Michel Houellebecq’s Mapping of French Culture

We kicked off the new year with an absolutely electric session of the Reading Group at the Institut français on Jan 14. Here's the program: http://bit.ly/1TzgI5I Quite a crowd had assembled to sink its teeth into Michel Houellebecq, France’s most successful literary export of late. Born in La Réunion in either 1956 or 1958 depending on whether you believe him or his birth certificate – he claims his mother falsified his date of birth, as she deemed him to be a precocious child – Michel Thomas (aka Houellebecq) today looks a perfect match to play Scrooge in a future adapatation of Dickens’s Christmas Carol.

Following studies at the Institut national agronomique Paris-Grignon and at the famous Louis Lumière film school (http://www.ens-louis-lumiere.fr), Houellebecq took on various computer support and administrative positions (including at the Assemblée nationale). During his spare time, he first wrote poetry – he was awarded the Tristan Tzara literary prize in 1991 – and later novels. It is for the latter that he has become world famous; more particularly following the publication of Les Particules élémentaires (Atomised) in 1998, which follows two half-brothers through their affective and sexual debacles. The two books up for discussion at the Reading Group were Goncourt prize-winner La Carte et le Territoire (2010) and his most recent offering, the controversial Soumission (2015). Both provide commentaries of French society and culture, and more particularly of (stereotypical) representations of France. The first provides a biography of the fictional artist Jed Martin, who looks on with amusement but also a sense of detachment at the follies of the art market. It includes a humorous portrait of the writer Michel Houellebecq himself, who ends up as a dismembered corpse in a Jackson Pollock-like piece of macabre body art killing. As for Soumission, it is about a university professor who has had a very mediocre career (his greatest merit is in bedding his students), witnesses the events that unfold around and as a result of the 2022 presidential election in France in which the leader of an Islamic party wins. The result leads to a seismic change in the French way of living, particularly as women are discouraged from working and the educational system is no longer secular. Group members had many things to say about the two books, and we could have carried on talking late into the night. A number pointed out how Houellebecq provided an astute critique of liberalism in his novels, as well as social satire. Many were amused by Houellbecq’s provocations and intrigued by his references to other authors. Certainly, there was consensus that his works raised important and interesting issues to be debated in meetings such as ours. And so next time on 11 Feb, we’ll be looking at a novel published thirty years after the death of the author: Georges Perec’s Le Condottière. Do join us for more wine, cheese and literary discussion: there’s no better remedy for the winter chill. Dominic Glynn is Lecturer in French at the Institute of Modern Languages Research (IMLR).

#ReadingGroup #FrenchBooksUK