Unauthorized Houellebecq, Investigating a Phenomenon
Available material: Finished copy
N° of pages: 384 p.
Retail price in euros: 20 €
In just three novels ("Whatever", "The Elementary Particles", "Platform"), Michel Houellebecq has established himself on the literary scene as the Author (with a capital A) of the late second millennium. With deliciously cruel eloquence, he projects an image of a world on the brink of collapse – our own – corrupted by the ravages of a free-market economy, a loss of fundamental values and, as a corollary, universal sexual misery. In his line of fire, aging hippies and their ecological and feminist epigones.
Because he believes that humanity’s salvation will come from genetic manipulation and cloning, he has been called everything from fascist to racist to eugenicist and more. But what is he really?
Intrigued by this emblematic character of a society of hype that he manipulates with consummate skill, Denis Demonpion investigated, in order to retrace as carefully as possible this cult writer’s itinerary – from his birthplace in La Reunion to his so-called “retirement” in Ireland.
The author describes how he met some 100 people from the writer’s life: his fellow high-school students, first editors, lawyers, critics, fans, true friends, and even his most unlikely sources of inspiration. The task was all the more difficult in that Houellebecq has deliberately confused the trail in a manner worthy of a work of science-fiction.
Unauthorized, but captivating, this investigation, written like a thriller and based on clues found in heretofore unpublished documents and statements, reveals the past that Houellebecq has done his utmost to cover up, the better to create his own character, clouding himself in the sulfurous smoke that makes him the symbol of post-modern literature.
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