It is refreshing to have protagonists that are not admirable. — darthbarracuda

I haven't read his works but this is probably what ruffles the feathers of his critics. Readers expect stories worth the pages on which they're written on to be about unambiguous characters because then it's possible, on the last page, to find closure. When characters can't be categorized well and are neither fish nor fowl it becomes impossible to make sense of what the ending of a story means. Was it good? Was it bad? Was justice served? Was justice denied? Etcetera...

I've only read Submission (looks like maybe the only one you haven't read) but I liked it a great deal. It was a very well-written book, not a word wasted. Like you, I also find him refreshingly realistic, direct and very funny. He has a neat trick of being able to hit genuine literary highs while also hitting the no-bullshit conversational directness you'd have smoking outside with your neighbor. And he fits those two together seamlessly. I'd like to read more of him.

At the same time, the part of Submisison I found least compelling - or appealing - were the scenes detailing the narrator's relationship with women. I wouldn't say they're not realistic - they are. But I got the sense these very heartless and despondent interactions were meant to be representative of relationships in general. That's what didn't quite work for me. I've been in empty relationships & bad almost-relationships, and I've been boorish and pretentious and shitty (as, sometimes, the other person was.) but I've also been, at least for a while, in full ones. It's simply not true (at least, as a rule) that men don't make love because they're in love. I don't mean that in a 'but there are good men out there!' way -falling in love, and making love as someone in love, is something that can happen to a whole spectrum of people that doesn't necessarily correlate with empathy/compassion etc. I mean, empty/full doesn't correlate to bad/good (though I do think there are 'good' relationships, if not ideal ones.)

That said, I think the quote about Annabelle is wonderful. I think there any many women who feel that way, I mean I know there are, I've met them, and I think the frank description of how things played out is, again, refreshingly direct. But I suspect it may be less a sketch of a person or type than a sketch of middle-aged women in general - that, I'm not sure about.

'By the age of forty, every man has the face he deserves'.

I've read all of Houellebecq's novels (and some essays) in English except The Map and the Territory which is on one of my shelves or stacked piles. Here's a facile quick & dirty:

Like Lovecraft, Houellebecq's subject is 'the inhuman', particularly how it's manifest in the "liberated", or pointlessly(?) permissive, consumer-driven sexual, cultural & political life of (Parisian? French? Western European? ...) society. Lovecraft's inhuman comes from without: alien forces, the Other (i.e. "utterly incomprehensible extraterrestrial horrors" as not-so-subtle (racist-xenophobic) proxies for non-whites & immigrants); Houellebecq's, however, comes (mostly) from within: self-alienating consumerism-über-alles.

As a counterpart to, or analogue of, Lovecraft's literary cosmicism, I think of Houellebecq's literary digust as 'miserabilism', that is, with even desire (& fear) reduced to consumer transactions, he observes (so it seems to me) that social relations have not only been "liberated" from religious or customary prohibitions since the 1960s but also "liberated" from intimacy and joy and love and friendship (i.e. mutual pleasure, advantage or care) and freedom (i.e. active non-conformity). Very cynical, even despairing, implications: sort of a reactionary(?) marinade of (e.g.) Sade Nietzsche Celine & Cioran for the hollow, post-1968, festival-cum-shopfest of contemporary cosmopolity.

I quite enjoy Houellebecq's weird fiction as (occasionally pornographic, often sadly funny) meditations on the vacuous horror of 'taken-for-granted consumption-for-consumption-sake'. I wonder what Žizek (re: 'ideology') makes of Houellebecq ... does anyone here know?

Yes, but he's leaning into it. That picture is as orchestrated a self-projection as anything from Taylor Swift to Mooji. That you think he has the face he deserves, based on that picture, is ultimately good brand management on his part. That's the reaction he'd want you to have!

:up:

I wonder what Žizek (re: 'ideology') makes of Houellebecq ... does anyone here know? — 180 Proof

Off the top of my head, Žizek believes that Houellebecq is an "intelligent conservative" who, unlike reactionaries, does not offer a solution but is simply honest about the problems at hand.

:cool: Thanks!