| The publishing house Ad Marginem publishes a collection of articles by Michel Houellebecq “The World as a Supermarket” Writer Michel Houellebecq is a true European star. The release of each of his three novels (“Expanding the Space of Struggle,” “Elementary Particles,” “Platform”) was accompanied by a public scandal, accusations in the press, and legal proceedings. Last fall, Houellebecq found himself in the dock for inciting interreligious hatred: in an interview with the weekly Lire, he allowed himself a politically incorrect attack on Islam. For which he paid: the French National Federation of Muslims (FNMN) and the World Islamic League sued the writer. Houellebecq, naturally, was acquitted. And after the explosions in Bali, his admirers elevated him to the rank of prophet (in “Platform” Houellebecq described a fundamentalist terrorist attack on one of the Thai resorts).
Houellebecq seems to have achieved everything he dreamed of. In the past, a quiet agronomist and a client of a psychiatric clinic (severe form of depression), he now claims to be the main European intellectual. Everyone hates him. The left - for lowering the ideals of 1968. The rightists are for calling themselves communists. Feminists believe that he reduced the role of the modern woman to satisfying natural male needs. The petit bourgeoisie is shocked by the blatant pornography of the novels. Muslims are ready to declare almost jihad. But the first, second, and third read his novels. Despite the fact that critics often advise Houellebecq to take antidepressants and endow his works with impartial epithets: “decadence” and “tediousness”. Nevertheless, photographs of Houellebecq holding a plastic bag from a chain supermarket adorn the walls of the Paris metro. And Libération, at the height of the “Muslim” scandal, placed his portrait on the front page, with the caption: “This man hates you.”
“This man” with a face like a boiled dumpling, by God, doesn’t hate anyone. He lives in Tmutarakan, Ireland, drinks alcohol in excess of the norm, smokes cigarettes in packs, and in the evenings visits a swingers club, one of those that he himself ridiculed. He allows himself to be distracted by completely unexpected activities. He makes short films. Writes poetry. Releases albums of his own photographs. He records discs as a rock performer. He is preparing a porn series for Canala+ with his wife in the title role.
The collection of articles published by Ad Marginem is important because the Russian reader finally gets the opportunity to hear Houellebecq himself. Our criticism constantly confused the “I” of the novel hero with the writer’s “I.” Which is only partly true.
The World as a Supermarket (Le mond comme supermarche) was published by Flammarion in 1998, almost simultaneously with Elementary Particles. The texts that compose the book were previously published in periodicals. The main components of the book are the essays “On the Threshold of Confusion” and “Dead Times” that are close in meaning. Between them are critical articles, interviews, magazine columns. Houellebecq commented on the idea of the collection as follows: “Theoretical reflections seem to me quite worthy material for a novel, no worse than any other and even better than many others.”
Having read The World as a Supermarket from cover to cover, you understand: Houellebecq is perhaps the most ardent champion of the romantic tradition. In light of this, the “Platform” appears not as a misanthropic revelation of a European radical, but as a new version of “A Hero of Our Time.” The devil is not as scary as he is painted.
“My prose is cruel and disgusting,” says Houellebecq, who secretly imagines himself not as a prose writer, but as a poet. He is seriously concerned about the search for a new ontology. To the point that he was ready to believe the Neu Age ideologists. His aesthetic sense is still nourished by the revelations of German romanticism. He does not recognize cinema after Dreyer and Eisenstein and curses the era of sound cinema.
Houellebecq is a sentimental neurotic who has not found a cure in the modern world. The phrase “human warmth” brings tears to his eyes. His criticism of industrial society is witty but monotonous. He calls himself a communist, but denies Marxism. His ideal is Robespierre, who proclaimed not freedom and equality, but fraternity.
The logic of the supermarket world leads to the dispersion of desire. Advertising manipulates a person, dictating to him: “This is what you should want.” Forty-year-old Houellebecq is obsessed with the same neuroses as any thinking European. The endless counters scare him. He feels uncomfortable among the transparent walls of offices that deprive a person of the right to privacy. He is choked in a stream of information that he is unable to digest. His answer to the world is vomiting, masturbation, depression. In the essay “The Poetry of Stopped Movement,” he suggests, with a blue eye, to take a step to the side: “Buy nothing, don’t know anything, turn off the radio, TV, freeze in stillness.” “Life has cooled down, life has left us!” Houellebecq's pathetic and devoid of irony direct speech is discouraging and causes a feeling of awkwardness.
Houellebecq's novel hero is always calm and even. He belongs to the humble breed and therefore can afford lukewarm self-irony. He knows for sure that the world has already arrived in tartarar, all that remains is to relax and have fun. There is something poignant about this apathy. This is something that evokes sympathy and sympathy in the reader. Houellebecq himself is not restrained. He often starts screaming. He's deadly serious. He dreams of getting into a little world in the spirit of Mary Poppins and hopes for the saving role of poetry. He believes that a person has one advantage: kindness. Houellebecq is not a monster. He is the last romantic, obsessed with Wagner and Niels Bohr.
“We shouldn’t be afraid of theorizing, we need to attack on all fronts. An overdose of theory gives unexpected dynamism, Houellebecq noted in an interview; the novel form was not invented to describe indifference or spiritual emptiness. We need to invent a flatter, more neutral discourse.” Houellebecq's theoretical developments in themselves may seem pathetically helpless. They look completely different in the context of his novels. Houellebecq is interesting not for his extremism, but for his attempts to create his own school of writing. In his novels, he deliberately removes all emotional overtones. And he stuffs them with quotes from guidebooks, sociological reports, retellings of quantum theory and salary reports. No matter how much Houellebecq sinned against the supermarket world, he learned its rules well and found an adequate language to describe it. That's why it's relevant. But claims for eternity can wait. Natalia BABINTSEVA |
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