an English title, You Go Me On The Cookie (I don’t get it either). Her publisher has no plans to release it in English.
That must be Dana Newman, isn’t it? I really like her videos. The explanation for the title: there’s a German phrase “Du gehst mir auf den Keks”, meaning “You grate on my nerves”. “You go me on the cookie” is the very literal word for word translation of the phrase which of course doesn’t make any sense at all, but it’s funny (at least for this German).
It is indeed Dana! I had no idea what the title meant, I always figured it was her own translation of a German phrase that she’d mangled, or something. Really wish her publisher would publish it in English, FFS.