Laughing laureate of Western decline
It is too easy to think of authors in terms of stereotypes. Michel Houellebecq, for example, is a sex-mad poet of cultural decline. Well, yes, he is. There is often truth in stereotypes. But what else is he, and why does it matter? The French novelist is eminently caricaturable. His books explore similar themes of boning and bemoaning, and his goblin-like appearance and prolific chain-smoking enhance his image as a sort of clever, twisted uncle of European letters.
, published in 2019, was a slightly formulaic novel which encouraged the domestication of the great man. That year, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour. It is strange to think that two decades before he was being dismissed by critics as a purveyor of the “salacious and the psychotic” and was set to go on trial on charges of
