Tag Archives: Houellebecq

Houellebecq

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Youth was the time for happiness, its only season; young people, leading a lazy, carefree life, partially occupied by scarcely absorbing studies, were able to devote themselves unlimitedly to the liberated exultation of their bodies. They could play, dance, love, and multiply their pleasures. They could leave a party, in the early hours of the morning, in the company of sexual partners they had chosen, and contemplate the dreary line of employees going to work. They were the salt of the earth, and everything was given to them, everything was permitted for them, everything was possible. Later on, having started a family, having entered the adult world, they would be introduced to worry, work, responsibility, and the difficulties of existence; they would have to pay taxes, submit themselves to administrative formalities while ceaselessly bearing witness–powerless and shame-filled–to the irreversible degradation of their own bodies, which would be slow at first, then increasingly rapid; above all, they would have to look after children, mortal enemies, in their own homes, they would have to pamper them, feed them, worry about their illnesses, provide the means for their education and their pleasure, and unlike in the world of animals, this would last not just for a season, they would remain slaves of their offspring always, the time of joy was well and truly over for them, they would have to continue to suffer until the end, in pain and with increasing health problems, until they were no longer good for anything and were definitively thrown into the rubbish heap, cumbersome and useless.

—-Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island

Long quote there…. I clipped this out of the book I finished last night (my clip actually goes on longer). It struck a nerve . Unfortunately, this is exactly how I feel right now.

Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans

In 2002 (reblogged in 2011) I wrote about a question that always bugs me – “Is reading a waste of time?”. I still don’t know… I think it is, there is so much actual stuff to do, but everybody tells me that reading is important, maybe more important that actually accomplishing something.

Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world.

Michel Houellebecq

At any rate, waste or not, I am trying to increase my reading – both in terms of quantity and quality. As a part of that, I stayed up too late last night and finished The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq.

It was an interesting read – sort of a Science Fiction/Dystopian/Erotic/Very French tale, told in first person from the point of view of a nihilistic artist that falls in with a doomsday cult and also from the point of view of a clone of himself, thousands of years in the future.

I now have read a handful of Houellebecq and have enjoyed them enough to continue on to a few more. They are bleak and sexy, intelligent and violent, and resonate with me more than they should… more than I’d like to admit.

Lanzarote

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world.”
― Michel Houellebecq, H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life

Striding Figure (RomeI), Thomas Houseago, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden

Somehow, I don’t know how, I was introduced to the French writer Michel Houellebecq. He was described as controversial, racist, and pornographic – in addition to being one of the most renowned modern French novelists. So, of course, I had to read him.

I collected a few ebooks and decided to start with something short. I chose a novela (84 odd, odd pages) called Lanzarote. The first person narrator is a man without purpose or hope… it starts out:

MID-WAY THROUGH THE afternoon on 14 December 1999, I realised that my New Year was probably going to be a disaster – as usual. I turned right on to the Avenue Felix-Fauré and walked into the first travel agency I found. The assistant was busy with a customer. She was a brunette wearing some sort of ethnic top; she had had her left nostril pierced; her hair had been hennaed. Feigning a casual air, I began picking up brochures from the displays.

Pretty much by accident he ends up going for holiday to an island called Lanzarote. At first, I thought Houellebecq made the place up – but I realized (and did some research) to discover it is the northernmost of the Canary Islands – in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. Lanzarote is pretty much a volcanic wasteland – with a couple of passable beaches. According to the novel, it never rains there.

Somehow, the narrator manages to meet another man, a cop from Belgium, who is even more alienated and hopeless than he is. He also runs into a couple of German women of indeterminate sexuality. And yes, there are some pornographic passages (not too many, luckily).

The narrator pretty much goes with the flow – trying to get through the days as easily as possible while the world goes to hell in a hand-basket all around him. He’s not a bad person, but not really a good one either… though I guess he does his best.

So, did I like it? Yes, I did… though I’m not sure why. Will I read more Houellebecq? Yes, I will. I found a list of recommended novels in order of quality (Titles of the English translations):

7.Whatever

6.H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (a short essay – easily found online)

5.Platform

4.Submission

3.The Map and the Territory

2.The Possibility of an Island

1.The Elementary Particles

Might as well start at the best…. I now have a copy of The Elementary Particles on my Kindle. I think I’ll go to bed and read a little. Tomorrow comes soon enough.