WHATEVER
‘Whatever’
Michel Houellebecq
‘Whatever,’ the throwaway line, the conversation stopper, the verbal tic, the ubiquitous response to complexity, pregnant with meaning, ultimately meaningless.
Julian Barnes states that any serious writer must write as if both their parents were dead. I would expand this to include all relatives and friends and anyone whom you admire or seek to impress, otherwise the internal censor works surreptitiously to undermine your attempts at authenticity, at undiluted honesty.
Of course in reality this is nigh on possible. However if any writer has achieved this it is surely Michel Houellebecq, (pronounced Wellbeck). Having read ‘Atomised,’ ‘Platform,’ and ‘The Possibility of an Island’ I have finally read his first novel ‘Whatever.’
A French writer who writes with a highly anglicised style, threatened in France by the Muslim lobby with legal action and accused of ‘Islamaphobia,’ he now lives in exile, having first resided in Ireland he now lives in Spain. His books are like intellectual hand grenades. They are easy to read, his prose is uncomplicated, matter of fact, though never dry and always with wit and humour and an occasional curious quality of tenderness. Though easy to read they are never easy reading.
I have read no other writer with such a penetrating critique of modernity, the hollowness of so much that is ‘sold’ to us as ‘living.' if there is a single theme in his work it is the sheer crappiness of modern life. Running through all of his work there is always a strong current of disgust, he views the contemporary world through the telescopic sights of a snipers rifle.
However those seeking to take offence and their numbers seem to grow daily, will find here plenty with which to take offence. Indeed it would be difficult, particularly in ‘Whatever,’ to defend him against the charge of misogyny, though his portaits of male sexuality are hardly flattering, nor a whole raft of other intense and searing hatreds. Difficult to defend, though I would take the case pro bono. His venom often so widespread, so indiscriminate that it is more shot gun blast than snipers rifle.
Houellebecq has been compared to Camus and not since the existentialist French writers of the forties and fifties has France produced such an incendiary. He is a disturbed and disturbing man.
Whatever, is a disturbing book, it left me feeling uneasy. I can think of no greater compliment.
Michel Houellebecq
‘Whatever,’ the throwaway line, the conversation stopper, the verbal tic, the ubiquitous response to complexity, pregnant with meaning, ultimately meaningless.
Julian Barnes states that any serious writer must write as if both their parents were dead. I would expand this to include all relatives and friends and anyone whom you admire or seek to impress, otherwise the internal censor works surreptitiously to undermine your attempts at authenticity, at undiluted honesty.
Of course in reality this is nigh on possible. However if any writer has achieved this it is surely Michel Houellebecq, (pronounced Wellbeck). Having read ‘Atomised,’ ‘Platform,’ and ‘The Possibility of an Island’ I have finally read his first novel ‘Whatever.’
A French writer who writes with a highly anglicised style, threatened in France by the Muslim lobby with legal action and accused of ‘Islamaphobia,’ he now lives in exile, having first resided in Ireland he now lives in Spain. His books are like intellectual hand grenades. They are easy to read, his prose is uncomplicated, matter of fact, though never dry and always with wit and humour and an occasional curious quality of tenderness. Though easy to read they are never easy reading.
I have read no other writer with such a penetrating critique of modernity, the hollowness of so much that is ‘sold’ to us as ‘living.' if there is a single theme in his work it is the sheer crappiness of modern life. Running through all of his work there is always a strong current of disgust, he views the contemporary world through the telescopic sights of a snipers rifle.
However those seeking to take offence and their numbers seem to grow daily, will find here plenty with which to take offence. Indeed it would be difficult, particularly in ‘Whatever,’ to defend him against the charge of misogyny, though his portaits of male sexuality are hardly flattering, nor a whole raft of other intense and searing hatreds. Difficult to defend, though I would take the case pro bono. His venom often so widespread, so indiscriminate that it is more shot gun blast than snipers rifle.
Houellebecq has been compared to Camus and not since the existentialist French writers of the forties and fifties has France produced such an incendiary. He is a disturbed and disturbing man.
Whatever, is a disturbing book, it left me feeling uneasy. I can think of no greater compliment.
