pileofgreybooks: a book ring

This novel, by Michel Houellebecq, is very French. It's French in the way that Nausea by John-Paul Satre and Camus' L'etranger are French. In other words, it's as much of a philosophical treatise as it is a novel and that's something American authors don't really do. This novel caused quite a stir when it came out a few years back because it was Houellebecq's first (an incredible accomplishment) and because it's shockingly frank and cynical about sex and the decline of Western civilisation. The book is full of descriptions of rather tawdry, pathetic sex acts but it's a highly serious book, one that posits that Western society has basically played out its current state of evolution and that we're ripe for a "metaphysical mutation." In the world of the book, this comes in the form of an imagined future which I won't give away, but which has to do with genetic engineering.

It's hard to describe the effect of this book, and harder still to pin down its philosophical claims (given all of its meta-fictional conceits). If you tend to think that the world is pretty much set up in a generally positive way and that most people lead reasonably happy lives (or at least have the potential to lead them), this book is likely to temporarily destroy those assumptions. It is umremittingly pessimistic about the current state of our world, but ultimately weirdly dedicated to the beauty of the human soul.

I realise that I haven't really told you much about the book. It follows two French brothers, one a sex-obsessed schoolteacher and one an emotionally cold molecular biologist. Their lives intertwine and Houellebecq dissects late capitalist-materialist society, focuisng primarily on our drive for sexual pleasure and spiritual fulfillment. You may not end up becoming a disciple of Houellebecq's worldview but you will end up having a lot of your standard preconceptions tossed on their heads, which can only a good thing, right?