(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £12.99)
Houellebecq non Autorisé by Denis Demonpion
(Maren Sell Editeurs, €20)
Daniel is a successful stand-up comic, principal character and narrator of Michel Houellebecq's fourth novel, The Possibility of an Island. He makes jokes like the following. Question: "What do you call the fat surrounding the vagina?" Answer: "Woman." Offensive? Funny? Both? But before we can splutter about sexist filth, both writer and comedian cover themselves: "The strange thing is, I managed to say this sort of thing while still getting good reviews in Elle and Télérama [a middlebrow weekly]." So he admits that the joke is in bad taste—it's reviewers he's attacking.
Many in France, especially reviewers, claim that Houellebecq is a bad writer, while others, evoking Balzac and Schopenhauer, say he alone understands today's under-30s (Houellebecq will be 50 next year). All agree that Houellebecq is a phenomenon: of the 663 novels which will be published in France between early September and the end of October, Houellebecq's is the one that will be most read and reviewed, putting him in pole position for November's Goncourt prize. It is this writer-as-star aspect which Denis Demonpion has captured in Houellebecq Non Autorisé: Enquête sur un Phénomène ("The Unauthorised Houellebecq: Enquiry into a Phenomenon").
Demonpion is an investigative journalist on Le Point. Houellebecq offered to help with the book, but Demonpion declined—rightly, since he discovered that Houellebecq fictionalises his life with the same insouciance as he mixes real people into his fiction. This starts with his name—really Michel Thomas—and his date of birth, two years earlier than he has repeatedly stated, even in court. Houellebecq has claimed that his mother, abandoned him as a baby, feeding a myth of rejection. But Demonpion discovers that they saw each other regularly, if infrequently, until, at 37, he sent her an ultimatum: "As a mother you have been abject and beneath everything—before you die you've still got time to make amends—send me enough money to live on for three years. Without a cheque, your letter will be binned." He broke with his father when the latter criticised him for insulting his paternal grandparents in his novel Atomised, by publishing lies about them using their real names. It was these grandparents who, with a great deal of love, had brought him up.
Demonpion reveals that having studied agriculture, Houellebecq spent two years in film school. Graduating in 1981, Michel Thomas never worked in the film industry, but after 18 months without work, he became a computer repairman—six years at the ministry of agriculture and, from 1991, five at the national assembly.
While he is relentless in tracking down everyone who knew Michel Thomas (few of whom had made the Thomas/Houellebecq connection) Demonpion does not reveal the identity of the writer's first wife, saying only that she comes from the French nobility and was 22 when she married Michel Thomas, two years her senior. A year later their son was born—at first a proud father, Houellebecq seems to have nothing to do with him now. Demonpion says nothing about the subsequent failure of the marriage and is equally discreet about Houellebecq's drinking—although it is mentioned. In 1991 Houellebecq moved in with and later married "Marie-Pierre," who worked in publishing and apparently introduced him to the world of exchange clubs and group sex for which he is now notorious.
Houellebecq's first poems were published in a magazine in 1988. In 1991 he published an essay on HP Lovecraft (1890-1937), an American writer of horror stories and science fiction, and a Hitler admirer. "It was in writing this piece," said Houellebecq later, "that I discovered racism." The two writers have other things in common: Lovecraft had a "disgust for life and a hatred of humanity"; he was also convinced that man was created by extraterrestrials—an idea Houellebecq explores in his new novel.
In 1994 Houellebecq published his first and arguably best novel: Extension du Domaine de la Lutte (translated as "Whatever"). Four years later his second novel, known in English as Atomised, launched him, first in France—where he was hailed as the best living French novelist—later in the rest of the world, where he was hailed as the only living French novelist. At the very least he can be said to have regenerated French fiction. From being written by the refined and read by the few, French literature was dragged into the world of media, marketing and money. Television chatshow hosts discussed fellatio and cunnilingus with the pale, sweaty, monosyllabic Houellebecq who still looks more like the computer nerd he was for 11 years than a sexual adventurer.
In 2001 came Plateform (published in English as Platform in 2002), propounding the virtues of sex tourism in Thailand as a route out of third world poverty. Fictional Muslim extremists, enraged at this further sign of western imperialism, blow up one of the hotels specialising in the exchange. Houellebecq boosted the pre-publication hype by making offensive remarks about Islam in the media: in two weeks the book sold an unheard-of 200,000 copies in France. His publishers, while profiting from the scandal, felt obliged to apologise for his remarks: they went, cap in hand, to the Paris mosque late in the morning of 11th September. Coming out, they saw, like a film directed by Houellebecq, televised images of the destruction of the twin towers. A year later Islamic fundamentalists bombed nightclubs in Bali, killing 202 pleasure-seeking westerners—building Houellebecq's reputation as prophet.
And so to the fourth novel, The Possibility of an Island, to be published in Britain in November. Again, in France, absurd pre-publication hype: a reported E1.3m advance from a new publisher, who then refused to send review copies to more than half a dozen select journals: Le Monde was excluded, Prospect honoured. A marketing ploy, you would think, designed to sell a sloppy book, whereas in fact this novel is better than the previous two and very funny in places.
There are two narratives within the novel. The first concerns Daniel, the provocative stand-up comic cited above. Like Houellebecq, he is a cynic. Like Houellebecq, he has become a multi-millionaire on the back of provocation. Daniel leaves his first wife as soon as she becomes pregnant, later to move in with Isabelle, editor of Lolita, ostensibly a pre-teen magazine but actually read by thirtysomething women terrified of growing old. Fun and sex become Daniel's quest too, horror of ageing the theme of the novel.
The second narrative in The Possibility of an Island, interwoven with the first, takes place 1,000 years in the future; Daniel24, a neo-human, is analysing the first narrative, the memoirs of his ancestor, the human Daniel1. Neo-humans, cloned, live in special residences on an earth devastated by nuclear attacks and climatic changes.
Back in the present, Isabelle at 40 is showing signs of wear. As a gesture of love, Daniel1 marries her, but too late. She gives way to a 22-year-old actress. Now, at 47, the jaded, cynical and very rich Daniel1 finally discovers the true pleasures of sex and with it intense happiness.
Neo-humans like Daniel24, followed by Daniel25, have lost all sexual desire. They discuss the besotted human's descriptions with humourless detachment, their contempt reinforced by watching the few remaining members of his species, savages, cavorting beyond the protective barriers of their Central City.
It is at this stage that Daniel1 has his first encounter with the Elohimites—a sect similar to the Raëlians. The Elohimites enjoy shared sex, free of guilt, in an enclosed society such as Houellebecq has described in two of his earlier novels, the hedonist camp site in Atomised and the Asian tourist hotels in Platform. For the Elohimites, sex is divorced from its consequences because reproduction will be achieved by cloning. This is no help for the faithless Daniel. Knowing himself ridiculous, yet unable to control his obsession with the young actress taunting him now with men half his age, he kills himself—having first lodged his DNA with the Elohimites.
Houellebecq is France's best-known writer, but how good is he? His latest book is a satire, which is not a favoured tradition in French literature. Some accuse him of having nothing deep to say. And the fact that his books are hailed abroad as the pinnacle of French fiction seems to aggravate some French critics, while almost all scoff at his style, or his lack of style, for as the Figaro critic said of Plateforme, "Houellebecq's books are written like the internal memos of medium-sized companies—perhaps that's why everybody reads them." Or perhaps the reviewer had not read the title Plateforme as Plate Forme—Flat Style. In France, la littérature is something elevated, mysterious. Above all, written French must not resemble the spoken language: "Literature has nothing to do with being nice and easy. It demands an effort," writes Eric Naulleau in his recent book Au Secours! Houellebecq revient! ("Help! Houellebecq's back!") attacking Houellebecq. "To justify the very poor French… used by some of our most noted writers, beginning with Houellebecq, appeal is made to Céline's attempt to introduce the spoken language into literature…"
The simplicity of Houellebecq's sentence structure at least makes for fluid translations, and this may be one reason that he sells better abroad than his more syntactically elaborate contemporaries. The style in his new novel is richer and more complex. The descriptions of sex are clear, uncomplicated by hyperbole and, if read in the spirit they were written, entertaining. He is provocative, of course: "Like all beautiful girls, she was basically only good for fucking, and it would have been stupid to use her for anything else," but Houellebecq's opinion of men, and particularly of himself, is even lower. Perhaps the clever thing about this novel is that despite his triteness, Daniel engages our sympathy. Unfortunately, the other characters are unconvincing and two-dimensional, undermining the comparison with Balzac which Houellebecq himself keeps making. Perhaps if he could just break free from his own elaborately constructed image he could write some very good novels.
"The World of Houellebecq," an international conference, will be held on 28th-29th October at the Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh. The event is organised by Gavin Bowd, translator of "The Possibility of an Island," Houellebecq himself will give the closing address.
