How has this book held up? I have just completed this book, having previously read ‘The Possibility of an Island’ and ‘Submission’. What I do really like about this author is his perceptiveness and bluntness, the way he accurately portrays bleak situations while managing to make the reader chuckle once in a while. He’s vaguely reminiscent of Céline and even Miller in his bitterness, but there is a lack of vitality in his works. I guess this is purposeful, but especially towards the end of his books there is a sense of utter helplessness and apathy. Are there any others like him? I really do think his novels are completely set apart from contemporary fiction, he is truly a transgressive writer. Could his style be emulated in the coming decades? How influential will his work be on the next generation of writers?
Bump for Michel
Also what’s the deal with Michel? At least Bruno had a reason to be all screwed up.
bump
He's an ideas writer, like HG Wells, or Shaw or Iris Murdoch. They tend not to age as well as your narrative and character writers like Austen or Dumas or writers who focus on the sensuality of language itself, like Proust or most poets.
Is it just me or does Houellebecq use the same kind of epiphany that James Joyce uses?I've only read two of his novels but both of them end with a kind of epiphany, extremely futile and useless, of the protagonist towards the endIt's like in L'étranger
>>23316060His book are very one-dimensional in general desu
3rd and final bump
