Michel Houellebecq

No, but he was reviewed in today's NY Times Book Review.

That's actually why I brought him up

His stuff sounded kinda interesting. All of course about someone named "Michel" having plenty of sex. Hmm.

What was really disturbing about the NYT today was the article about Random House, in the Times Magazine. Publishing is becoming so consolidated, eventually every book will be written by Mary Higgins Clark.

Do you notice how little fiction they are reviewing lately?

I read Elementary Particles in my senior seminar for my English major. Its a narrative about our time told from a future in which men (or sexuality) is engineered out of existence. Fucking disgusting, and brilliant. Told from the standpoint of a complete hedonist and a man who cannot muster any feelings at all. More complex narrative than Chuck's books, and denser with ideas.
The class that I read it in was called "Utopia and Post-Modernity," so one can assume that its going to be a difficult text (i.e. the feeling you get when you're done reading a book, and all you can think, confused, is, "What the fuck?" and you question your intelligence.) I'm not smart enough to explain the book to you, but if you like Chuck, and the ideas that Chuck deals with, you'll like this book.

I bought both Platform and the Elementary Particles yesterday, today, and am looking forward to reading them both, possibly over the next weekend, the next month.

I don't know if his first novel ('Extension du domaine de la lutte') has been translated to English, but it's been made into a film. I didn't see it, even though some parts were shot next to my home. The subject is the transforming of relationships and sex into another part of the market economy, bringing its class of miserable.
Houellebecq is also the author of an essay on Lovecraft, and poetry books. He even made an album where he mutters (his usual mode of communication) some of his poems with electronic music behind, and toured with his band.

i just finished the elementary particles. i'm not sure i've read a book that combines history, quantum mechanics and fiction before...nevermind written in such an interesting, page-turning way. adam's summary is dead-on: a man proves cloning is the most perfect form of reproduction, rendering sex for reproduction obsolete and eliminating the possibility of human extinction. what i don't understand, however, is what is so "disgusting" about this book. adam's not the first person who's said it was disturbing and unnerving, either, and i just don't get it. adam, do you care to elaborate?

from the prologue:

"It is a fallacy that...metaphysical mutations gain ground only in weakened or declining societies. When Christianity appeared, the Roman Empire was at the height of its powers: supremely organized, it dominated the known world; its technical and military prowess had no rival. Nonetheless, it had no chance. When modern science appeared, medieval Christianity was a complete, comprehensive system which explained both man and the universe; it was the basis for government, the inspiration for knowledge and art, the arbiter of war as of peace and the power behind the production and distribution of wealth - none of which was sufficient to prevent its downfall.

Michel Djerzinski was not the first nor even the principal architect of the third - and in many respects the most radical - paradigm shift, which opened up a new era in world history. But, as a result of certain extraordinary circumstances in his life, he was one of its most clear-sighted and deliberate engineers."

franc tireur, i wonder if you have any comments on the english translation by frank wynne?

I think the disgusting part of the book is the complete lack of morality for the Hedonist brother, Bruno: the drawn-out, and dry way in which Houellebecq describes his masturbation and the "ass-licking" episode. One thing that Chuck and Houellebecq do so well is present these scenes in which the characters engage in shocking activity to show the morality of the characters, and maybe spread thin the veil of morality that extends over the book so the reader can see the underbelly of humanity and make connections among the characters. Almost all people would find the scene where Bruno is being (homo) sexually harrassed by his classmates as digusting and repugnant. Its a device, I think. I also think that Houellebecq uses it to contrast Bruno with Michel, the brother who can't have any emotion at all. Bruno and Michel are the two extremes of the eros-drive.
Maybe Houellebecq uses such extremes to help the reader locate humanity somewhere in the middle of these characters, in the middle of two extremes? The novel is, I think, a novel about humanity and eros-drive or whatever you want to call it. Are the people narrating the book better because reproduction is engineered out of existence?

[SIZE=1]

if there I had to name 3 french books that were "hot" in europe in the last few years.....which almost everybody seems to have read.

the list would look something like that
[B][COLOR=orange]
1. Michel Houellebecq - Elementary Particles
2. Frederic Beigbeder - 9,99
3. Catherine Millet - La vie sexuelle de Catherine M.
[/COLOR] [/B]

I really love Elementary Particles, unfortunatly Platform is not that good.

Everybody has to read "9,99", it is a fun read for advertising creatives.

[/SIZE]

I love French writers. They're so dirty -- the words on the pages almost give off a stench of cigarettes and oily hair. I've heard of 9,99 somewhere. Has it been translated?

[SIZE=1]

my edition of the book is also called [COLOR=orange]39,90[/COLOR], but I don't live in Germany. go figure

pure [URL=http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,996327,00.html]shock[/URL][/SIZE]

Roland: Why didn't you like Platform?

patioman, where's your elementary particals and/or platform review?

Oh moe, you know all about my struggles with the Elementary Particles: for some reason, whenever I stop to read it, I read the parts I've already read, which, as I said, are pretty amazing. I just can't move forward. I will eventually, though.

Platform, on the other hand, was one that I read very quickly — in 3 days or so. Because I lived in the Middle East for 7 years, what held the most interest for me here were the arguments against Islam.

I agree with the reviews that said that this was an anti-Islam book but not a racist book, because the arguments all oppose the religion, and its monotheism, rather than the people who follow it. We see them as victims of the religion, committing all of the violence in the book — they kill the narrator's father, rape a woman on a train, butcher a couple in Thailand, etc. — out of impotence, as victims of the forces that perpetuate the suppression, that encourages its followers to do the same, rather than as a people solely responsible for what they've done. As with Mr. D’s argument in Fight Club, they’re victims of societal forces rather than people purely responsible for their actions. But, of course, as with Tyler’s argument, that’s difficult to agree with.

All of the arguments HAD to come from Muslim characters, because the Michel character admits that he has little to no understanding of the world, and, obviously, it gives them more weight, even if the characters are fictional. It's also a way to show that the narrator/the author can differentiate between a people and the institution they're a part of, one they're slowly rejecting because of capitalism and an influx of Western ideas and products.

There's also the question about whether or not the book was prophetic, because it was published before 2001, but, like I said, I lived in the ME, so terrorist attacks weren’t a foreign, distant idea to me before 9/11, and it seems like he was mostly incorporating what was going on at the time, and what had happened before, rather than looking ahead.

That repression thing also ties in toward the end, when, after a terrorist attack at one of their Aphrodite sex tourism clubs, a French paper basically says that the tourists and prostitutes there deserved to be killed, so we see that the sexual repression that, as Michel is telling us, causes violence, is hardly limited to Islam, albeit in a more limited way: that sexual repression would lead one to approve of the deaths of others. In S&M clubs, he sees people profoundly disconnected from sex, sees that S&M could only be practiced by people who have over-intellectualized sex, who are too self-reflexive about pornographic images, and who are obsessed with hygiene, so they use leather and a lack of physical contact to decrease the intimacy of sex.

The relationship he has with Valerie — I can’t remember if that was her name, and I’m too lazy to go and check to make sure, but I’ll assume it is — lifts him out of the disconnection he feels at the beginning of the book, because she’s a wholly giving person, which is against what we expect of people today, when it’s more likely that people will take than give. Still, I’m not sure if Houllebecq feels that people like Valerie are still around, because his sex scenes with her are kind of over-the-top. Not in a bad way; they just feel like scenes from a porn film.

That’s where it begins to feel like this is all — along with the idea for sex tourism — a Swiftian satire about how these problems we have re: sex should be dealt with (eat the children! sell the sex!), and that it’s all a cultural critique. It’s actually not hard to believe that he WOULD be FOR sex tourism, and I can’t say that I disagree with him, but I can’t see it going over well elsewhere. Again, as Charles Taylor mentioned in his review on Salon, Western hypocrisy comes in here, because why would we disagree more thoroughly with Asians, specially women from Thailand, selling their bodies in a way that offers the possibliity for pleasure, rather than with them using up their bodies to make consumer goods — that, of course, has been protested, but it’s still going on.

Like EP, it’s also a parody of that classic Camus style nihilism, beginning with the very first line about his father’s death. I like that he automatically puts Camus in the past, dating him by putting the father’s death a year in the past, rather than a day before. I like all of the other literary critiques he inserts into the book: mentions of a sexual crisis the main character has in the Firm, for instance. He also talks about the Beach, relating it back to the tourist industry double bind about the tourist who needs to see places that aren’t touristy, when actually seeing them cancels out any untouristy qualities that they might still have.

Writing-wise, the book is kind of messy, and his translator doesn’t exactly make him look like a gifted stylist, but there are some good parts. My favorite line is the last: “I will be forgotten. I will be forgotten quickly.” Which nearly made me cry.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by franc tireur [/i]
[B]I don't know if his first novel ('Extension du domaine de la lutte') has been translated to English...[/B][/QUOTE]

It has, but the title here is, unfortunately, "Whatever."

patty, that's a great review. i appreciate such a thoughtful reply, and i'll be picking up platform in the near future. following are some general ideas about houellebecq as an author.

first, he's a crazy romantic. the idea of a woman saving the day is in both EP and platform, even though his antagonists are just horrible people. in EP, bruno was a complete hedonist and acted soley in persuit of pleasure, regardless of depravity. he meets a woman (forgot her name) despite himself, and falls deeply in love for the first and only time in his life. this woman doesn't reform him, per se, but provides unconditional companionship. it seems the same type of "love you for who you are" is seen in the characters in platform. i like the notion that the right girl can bring around even the most unpleasant person, but i don't particularly enjoy houellebecq's female characterizations. maybe because i'm an american woman and he writes about french women. anyway, can romance exist in the middle of disgusting scenes from a porn film? maybe flowers and candies and sweet nothings can't, but the concept of unconditional love can.

and speaking of characterizations, i got the impression that houellebecq doesn't really like his characters. as mentioned before, bruno and michel of EP are just horrible people, but all the reader really experiences with either are the morally wrong things they do. we find out that michel has made huge strides in the world of science, and that bruno is a published writer. however, these things are mentioned in passing: pages upon pages of bruno's pedophila but only a small peek into his writing career, which we're meant to believe is of a struggling author. we're not allowed, really, to see any of the things that might make them a positive contributor to society. i know this is the author's way of ensuring readers understand this character is not someone to like, but even chuck lets the reader decide if they want to root for the loser.

as i write this, i wonder if houellebecq's purpose isn't to encourage the reader to root for the loser, a la chuck, but more to appeal to their prurient interests. any thoughts?

finally, i wanted to comment on style. i thought EP was great, a really smooth expository method that meshed well with the different themes expressed. as i understand, the same translator did both EP and platform; so the best way to form objective opinions on houellebecq's style is to refer to the original texts, right? i'll get back to you on that...

Patty?! No respect. No respect. Pemmy is on a stairmaster to my left, creaking on it, so this might not be a very focused response. But I will... give you my all.

Jenny, I completely agree with well-beck as romantic, especially considering that one scene at the beginning of the Elementary Particles, one of the few I'm able to refer to, describing Bruno's search for tenderness. And the sex scenes in Platform aren't disgusting at all — what's wrong with them is that they're too perfect, too glossed over, and there's quite a few of them too, especially near the end. Maybe my own attitudes are coming into play here, but the ease with which Valeria secures a threesome (actually, she does this more than once) and how comfortable she was with the practice felt unrealistic.

And, again, the book has romance too. One scene in particular that I'm thinking of: Michel watches Valerie getting ready for work... argh, I can't find it, so I'll quote the open page I have here in front of me instead: "The same evening, I examined Valerie's clitoris carefully. I had never really paid it any serious attention; wheenver I had stroked or licked it, it was as part of a more overall plan, I had memorized the position, the angles, the rhythmic movement to adopt. But now I examined the tiny organ at length as it pulsed before my eyes. 'What are you doing?' she asked, surprised, after five minutes spent with her legs apart. 'It's an artistic methodology,' I said, giving it a little lick to soothe her impatience. The girl's cast [earlier in the day, he'd talked to a girl who'd made clitorii casts of her own] lacked the taste and the smell, naturally, but otherwise there was an undeniable resemblance. My examination complete, I parted Valerie's pussy with both hands and licked her clitoris with short precises thrusts of the tongue."

I'm not exactly sure why I quoted that, but it will at least give you a taste, as it were, of what's between the covers of ze Platform.

I'm not sure if I feel contempt for his characters from Michel. It feels more like sympathy, and a bare-it-all approach that dispenses with surface markers like published author in favor of examining who his characters really are. I'm not sure if my prurient interests are being appealed to in his books. When Bruno is abused in the beginning of the book, that certainly wasn't appealing, and I'm sure that's not what you mean, but I do find the sex scenes in Platform appealing. In fact, that I found them appealing, i.e. arousing — they are graphic, but, unlike American Psycho, the sex isn't intertwined with violence — was reassuring, because certain scenes in American Psycho also gave me a tent, and who really wants to admit to that?

I also find it interesting that we both had trouble remembering the names of Michel's female characters. Does this mean something?

ok, first of all, who's jenny?

second, when you say the chick's ease in assembling and taking part in a threesome felt unrealistic is exactly what i meant about the female characterizations...maybe a cultural difference. and yes, i do think it's interesting that we can't remember the names of the female characters. i'll bet freud would have something to say about that.

third, you confuse me in the last paragraph. seems as though you were so anxious to admit ap "gave you a tent" that you lost focus. do houellebecq's books appeal to your (you in general) prurient interests? that is to say to some of the ideas cause you to have lustful ideas or desires, or, as you say "tent?" you say you're not sure, but then say they do... and then you don't address the idea that the purpose of the author is to do just that.

finally, i forgot to talk about the commentary on islam, and the idea of acting on behalf of social conditioning and repression/impotence. do you think this is true of all organized religions, or just those with the extremists and zealots?

p.s. did you know the clitoris is the only organ in the body (male or female) designed solely for pleasure?

Of course I knew that!

You know me too well, jen jen, I really did want to make that tent reference, and that obviously kind of obscured what I was trying to say in the last sentence.

What I meant, and, like you said, what conflicted in that last sentence were the differences between those two examples from the book. I guess it's all about how we define prurient interests, completely subjective: I certainly wouldn't call an interest in Michel's sex scenes prurient, but I know some people would. For certain, the abuse scenes are also graphic, but I don't think they were meant or that they were written to appeal to anyone. I would hope that they don't. That aspect of it fits in more with the Michel-as-revealer/barer-of-characters that I mentioned above.

As for the influence of organized religions, I've revealed a bit of my opinions about that to you in chat-form, and I'd rather not reveal any of it in such a public forum. I think repression of any kind can only lead to a more extreme version of what it was trying to prevent. I like that, here, we try to keep the influence of religions at bay, that we, with a few exceptions, enforce the separation between church and state.

I don't understand why it's impossible for some of the people I know to realize that having that Ten Commandments monument where it was was WRONG, and that Judge Moore should've removed it and been cognizant of the reasons for why he should've moved it, instead of protesting and encouraging others to do the same. Some people are just stupid.

repression = extremities, amen. so true of so many areas.

this conversation has gone decidedly south, however...from book-chat to politics? bah! i feel like i'm at work!

Well, only in that last paragraph! I like that you said "amen" to agree with the repression thing. Very nice.

i can always count on you, patioman, to "get" me. sometimes, it seems like you're the only one who does. abba zabba, you're my only friend.

and i think we've pretty much killed this discussion. i really do wonder if anyone read it...

If they haven't, that means this thread is OURS to take over. We can talk about WHATEVER we want!

So, how was your day?

Oh, good god, I replied to your post one minute after you posted it.

Please don't call me patioman, also. Patrick, moe, Patrick. It's the only name that feels right if it's one you know, and you do. You DO.

a triple post all for me!! i feel so special, in a way only a triple post could muster.

you're right, we could take over the thread, but it really does feel like exhibitionism. i'll meet you you know where, wink wink, nudge nudge, the eagle flys at dawn.

oh wait, a gimmicky make-over show is on...and you're otherwise occupied...

It's not gimmicky. It teaches me how to live. And I don't mind performing for the masses!

Strike a pose?

it is so gimmicky. never has the "gay lifestyle" been so appealing to the masses before 2003. previous to "queer eye for the straight guy" we had to watch "queer as folk" for lessons on how to live.

i forgot to tell you that i'm sorry for referring to you as "patioman" before. never again shall i call you by your slave-name, patrick. please forgive me.

Oh please, I was into the metro lifestyle before the word Queer had ever been invented.

I'm going to tell you about my day: an army sergeant called my office today, asking for me, angry, because I'd written an editorial last year about army recruiters and salemanship and blah blah. I left him a message and I just know he's going to report me to George W and take away my rights, but in a secret, X-Files type way, and my identity will be stolen, and I won't be able to know you anymore.

Moe?

well that makes me sad. maybe you should embrace your patioman-ness, keep it as your secret identity.

today was semi-busy. finished up my critique of our "i have a dream" celebration...i'm sure that'll piss off the masses, as not all of it was positive. i also finished up a mailing i've been trying to get out for the past week, but since my intern is back in classes, he hasn't been in to help. so i had to make due with my 1000 yr old volunteer, which really means, i did it myself. also, i noticed the pants i'm wearing are not fitting properly; too loose, and i'm stepping on the back of the leg. this is somewhat distressing, because a) i like these pants they were expensive and c) am i losing weight? i've decided not to worry about it too much, as these are the only pants giving me cause for concern. i will, however, stay on cautious alert.

i stopped at the library today, and picked up a million little pieces by james frey, more matter, and run, rabbit by john updike. i started reading the frey book after dinner and before the real world, and it's pretty interesting. it's about a guy going through rehab in minnesota. nonfic. nothing about his style is really wow-ish, but he does have an interesting free-form prose.

Run, Rabbit?! Blasphemy! Rabbit, Run, moe jo. James Frey is actually more famous for saying bad things about Dave Eggers and David Foster Wallace than for his book, which I heard is OKAY. (Neal Pollack wrote a nice parody of it.) I hate Frey, and his holy mouth.

More Matter gets the Patio approval mark. Check!

Also: I will be your intern.

well, until i check into other-than-infinite-jest, dfw isn't quite the hero to me as he is to you. and i know you worship eggers, so i'll refrain from saying much about him, other than to remind you of my theory on books with the word "genius" on the cover. neal pollack's opinion i value. where can i find this parody? i'll assume a mcs until you tell me otherwise. the frey is OK. i'll finish it, no doubt, and won't kick myself for doing so.

what are you reading tonight?

p.s. glad to see you're returning to your patio roots.
p.p.s. the intern and i have been through some rough times together...i think i'll keep him as a novelty. like a tchotchkey you get at the shore. however, i could use an assistant; how's your coffee?

I'm good at buying it (i.e. the coffee).

Once you read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Girl With Curious Hair, and, maybe, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, I'm sure you'll agree about David Foster Wallace's "genius." Infinite Jest is, unfortunately, a lot of well-written nonsense. He has a new book coming out soon as well — something about infinity again — and another book, called Oblivion, coming out next year, so his fading star is about to shine again.

And.. and.. Eggers was using Genius ironically! Irony! Understand? Yes. Still, tell me what you think of him. I need to know your opinion: uncensored. [btw, if you're not either of the two of us, and you're still reading this message, you're retarded. I swear.]

The parody is somewhere within the archives of Neal Pollack's blog at [url]http://www.nealpollack.com.[/url]

I'm not reading anything tonight, except for your lovely posts and my science book. I bought House of Leaves, for the second time, yesterday, because my last copy, purchased in my junior year of high school, ended up in the trash when it halved and ripped apart, after having lost its cover and the little flap inside with the scraps of info on it.

I sounded kind of fruity in that last message, and I'm already regretting calling IJ "nonsense." I'm sorry DFW, please forgive me.

christ, dfw if you are reading this, sorry to insult your opus. how do you feel about your 1000-plus pages of well-intentioned blood, sweat and tears becoming the quote, unquote poseur's book?

i mean no harm to eggers...it's just ironic how the irony of his title works out to my advantage. i love it when that happens.

hol's a time commitment. does your version have the whalestoe letters included?

p.s. if you're not patrick and are reading this, please feel free to comment on our nerdish-ness. i can't speak for patty, but i know i take pride in it.

re: lester bangs. how much fun do you think they had all living together? all of the creem mag editors? i enjoyed the art. from the former co-worker, but the other...meh. felt like a half-hearted "hommage" to lester, and by hommage, i do mean rip-off.

Actually, if David Foster Wallace *is* reading this, I'm immensely sorry for him. You've fallen so far in the years since Brief Interviews, David, why, David, why? [Except for the contributions to McSweeney's, various essays] Infinite Jest is definitely a poseur's book, as in, "look at me and my enormous book, and it's by a hip author and it has JEST on the cover, and a review quote says it's a work of genius." I still LOVE a lot about it though, so my nonsense line is invalid.

I think it does have the whalestoe letters, but I'm not sure. I'll have to look it over.

The writing style WAS very bangsesque, and it kind of made me tired, sleepy. Reminds me of certain unmentionables whose stories are fake-chuck, and who try to pass their work off as homage when you know they wish that they could make the style their own. No big deal. Lester loved Burroughs and that Meltzer guy, or whatever his name was, too.

Neal Pollack's parody of James Frey: [url]http://www.nealpollack.com/cgi-bin/blog/do.cgi/200304290132/permalink[/url]

great. reading this book and taking it seriously is out of the question. talk about wildly inappropriate. james frey, if YOU'RE reading this, BRING IT YOU BEAUTIFUL MOTHERFUCKER, BRING IT!! i don't care if you gave lincoln the stare-down....i'm pretty scrappy, and i hear you have a lisp!

She heard it from me, fellas.

Haha, look at that tiny message and the enormous sig beneath it.

yeah, it just needs the word "genius" somewhere in it...

Your only allowed to have 8 lines of text in your sig, you my friend, have 13.

xchuck, it figures you would comment on the signature. have you nothing intelligent to say about any of the topics otherwise discussed? have you nothing intelligent to say, EVER?

You actually counted the number of lines in my sig, XChuck? And what makes you think I'm your friend?!

Actually, they [being the moderators] said that, as long as there aren't enormous pictures in a person's sig, then the limits could be pushed as far as how many lines of text there are.

he's bitter because he once posted white noise in its entirety as a signature.

anyway. litcrits: know-nothing failed authors or incisive analysts? or does one's opinion of the critic vary depending on the type of review said critic gives of one's favorite author?

Don't take past humiliations out on me, XChuck. I'm a nice guy — I shouldn't have to take the brunt of your pain.

It does depend on the critic, or, in the case of Laura Miller, the reviewer. Reviewing, either way, is kind of useless: what? you're going to save me 15 bucks? 10 bucks? That's not much of an investment, and yet people are getting paid much more than that to tell us that we shouldn't be spending that money.

Criticism, I guess, does have a function if you're like Lester Bangs, if you're against letting what you love fall into irrelevance, and if, when you recognize a growing trend toward badness, you make light of the badness so that people know that we're moving into bad territory and that these flaws that you've decided ARE flaws should be destroyed, so you've taken it upon yourself to at least mention them. [royal you]

The Chuck review didn't really bother me. I used to be bothered by bad reviews of books/movies that I enjoy myself, but, for some reason, I don't care anymore. It's seems like, after a while, you build up a shell arond yourself and learn to block out other people's opinions, or you learn to lean on your own opinion and not let yourself be fully convinced of someone else's side until.. wel, never. I apologize for this long post. I'm going to be going home in 10 minutes.

I do like criticism as a way of sharing love for literature: like the essays from John Updike, Sven Birkerts, Martin Amis. I think we need to make a line between what we think of as a book review and what we think of a literary critique. Book reviews are worthless, literary critiques can be fun.