'>>23336863';

'Why did Bruno hesitate when his love interest asked him if he wanted to stay with her? Wasn’t love what he wanted? I’ve read Submission, Possibility of an Island, and Atomised so far and Houellebecq is quickly becoming my favourite contemporary writer. Are there any others like him?';

'>>23336863
Soumission had a profound effect on me.

I read whatever and I thought it captured, very vividly, the soullessness of the west due to rampant liberalism. But soumission really hit home that the moral decay has left a massive vacuum in our society. A vacuum that exists on a micro and macro level, and I think has a huge impact on the mental health of many people.';

'>>23336908
>Why did Bruno hesitate when his love interest asked him if he wanted to stay with her? Wasn’t love what he wanted?
Bruno, just like Michel, was rendered incapable of love by their upbringing by their selfish hippy mother. He was just using Christiane to get access to swinger circles, where he could fuck younger, more desirable women. Once Christiane becomes disabled and no longer desirable (notice the emphasis on the cult of youth, which, as the narrator in the novel says, is downstream from the hippy obsession with eroticism and desire), he just abandons her to her fate and she eventually kills herself because in her state, she can no longer seek pleasure and is no longer desirable.';

'>>23336940
I agree with everything you said except this
>He was just using Christiane to get access to swinger circles, where he could fuck younger, more desirable women.
He did love Christiane, which is apparent before they even visit a swinger club. But his love was tied to her sexual value and died when her sexuality did.

>>23336914
>But soumission really hit home that the moral decay has left a massive vacuum in our society.
Submission is his most distant novel to me. I had a glimpse of the feeling you're talking about but it was difficult to sympathize because I'm not French and have little knowledge of French politics. I enjoyed it regardless because there are obvious analogs to American moral decay.';

'>>23336863
I don't mean to be rude, but this exact observation (bordering on plagiarism) was made almost 50 years ago. The means for making this observation are no doubt older than that.';

'>writes a novel about what if france was overtaken by muslims who imposed sharia law
>spends the whole story following some professor trying and failing to meme himself into becoming catholic
what was the point?';

'>>23337056
Who did he possibly plagiarize? I know it's not a groundbreaking take but it's his tone I enjoy. It's also not a thesis he's arguing for, rather it's just some ranting toward a wider point he's making.';

'>>23337083
It’s not really about Islam, it’s more about the exhaustion of French culture.';

'Could there ever be an Anglophone Houellebecq? What’s his closest equivalent in English?';

'>>23337102
The advertising sub-chapter in Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch, down to the usage of freudian terms';

'>>23337612
Thanks, I'll check it out.';

'Houellebecq in Pléiade when?
I want to consooom';

'>>23336996
>But his love was tied to her sexual value and died when her sexuality did.
On further thought, you're probably right. After all, Bruno was a hedonist.
>>23337501
His style and cynicism are unique. That's what makes him so special. People often compare him to Céline, but Houellebecq literally that Céline is rien que du formalisme';

'>>23336863
>full of his impotent cynicism
Fixed.';

'When the FUCK are we getting an English translation of Anéantir?';

'I don't get the ending of Whatever. I took it to mean the narrator is irreparable and permanently scarred but upon rereading it I suppose it can seem a little hopeful. Anyways I enjoyed the book, reading Atomized next.';

'>>23337612
>>23337727
Is it called "Advertising and Propaganda"? I just read that one and the themes overlap a bit, but it's not plagiarized in the slightest. It's possible he was influenced by Lasch, but what writer doesn't have influences?';

'>>23337808
If it makes you feel then it has an effect. If it has a strong effect then it's potent.';

'>>23337810
September 19 this year in the UK, October 8 in the US, both in hardback';

'Why am I supposed to take a guy that looks like that seriously?';

'>>23338973
Retard';

'>>23338973
It's a part of his self-expression';

'>>23336863
I just want to say thank you /lit/ for nudging me towards reading Houellebecq, genuinely been going through a rough patch and I've smiled so hard my cheeks got DOMS.

Cheers mates.';

'>>23338959
Why does he hate anglos so much?';

'>>23336908
Sadly, no. But you can get some of that feel from Franzen's best works. I read everything recommended as "if you liked Houellebecq then read" and nothing came close.';

'>>23336996
>Submission is his most distant novel to me. I had a glimpse of the feeling you're talking about but it was difficult to sympathize because I'm not French and have little knowledge of French politics. I enjoyed it regardless because there are obvious analogs to American moral decay.

But you are a westerner living in the rapid decline of your society and watching all it's fundamental values being inverted or exposed as empty. Unless you are a true believing Christcuck you live an empty, consumerist life, every pursuing fulfillment through acquiring goods, using social media to portray an ideal life you do not live and perhaps never wanted to. At least most are. Spirituality is utterly dead in the West, and that's his ultimate point. Islam offers to fill the vacuum left when one realizes that chasing consumer fulfillment only ends in sadness.';

'>>23339622
What about a return to paganism?';

'Annihilation English translation when!?';

'>>23339700
ctrl+f "translation". or actually read the thread it's only 30 replies';

'>>23339714
I ctrl+f'd the word English and got distracted by this post>>23337501
>>23338959
How about in Canada?';

'>>23339726
not a serious country, use american date as a proxy';

'>>23339906
I actually agree with that.';

'>>23337083
Because he originally wanted the professor to convert to Catholicism but changed it to Islam at the last minute for le edgy factor.';

'>>23339726
It’s the same as the US';

'>>23339941
Did he say that? Because it makes no sense. I took the point of the book to be that Islam solves moral issues that Western spirituality no longer can, like the struggle for sex and posterity. Having the professor convert to Catholicism doesn't fit';

'To be happy you must live in agreement with your nature. The whole and sole perk of being a male is that nobody will care about you. Whereas the sole perk of being a vagina is that all the men will be desperate to talk to you and give you free stuff spontaneously.The male nature is to be forever alone. On the female side, it is not all rosy, women hate to have a flock of ugly orbiters, and they hate it even more when there is physical contact with those. In other words women hate that too much men care about them. So everybody is unhappy, especially the men. Thanks to a twist, women are actually happy because, doing it for free, the chad orbiters will beat up the ugly orbiters for the sake of the women.
So to be happy as a male you must rejoyce in being a loser. This is the only truth in the universe.';

'>>23337501
>Could there ever be an Anglophone Houellebecq? What’s his closest equivalent in English?
the english media industry is even more focused on profit. The merchants say explicitly that the book which sell is for women, like fifty shades of grey
https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books

One of the strength of Houellebecq is that he had hippie parents, so he saw first hand what those shitty people are and how full of hypocrisy and neuroticism they are. I bet it's a prerequisite for any writer to make similar books.';

'https://innerlifecollaborative.substack.com/p/on-the-narcissist-society

>Lasch’s critique, by the way, closely mirrors that of Michel Houellebecq. Houellebecq, writing in 1998, lands on almost exactly the same chronology as Lasch and attaches the same importance to the New Age’s ersatz spirituality and cult of hedonism. In his novel Atomised, he writes, “A subtle but definitive change had occurred in Western society during 1974 or 1975, Western society had tipped towards something dark and dangerous. In the summer of 1976 it was already apparent that it would all end badly.” In Atomised, the narcissistic tendencies of the era are fulfilled in a minor character David di Meola, considered to be a well-adapted, more or less typical figure of his era, highly-sexed, semi-famous, but utterly without purpose, suspended, as Lasch would put it, between “inner emptiness” and “fantasies of omnipotence.” Di Meola ends up, sort of inevitably, becoming a producer of snuff films — his decadence, Houellebecq writes, “mirroring the progressive destruction of moral values in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties as a logical, linear process.” In Lasch’s conception, those tendencies manifest, all these decades later, in Trump — that peculiar combination of self-regard and self-pity, the ability to make the public sphere entirely a reflection of his own brittle ego.

>Lasch’s critique, like Houellebecq’s, is in many ways nihilistic. Atomised concludes with the — cheerful enough — extinction of the human race (which is understood, in the context of the novel, to be a necessary recourse). Lasch, meanwhile, contends that the West saved itself from the self-destructive ‘live for the moment’ myopia of the 1970s by reattaching itself to a vision of tech-driven futurism. Taking Lasch at his word of the state of things in the 1970s — all the disciplines bereft of solutions, “the natural sciences hastening to announce that science offers no cure for social problems” — the next decades essentially place all their faith in the microprocessor and in the ability of inexorably-advancing technology to solve the social problems that we couldn’t deal with on our own. Lasch spent much of the rest of his career assailing that belief in progress, but he must have recognized that that techno-faith, however naive, at least resolved the aporia of the 1970s and moved the West from the ‘anti-religion’ he discusses in ‘The Narcissist Society’ back to something closer to (inane) religion.';

'>>23340267
This seems like something new or something that is only prevalent in western cultures. By ‘this’ I mean this monomaniacal obsession with the opposite sex. I spent some time in the Third World as a young man and sexuality was just seen as a given. Young men and women were paired off pretty young (<25), often through arranged marriages or high school relationships. I knew a man with severe learning difficulties who was paired off with a nice young woman. You got married and that was that. The typical young guy spent most of his time (when not working) with friends/family or occupied with mandatory national service, and religious observance was pretty high so there was always shit to do outside of the opposite sex. I think the focus on sex and romance, both on a personal and societal, is ultimately unproductive and should be sublimated into higher pursuits.';

'Just finished aneantir, my first Houllebecq. Will reread. It was quite melancholic, very sentimental. Really enjoyed it, but not at all what I expected. I've always heard Houllebecq is caustic and edgy, is this the exception or did he write more like it?';

'>>23341061
>is this the exception
Yeah, his earlier books are more angry and edgy and funny. Now that he's getting older it seems he is getting more quiet, more resigned. But he always had a certain romantic side.';

'>>23341061
The Map and the Territory. It has some macabre moments but it's no where near as acerbic as Whatever, Platform, The Elementary Particles, and Submission';

'> “Some censorious types worry that incels might be reading Houellebecq, but I tend to think he is exactly who incels should be reading. For when you suspect that your life is sapped of all prospects of success, sexual or otherwise, it can be reassuring to read a book that confirms your experience. As Schopenhauer — another pessimist with a terrible relationship with his mother, and a stated inspiration for Houellebecq — once wrote: “Life is a business which does not cover the costs.” For those men who have found that the sexual revolution did not cover their costs, reading Atomised must come as a relatively harmless salve to the anguished mind.”

https://unherd.com/2023/08/why-incels-should-read-michel-houellebecq/';

'He should have taken the shot.';

'Honestly I think he sucks. Elementary Particles was not depressing but rather disgusting. Like having to watch someone use a toilet. We all know what is going on. The ending was pathetic, and proves H is not antimodern but ultramodern. This man literally hopes for biological immortality via medical science.';

'>>23341399
>The ending was pathetic, and proves H is not antimodern but ultramodern.
Well he has said that he isn’t a reactionary …';

'>>23341399
>The ending was pathetic, and proves H is not antimodern but ultramodern. This man literally hopes for biological immortality via medical science
Absolutely filtered. Reread the book';

'>>23341061
I'm personally a houellebecq disliker, I find his style corny and annoying, but I'd say even then I like the possibility of an island.
In general I tend to dislike critiques of contemporary cinema and bourgeois culture to be excessively dumb and unoriginal, but here he managed to be somewhat right in some things. But obv the book is not just that and in times it can be poetic. Clearly his best, the one of his books that reeks subpar kafka the least.';

'>>23336914
Overrated af
2022 came and went, literally nothing happened.';

'>>23341399
>This man literally hopes for biological immortality via medical science.
I regret to inform you that you didn't understand it at all.';

'>>23341566
It wasn’t an earnest prediction monsieur it was satirical';

'Houellebecq is one of those artists with a modest amount of talent, who has a moment where all the stars briefly align and he produces genius. Elementary Particles saved his career but ended it at the same time, because there was nothing to say afterwards. We can feel all the seething rage and frustration of his youth, the meaningless sex, the deadbeat hedonistic parents, anger at the naivete of the flower power generation, nights spent in agony writing poetry alone, all of it.

By contrast, when I read Soumission or Platform he just feels apathetic. None of the sex tourism or politics shit affects him so there's no emotion put into it. Surprisingly the humor bits in Platform were pretty decent though and felt more honest to how Houellebecq probably is IRL nowadays. If he wrote the whole book like that as a crass, smug, apathetic old man and dropped the social commentary it would probably be much better. Likewise I don't really buy his politics. Soumission is a book that should have been made but Houellebecq was the wrong guy to do it. I kinda gave up on any H. book recapturing the magic, but hell, maybe I will finish Map and the Territory one of these days and it'll prove me wrong';

'>>23341641
>Likewise I don't really buy his politics
What do you mean?';

'I just read pages and pages involving a man being a pervert who masturbates and perves on teenage girls
Then he rants about how much he hates Brazilians to a random woman
Then he starts perving on teenage girls again
I just want to read Zola and Balzac bros...';

'>>23341641
I feel like you didn't give Platform a fair shot. The sex tourism isn't just sex tourism, it's an experiment in solving the problem of sexual selection for post-morality Western man. It absolutely affects him. And he comes off as apathetic for closely tied reasons to the social commentary. If you remove the social commentary it's just aimless ranting.';

'>>23342338
Who are the best French authors? I’m currently learning French and I’ve only read Bel Ami by Maupassant, Journey to the end of the night by Céline, a couple of Houellebecq books, and The Stranger by Camus, all in translation. On my to read stack I have Zola, Stendhal, Lautremont, Montaigne, and Pascal.';

'>>23337819
I think I read somwhere that the ending is a tribute to the ending of georg büchners lenz. Which means its not an happy ending.';

'>>23336863
>French writers
>Holla Back
>Honor the Ballsack
>Dumbass
>Fuck-all';

'>>23342098
H. feels like a guy who got into politics out of boredom, simply to fill a vacuum. He is a genuine melancholic, it's true, but for these people to flourish they need conditions of actual melancholy to inspire their doomer world view. What politics gives you is not melancholy, it's frustration. Houellebecq's original dream was poetry, not prose. And frustration and irritation are not very poetic emotions. You definitely can write about politics in a Romantic way, but it has to actually matter to your protagonist.

>>23342900
I believe Platform (and most of his post-fame works) borrow too much from imagination. Platform is not a bad book idea in any sense, but you don't get the sense he lived any of this, it's crafted out of thin air, it feels weightless.';

'>>23343307
>you don't get the sense he lived any of this
>I believe Platform (and most of his post-fame works) borrow too much from imagination
He has said in an interview he toured Pattaya, Thailand (final setting of the book) and the way he described it is similar to in the story.';

'>>23343189
I've only been reading French literature for 6 months and I've only been reading it in French and so I haven't read much since it's difficult
I guess you're missing Balzac but I assume you just forgot it when you wrote up that list
I really loved Le Colonel Chabert
He reminds me of Tolstoy a lot
I've been reading Les Soirées de Médan which is supposedly the naturalist manifesto and Boule de Suif by Maupassant is excellent, I highly recommend you read it
I don't think L'Attaque du Moulin by Zola was as good but it was decent reading practice
I've only read a bit of Sac au dos but you can immediately tell Huysmans is a very different author from the previous 2
I've only read 20 pages of Rimbaud but I enjoy him a lot
The authors I've read the most have been Houellebecq and Georges Simenon
If you have any interest in detective novels than the Maigret novels are great for learning French
They are intimidating at first but you soon realise that he just has a particular vocabulary which he uses in each of his stories';

'>>23343561
Sure, that much is true.
I mean he did not live it in the sense of what his book character went through. There's lots of filling in the gaps if you get me';

'>>23344505
How long does it take for an English speaker to be able to read French reasonably well?';

'>>23345558
I don't know how long it'll take me until I can start reading French reasonably well
Based on my current progress I think it could take 2-3 years, maybe more, until I am able to comfortably read whichever author I want to read, but I could be wrong
At my current level I still very much enjoy reading, the stories are meaningful to me, the characters stand out to me, the dialogue is interesting and the descriptions are very immersive
So I don't really focus on how long it'll take me to reach an ideal 'end point' but rather I instead focus on enjoying the process of learning to read French by reading French
In my opinion you can start learning to read French by reading French after maybe 6 months?
I recommend French for Reading by Karl Sandberg and anki
It is an unpopular opinion but I think the Harry Potter series is perfect for a first text after French for Reading
It'll be brutal and you will need to do endless dictionary lookups and make hundreds of anki cards, but it'll be worth it
The key is to minimise the time it takes to search a word up in the dictionary';

'>>23345558
Took me 4 years. Now I can read anything I want.';

'>>23345558
>reasonably well

You should be able to read a newspaper in about 6 months. I read The Stranger in french after about a year.

But after 3 years I still struggle with more difficult texts and miss lots of words. It's ongoing. houellebecq has been hit or miss. Soumission was rather easy to read, but I'm finding les particules elementaires much more difficult';

'>>23336863
First three chapters in the atomised and he has talked about erectile dysfunction, homoerotic fantasies about naked boys and a character fantasizing about female masturbation in a parking lot. I'm really looking forward to all the other chapters in this book';

'>>23336863
Had anyone here watched the kirac film? Did they entice him with Jini?
https://www.instagram.com/jini.jane/
It has been shown a couple of times at Dutch film festivals.';

'>>23341532
The last chapter, M discovers medical immortality by reading rhe Book of Kells. This is the finale of the book-- a reassurance that, despite the bumpy road, positivism will be worth it in the long run.';

'>>23346724
>positivism
QRD?';

'>>23346724
>a reassurance that, despite the bumpy road, positivism will be worth it in the long run.
That's a bad read of Houellebecq's intent. He writes a similar but more elaborate thought experiment in Possibility of an Island and it's anything but hopeful or reassuring.';

'>>23346207
He also talks about oppressive nature of things like weather, being cold or too hot. Which I think is clever if you want to have a decorative prose';

'What's his most chuddy book?';

'>>23347293
Whatever';

'>>23346724
>a reassurance that, despite the bumpy road, positivism will be worth it in the long run.
No, I'm pretty sure Houellebecq thinks that (Comtean) positivism is doomed in the long run. The character Michel helps instantiate a new paradigm shift, effectively refuting the prevailing scientific materialism, but the Polish guy whose name I forget takes Michel's work and eventually perverts it by 1) making it more vulgar and 2) by literally pulling the hippies and new agers on board. I don't think the ending is supposed to be "happy."';

'>>23347058
>>23347937
I recall the section where M finds the secret to immortality as being vaguely mystical, and the richest prose of the entire book, which is largely flat and descriptive. It had been a decade or so since I read the book, which seemed like a kind of slash fiction about the seedy underbelly of western progress. I read an interview with him where he describes himself as a positivist, which is a progress narrative regarding man's knowledge. I do respect Houellebecq for facing up to the ugliness of modernity which is so often masked by the progress narrative / positivism. However I find him completely useless because he offers no solution, refuses to see traditional society as a solution to the social ills he describes, and ultimately retains hope in science as the only thing which can rescue mankind from its situation. He takes the idea of biological immortality seriously enough to include it in a book which is otherwise distant from science fiction. To me this gives us deep insight into his mind. You can say he was being ironic but that closing chapter is full of mystical, forward-gazing hope (do you expect me to think biological immortality is not a hopeful notion? It is a universal desire or a universal temptation.)

>>23346930
The history of mankind moves from primitive knowledge to advanced knowledge as greater mastery over nature and its workings is achieved. Comtean positivism is now so deeply embedded in modern thinking that it hardly warrants mention as a theory-- it is more of a universal assumption by now.';

'>>23347994
>However I find him completely useless because he offers no solution, refuses to see traditional society as a solution to the social ills he describes, and ultimately retains hope in science as the only thing which can rescue mankind from its situation.
You've accurately pointed out that Houellebecq offers no solutions, but that's his point. For him, Western civilization is in a long stage of decline (or suicide), but also that this decline can't be stopped. Returning to traditional society is unrealistic (he said in one interview that one of the central themes in his work is that a system in the process of decline cannot be reversed) and any "progress forward" only advances us towards nihilism, godlessness, "liberty" and consumption. Tl;dr he's a pessimist. And on my first read, I saw the epilogue as absolutely bleak, because it basically sounded like Brave New World, but maybe I've misunderstood Houellebecq's view of science, although I do not think he views all progress as "good," which among other reasons, makes it easy to place him in the more conservative camp';

'>>23348044
Yeah I wish he would just be pro tradition or purely antimodern. His refusal to be either is why I dislike him. It's very French. He accurately percieves the intellectual problem but arrogantly refuses all of its posed solutions.';

'>>23347994
>You can say he was being ironic but that closing chapter is full of mystical, forward-gazing hope
The same forward-gazing hope is in his other novels too. In Possibility of an Island there's a pessimistic positivist ending, an sort of inversion of the epilogue in TEP. In Submission there's a traditionalist solution. And in Platform there's a capitalist solution. Just because he constructs these thought experiments and works them into his novels doesn't mean they explain his entire worldview. My >>23347058 point is that judging him on TEP alone is incomplete.';

'>>23348098
For sure a writer cannot be judged on one work alone, and this post is a nice clarification which I appreciate. Perhaps I just dislike the nauseating explorations of meaningless modern life. I tend to already see the world that way, and see literature as a way to escape, illucidate or lend meaning to that pessimism. And his prose, in English and I imagine also French, is not at all rich or beautiful.';

'>>23347994
>refuses to see traditional society as a solution to the social ills he describes
The only way back to a ‘traditional’ society in say France or the UK, on a more broader scale than small Amish-esque communities, would quite literally entail something resembling an apocalyptic collapse. To get rid of the pill, social media/the internet, and to successfully indoctrinate the population with the edifice of your choice is impossible. Of course this is basically the plot of Submission, but would a Muslim France (‘the eldest daughter of the church’) or Britain be desirable? Would it even last long term? The Gulf Arabs are liberalising at an alarming rate. It’s interesting how even relatively conservative/traditional countries like Japan, South Korea, and Iran struggle with low birth rates. I think once you grant any level of autonomy to women you start losing your traditional society. It seems like we have reached a stage where how we live and how we should live are diametrically opposed.';

'>>23348981
I agree with all of that, this world is fucked. Modern society rushes to doom, unaware it is running out of gas. Mushroom clouds: soon.

Save yourself and cut the wires connecting you to the metaverse.';

'It still weirds me out that the my chose “Whatever” for the English translation when it’s so far appart from the original French title';

'>>23348109
>I tend to already see the world that way, and see literature as a way to escape, illucidate or lend meaning to that pessimism
I understand that. I certainly find no escape from the meaninglessness when reading Houellebecq but it has a je ne sais quoi that I find cathartic. Maybe it's a sense of unity with fellow strugglers.
>So, this is how it is, huh?
>Yeah.';

'Just copped Whatever, what am I in for?';

'>>23349224
>it has a je ne sais quoi that I find cathartic. Maybe it's a sense of unity with fellow strugglers.
Yes, he’s one of the few writers that truly understands. His writing is authentic, and you don’t get the preachy undertones you get with other writers. I think it’s because ultimately he is of a demographic that is unsung in today’s society. Ugly, frail, middle-aged European men. Also he has no desire for acceptance among the bien pensants.';

'>>23349330
Easy to read, captures banality of corporate life perfectly. I was never as bad as the protagonist but I felt I could relate to ALOT of what I read

In fact I wrote a few short stories exploring some of the same themes before I discovered houellbecq, and I realized quickly it was already done, but he did it way better and much more thorough';

'>>23349330
enjoy Tisserand';

'>>23348981
>I think once you grant any level of autonomy to women you start losing your traditional society.
Exactly why Feminism is the only good thing happening from 200 years of democracy.
Feminism is good because it destroy the grotesque male narrative that men are the stronger sex. The truth is that women sit at the top of the sex market. Women are sex capitalists. It's women who organize the competition . It's men who compete for women and not women who compete for men. So they are right to be very strict about the rules. And since they are the queens, and 99% of men just live to provide for them, they have the luxury of rebuking any male quest they want and imposing on men various duties.
The even bigger picture is that Men never really managed to tame the female sexual cravings. Women cannot be contained in coats of conventions, the female sexual libido is too strong and too violent for this. A women is pure sexual energy. When she discovers this, when she peels off the phony social layers, she merges with her true whorish self and she will never ever be the same.
This is why all societies are flawed inherently. And it doesn't help that all men are eager to please women sexually and non-sexually. democracy is even worse.';

'I'm not in love, so don't forget it
It's just a silly phase I'm going through
And just because I call you up
Don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made';

'>>23349359
>In fact I wrote a few short stories exploring some of the same themes before I discovered houellbecq
Same. I used to write short stories about a dude who fucks sex dolls';

'>>23349369
>Copypasta
And im sure it goes back even further
https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search&ghost=false&search_text=The+truth+is+that+women+sit+at+the+top+of+the+sex+market';

'>>23349369
Ironically wellbeck praises female instincts and derides male ones in the book. Of course, he probably think differently if he was a fine specimen of a male; healthy, well-adjusted, and charismatic.';

'>>23348981
>would quite literally entail something resembling an apocalyptic collapse

Yeah, no duh, why do you think traditionalists pine for the Middle Ages?

The only solution to the Modern world is to burn it. This is why the deranged populists are so popular, deep down: not because they offer any actual remedies for the ills that plague the modern West, but because in their outrageousness they may successfully collapse the modern West, and something better can be built from the ashes. The most rational reason to support these guys is because they offer the prospect of burning it all down, and doing so before it's too late and the Muslims overrun everything.';

'>>23340273
Is the book industry dead? Are we ever going to read new books and enjoy them?';

'>>23336863
I used to be a doomer but then it got boring

Captcha: Y4DAD';

'>>23350199
I think that you can be pessimistic in a general sense yet still live a fulfilling life.';

'>>23336863
I've read all his novels, just waiting for the English translation of his last one';

'>>23349815
It's probably better to collapse sooner rather than later, when the material conditions have degenerated even further.';

'Why does Houellebecq not like Céline?';

'>>23337819
he accepts he's destined to be alone and insane now and he lies in the grass and looks at the sky on a beautiful day, it's accepting the rest of his bleak existence and the peace it brings. the movie completely changes the ending and ruins the story, do not watch';

'>>23350430
His novels are basically all the same and his style is threadbare, how would you pick a favourite?';

'>>23341532
it's not necessarily his belief because that's what his character does, a lot of his books end with inhumanity replacing humans which he sees as the inevitable result of the spiritually void time we live in';

'>>23350476
they're certainly similar thematically because they all espouse his worldview but they are distinct. Elementary Particles is my favorite, it's the best expression and explanation of said worldview';

'>>23346717
He said he was talked into signing the contract while ‘depressed’ after drinking a bunch of wine. What does the old fart still have to be depressed about? He’s a critically acclaimed author with squillions of euros in the bank and an Asian wife 60 years his junior.';

'>>23350669
>What does the old fart still have to be depressed about?
Yeah, it's uncommon for acclaimed authors to be depressed and suicidal isn't it';

'>>23350453
>Why does Houellebecq not like Céline?
he says Céline is too formalist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hksSZ-kxsPQ';

'>>23349815

So you guys have to accept that:
1/ all societies decay
2/ the democratic republics by the bourgeois will not be exempted from decay
3/ the new society will not have the bourgeois at the top, ie it will not be a republic
4/ if the new model of society is so obvious, the bourgeois will nip it in the bud, in order to keep their republics alive
5/ the new society will NEVER EVER be created by any civil servant or businessman

=>The solution will never come from any media products like Zemmour in France, nor from a business product like Trump in the USA, nor from an academic product like Milei (in democracy, academia is part of the entertainment industry), let alone a self-made intellectual like Dugin, nor from a woman because, in democracy, women are products of bureaucracies and marketing.
The solution will come from somebody who is not part of the republic. Only an external element and/or an external event to the republic will destroy the republic and the fake dichotomy bureaucrats-businessmen for good.
The point is that it will be so strange that westerners won't see it coming.';

'>>23351252
So, communism?';

'I grew up during the 2000s in American suburbs. My best friend came from Kansas (we were in Georgia), and his family was super trad. They went to church every Sunday, they did bible study at home, they never played pop music in the car, they ate traditionally (only dad could have soda), no internet, no video games except on weekends, tons of chores. Even when I went over to hang out, his parents made us play outside 90% of the time. When my friend got into trouble they actually disciplined him by making him write the same word over and over again like Bart Simpson (ex. "I will not eat food on the couch" 30 times). One time they actually took his bedroom door off the hinges as punishment, I forget what for. The family went through hell a few times, and almost divorced, they had to live in a hotel for months etc. but they stubbornly held it together.

Everyone in his family turned out great. They still attend church, they're still close. My friend grew up to be ridiculously tall (like 6'3"), but instead of manwhoring himself out in college, he became a camp counselor and found a girl who he's been dating continuously since age 18 or so. His younger sister (my former crush) married around age 20. They also had a 5th child. Needless to say, they turned out significantly better than any other family I know. Despite having way more restrictions & responsibilities, they just seemed kinda... happy. Which is insane to think about because anyone who grew up in the 1990's and after was raised to view the trad family as not only oppressive but as a fake ideal, something that's not actually possible and only exists in sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver. I saw firsthand that it not only worked but absolutely excelled. My friend even has that same optimism he had as a child.

Honestly, I can't help but feel that if we all lived in such families, we would be incredibly happy. Like the Amish. I'm really sad I couldn't spend more time with his family, but I feel worse for you guys who have no idea what it's like. These guys had NONE of the stuff we value, no games, no TV, no internet, no junk food, no casual sex, no nothing, and they were just so much happier than anyone else I know. If I have a family I can't imagine raising them any other way';

'>>23351397
>oppressive but as a fake ideal, something that's not actually possible and only exists in sitcoms like Leave it to Beaver
To be fair I think most peoples point with that is that you can’t have that family and be perfect. Not that you can’t turn out well. And like you described they clearly weren’t perfect they almost divorced and such after all.';

'>>23351397
>These guys had NONE of the stuff we value, no games, no TV, no internet, no junk food, no casual sex, no nothing, and they were just so much happier than anyone else I know
Does Houellebecq talk about asceticism anywhere? A lot is made of his Schopenhauerian influences. Desire in his books is always ultimately futile. I guess the clones from ‘the Possibilty of an Island’ lead an ascetic lifestyle but even that ends in failure.';

'>>23351406
It's up for interpretation. The message I always got from those sitcoms is that "The trad life is a farce so why even try".

>>23351411
Calling that "ascetic" is going too far. The trad lifestyle is basically communal, which lies somewhere between asceticism and egotism. I would say the modern lifestyle is inherently, deeply egotistical. The trad life doesn't tell us that pleasure is wrong, it only tells us "Find pleasure in other people", which is your community members and your family. Anything that deepens those bonds is good. Anything which atomizes those bonds is bad. The characters in Houellebecq novels are so insanely atomized that they only interact with others for sex pretty much. His novels are like a post-apocalyptic society where any idea of "community" is dead and human connection and love have become impossible. But his characters are egotists who try (and fail) to be happy through egotism anyway.

The fucked up part is, I think one specific part of Houellebecq's novels is becoming true. As in, we're unironically losing the ability to be selfless like our grandparents could. Let me give you an example. At my college in America there is a dining hall with a very friendly old black lady working the entrance and she would greet basically everyone in a lovely way -- even a weirdo like me. Naturally this made her liked by everyone. But when I would see zoomer girls come up and be friendly with her I never got the impression that it was the same sort of love the black lady gave them back. It was more of an "Aww look at the friendly lady she's so cute" way, like a cartoon or something. See, us humans can only feel love to the extent that we can give it. So I don't believe any of these zoomer girls actually felt loved by this nice old black lady, because the idea you could view a stranger charitably is unimaginable to them. Zoomer girls are trained to view average guys as neutral at best, and potential threats at worst (see the currently trending bear meme).

The nice old ladies of America are a dying breed. The idea that random strangers in public are probably good people is unthinkable to zoomers. It's utterly crazy when you think about what we're losing.';

'Apart from the pornography, his books are kinda boring';

'Serotonin goes very hard on a depressive bender.';

'>>23351268
An attempt, after the fall of American hegemony, then further decay';

'Houellebecq shines a perfect light on the incel. He hates degeneracy and nihilistic sexual pursuits because
Because
Because


He can’t partake.

The incel is the epitome of slave morality. He sees the grapes he can’t have not just as sour, but as evil';

'>>23351506
I concur with your point re selflessness. My grandma is an Old World type, barely literate, was married to my grandpa from the age of 20 until he passed away (around 50 years). The care she showed towards her own family as well as her community was immense. She revered her husband almost like he was a demi-god and never once shirked from her duties. Thinking back on the times she took care of me when I was a child still makes me misty-eyed. She had no real life of her own and spent most of her time taking care of her household, and in turn she received undying love and respect from her kids and grandkids. I think that humans can only thrive under some level of restriction on their personal freedom; relationships nowadays have a built in escape hatch. There are endless opportunities to defect, and abandoning a relationship is extremely easy as well as very rewarding in the short term. Of course there valid critiques of traditional monogamy, but the alternative is much too bleak.';

'>>23352048
Are you saying the incel hates degeneracy and nihilistic sexual pursuits? Or Houellebecq? Because Houellebecq is a sex-haver';

'I just finished Whatever, what do I think of it?';

'>>23352048
No one of his characters are really incels desu';

'>>23352122
A lot of that is sex workers

>>23352246
His readership base is';

'>>23352251
>A lot of that is sex workers
He was married in his early 20s and had a kid. By no definition is he incel';

'>>23352155
You tell me buddy';

'Where is anteater';

'>>23352120
>I think that humans can only thrive under some level of restriction on their personal freedom
The trad lifestyle is basically a mountain of rules that nobody wants to follow, but if you simply suck it up and live that way you will be much happier overall. It's just extremely counter-intuitive. No one thinks if they lived like an Amish person their quality of life would skyrocket, but that is actually true for the clear majority of people.

>>23352276
His work is barely incel at all. When someone gets laid in his novels, it's a brief second of happiness followed by a return to emptiness';

'>>23351506
>The fucked up part is, I think one specific part of Houellebecq's novels is becoming true. As in, we're unironically losing the ability to be selfless like our grandparents could.
This is one of the themes in Elementary Particles. The sexual revolution and neoliberalism have created rampant narcissism. It's scary because it's true';

'>>23351506
Correct but it applies to everyone under 43.';

'>>23353318
That part near the end of the book where the narrator speculates that maybe love itself has become impossible is amazing';

'>>23353318
The loss of religion preceded both';

'>>23339437
um probably cuz they destroyed his beloved france?';

'>>23352048
>He can’t partake

Is it so hard for some people to comprehend that good honest people may find decadence truly disgusting and abhorrent.';

'>>23355071
You make a good point, but in this case Houellebecq is terminally horny and sexually decadent and doesn't try to hide it.';

'>>23355477
Houellebecq is definitely not critiquing it from a "that's degenerate" perspective like the incels, so much as "If our entire society operates this way then it's going to collapse" way, for multiple reasons. Anon is wrong to characterize it as a moral thing since that is never the man's angle.

Yes he's a horny degenerate, but that's why he saw the writing on the wall all the way back in the 1990's. Also, as pointed out many times before, most of his critique is not about incels per se but on how casual sex psychologically harms the dynamics of all relationships -- just look at the BDSM clubs in his novels for example';

'Reading Houellebecq is liking getting into a warm blanket, there is a comfiness evident even in the translation, the end of the world is more tolerable when someone can document it better than you ever could .';

'>>23355554
Agree with you on all points. Since you brought it up, the BDSM club scene in Platform is an interesting example. Michel is initially tempted, but he doesn't judge until he experiences it and realizes (with the help of Valerie's revulsion) that it's a barbaric inversion of erotic love. He has sympathy for the lonely and touch-starved participants -- like him, they're victims -- and without Valerie he may have fallen into it.';

'Is Atomised good at all?';

'>>23356309
It's excellent. Go read it.';

'>We're going to slander you and make your wife look like a deranged cuckquean.

How you do respond without sounding mad?';

'>>23356339
Alright, it's on my list and hopefully I will read it within the month. Just have to finish Heretics of Dune and Sisyphean first.';

'>>23355554
He’s married but let himself be shot in a porn just to fuck a woman. Incels all fantasize about being able to be promiscuous as possible. They want monogamy for themselves as a way of feeling morally superior, but the truth is they would not be that way if they were attractive and affluent. Hence it’s slave morality.';

'>>23356566
Bunch of Nietzchean nonsense. French authors have a history of doing attention-grabbing stunts to stay relevant going back centuries. It's a part of their literary tradition. This is why Houellebecq is so vocal about Islam, assisted suicide, etc.';

'>>23355554
>how casual sex psychologically harms the dynamics of all relationships
Physically as well, in the case of Christiane. I always thought it was poetic how she incurs her injury during a rather vigorous session at a swingers’ club. In possibility of an island the dichotomy between casual sex and love is perfectly spelt out. The going away party for Esther is one of the most pathetic scenes I’ve ever read in literature, as well as Daniel1’s last mention.';

'>>23356835
Authors and artists doing crazy things isn’t unique to the French. Houellebecq fucks prostitutes compulsively and is a coomer of the most intense order despite having always been slovenly (which appeals to incels). His shot in the porn is not for attention as he made a major legal effort to prevent its release after his post nut clarity. He misses the sexual revolution because ugly men could easily pull a Polanski which they can’t anymore. But instead he paints a picture of some sort of melancholy moral disdain when in fact he is about as much of a volcel as Sade but is dishonest about it';

'>>23356856
It seems like you don't understand the man or his novels whatsoever.';

'>>23356861
Cope.';

'>>23356856
>He misses the sexual revolution because ugly men could easily pull a Polanski which they can’t anymore.
This exact point is addressed in The Elementary Particles. It's obviously not his position. You either haven't read it or it was a shallow read.';

'>>23356856
>He misses the sexual revolution because ugly men could easily pull a Polanski which they can’t anymore. But instead he paints a picture of some sort of melancholy moral disdain when in fact he is about as much of a volcel as Sade but is dishonest about it
Redditor who has never read frogman detected';

'>>23356881
Houellebecq's main message is that sex is a destructive force of nature. For young men it's basically as important as food & water, and if you don't hand it to them, they'll waste most of their lives trying to obtain it. Even a manwhore like Bruno still ruins his life over sex because it stops him from developing emotional bonds with anyone. The only time any character in his novels comes close to happiness is in monogamous relationships like with Valerie.

Whether you get pussy or not doesn't matter. It's the chase for pussy that 95% of men are forced into that ruins us. The only solution is, oh wouldn't you know, free sex for all men, which is what traditional marriage is.';

'>>23356941
But it’s not? Traditional marriage is expensive as fuck. Neither does it satisfy the author who keeps wanting more sex. Saying marriage satisfies men is disproven by the author himself who isn’t even young';

'>>23357029
We have already established he has an abnormally high libido';

'>>23357063
But he doesn’t. All coomer incels are like that. It’s just being a coomer. Saying it is a high libido is like saying fat people Are just big boned.';

'Apparently Houellebecq wrote a post-face for the SCUM Manifesto, but I can't find a pdf of it anywhere. Does anyone know where to find this? I don't care what language it's in either';

'>>23357908
apparently it's only in the edition from the year 1998, afterwards it was removed in 2005 lol


>Houellebecq admire certainement Solanas pour faire chier son monde, mais pas seulement. L'écrivain passé maître de la sociologie d'anticipation partage avec la sorcière misandre un goût pour le différentialisme le plus radical et le souhait profond de voir la recherche embryogénique établir un jour le règne du féminin et de l'amour. Plus largement, ils ont en commun de savoir paumer le lecteur entre premier et millième degré. Au premier degré, leScum Manifestoest un essai féminazi. Dès le second, c'est un uppercut satirique à hurler de rire. Publié dans la foulée du procès de Solanas pour tentative d'homicide sur Andy Warhol en 1968, le pamphlet avance sans détours: les hommes sont des monstres égotistes et des infirmes affectifs qui, conformément à leur nature violente, n'ont réussi qu'à transformer le monde en un«gigantesque tas de merde».Houellebecq l'écrit avec d'autres mots, désespérés, dansles Particules élémentaires,quand les hommes du futur constatent que,«en pratique»,les seuls individus de la fin du XXe siècle capables d'un amour désintéressé auraient été des femmes. Houellebecq fut donc désigné, on ne sait par qui, pour se faire avocat de la diablesse et postfacer l'édition française du manifeste, publié en 1998 puis republié en 2005. Choix culotté mais pas si incongru, et en dépit de«quelques dérapages nazis»et de propos«ignobles de violence»,écrivait-il, il fallait considérer la«noblesse»du projet de Solanas: voir la science contrôler la nature pour que cesse la violence.';

'>>23357939
Aujourd'hui, la meilleure héritière de Valérie Solanas a-t-elle le droit d'être un homme ? Apparemment non. Surtout pas celui-là. Une nouvelle édition duScum Manifestoest en fabrication pour parution en février chez la même maison. Et l'on nous confirme aux éditions Mille et une nuits que la postface française originelle saute parce qu'«elle s'inscrit comme un Contrepoint trop violent vis-à-vis des féministes d'aujourd'hui. Emmanuelle de Lesseps, la traductrice, n'avait qu'un souhait : la voir disparaître. Elle la trouvait scandaleuse, et même si nous continuons d'apprécier la verve de Houellebecq et les qualités littéraires de son texte, nous trouvions important d'offrir un autre paratexte, qui puisse montrer comment il s'inscrit dans le féminisme d'aujourd'hui.»Ainsi, deux femmes – une figure universitaire, Manon Garcia, et une figure médiatique, Lauren Bastide – ont-elles été choisies pour commenter l'ouvrage. Soit, ce sera certainement très réussi.

Mais quel dommage… L'ouvrage de Solanas en lui-même est un bâton de dynamite. Le manifeste et la postface de Houellebecq fonctionnaient ensemble comme une bombe nucléaire. Non pas parce que Solanas aurait besoin de la validation d'un homme, a fortiori de l'autorité d'une des plumes parmi les plus starisées aujourd'hui (qui peut avancer de telles conneries?). Mais parce que cet appendice poilant et malséant s'apparentait à un piratage autant qu'un dépassement du conflit. Il venait dire que la haine du patriarcat et son abolition concernaient les hommes autant que les femmes. C'était un mariage contre-nature, la possibilité d'une île. Surtout, elle mettait du casse-tête, de l'échelle paradoxale, de l'ambiguïté, là où l'on aime de moins en moins, visiblement, qu'il y en ait. Désormais, tout sera bien plus clair ainsi. L'ordre est rétabli.';

'>>23357939
>removed in 2005 lol
in 2020 here is the new edition';

'The SCUM manifesto itself is just another symptom of the rot';

'>>23357939
Ouais, j'ai vu l'article dans Libération, ça m'a un peu choqué, mais c'est pas surprenant après tout
>>23357972
What surprised me is that what Solanas proposes in the manifesto is EXACTLY what happens in the epilogue of Elementary Particles - the elimination of men, the disgust with sexuality and the total decoupling of procreation with sexuality and the eventual disappearance of procreation as a whole';

'>>23357996
>the disgust with sexuality
yeah that's superficial, women deeply love sex behind closed doors';

'>>23358008
Not in the traditional sense';

'>>23357996
Houellebecq is a magi';

'starting serotonin tonight. what am i in for';

'>>23360259
>what am i in for
Consumerism, sex scenes, SSRIs, the ravages of free market capitalism and you might feel depressed for a bit after finishing the book';

'Which of his books don't have sex scenes in them?';

'>>23360974
His nonfiction work';

'>>23342338
How does Houellebecq rank in the list of the best French authors?';

'I'm about to finish atomized and I'm so fucking tired of Bruno's side of the story. He's just a coomer. I wanted to know more about Michel wtf.';

'/// He was agonizing over the moral issues involved /// The team returned disconsolate from three losses /// Reading it, you can't help pitying the hapless little girl trapped in the crossfire of a bellicose and bitter split /// There are patches of mildew on the walls /// Sand spits are an ubiquitous feature of sandy coasts with prevailing oblique wave incidence and associated strong littoral drift /// He had been a strict father but was indulgent toward his grandchildren /// Later they discussed the topic more fulsomely /// This illustrates the common error of considering the basolateral amygdala as isomorphic with fear /// Within a staple, fibres were separated by removal of adhesions and twists, then stretched along ruler to straighten crimps /// Had he but known the agony of spirit his daughter was experiencing he would have returned posthaste to Philadelphia /// Alongside the cards, this kit includes forceps, a Petri dish, dropper, tesh tube, blank slides, prepared slides, lens paper, and more /// He has warned some of his more gung ho generals about the consequences of an invasion /// The 1910 midget auto racing season will bow in at Fresno Sunday when speed aces from all sections of California will vie for fame and money on the Airport speedway track /// This had many drawbacks including the added pressure on peewee-aged players (12-year-olds) /// The road system was so complicated that we had to stop to get our bearings several times /// The studio chiefs wanted a marquee name in the lead role /// Our industry's conversion to new methods has been very dilatory /// Society will blink at rude behavior if the person being rude is powerful enough /// He was careful to let drop nothing at which she might take umbrage /// I wanted to show scenes from the film during my presentation, so I cued them up ahead of time /// Her party still genuflects to her, and a core within it reflexively venerates her /// After a long fallow period, the author has brought out a new book ///';

'>>23364108
Same desu. Bruno’s basically Houellebecq right? Both were married young and had a kid, both spent time in a mental hospital, and they both are psychologically effed up coomers.';

'>>23336863
>Approaches to Distress
I just read this (twice) and his discussion of modern architecture is absolutely brilliant. It exactly expresses my distress with regards to it and his critique has parallels with what other thinkers say as well.';