Whatever

Michel Houellebecq's debut "Whatever" (EXTENSION DU DOMAINE DE LA LUTTE) may not be as great as his latest works, as "Plataform" and "The Elementary Particles", but it already displays the budding talent of a major writer. This novel is sort of a rehearsal for his next books, since here he starts dealing with themes that are dear to him, like the solitude of the contemporary man and the role that sex plays in one's life. However short "Whatever" is, this book deals with heavy themes. Houellebecq makes everything matter, in his existential journey. In the novel's main idea, the sexual success of a person is related to other factors, such as gender, class and race. Dealing with these material, the writer is not concerned with political-correctness. He wants to tackle the subversive side of the human soul. "Whatever" is an interesting introduction to Houellebecq's universe. However worth reading this book is, his later novels "Elementary Particles" and the superb "Platform" is where one can find a writer fully developed.

Dismissed by some as a lightweight debut, this novel in fact serves as an excellent taster of the quite unique thought of Houellebeq. Most of the major themes addressed in his subsequent novels are given their first rumination here - the ennui of a generation of whose society has no more direction or meaning than that of their individual lives, and the belief that in such a society, where the basic needs of sexual love are more important than ever, such needs should be met by the kind of state regulation currently applied to help those 'losers' of the ruthlessness of the labour market. Houellebeq has the honesty to say that a person's sexual life matters as much to the average person's happiness as how many dollars or euros he comes home with in his weekly pay cheque. He also has the even greater honesty to admit that the average white male is not faring so well in the sexual market as he commonly does in the labour one. 'The extension of the domain of the struggle' (to give the book's french title) concerns his thesis that the sexual success of individuals is related to contingent facts relating to ones gender, class or race (ie. having a black body instead of a white one) just as much as one's economic success is based on similar contingent facts. And just as economics is a war between competing groups and individuals, so is sex, with historically white men preventing women having access to black men's bodies, and in modern times, through feminist cloaked legislation, older women increasingly denying men access to the bodies of young women. Houellebeq's thesis is quite extraordinarily politically incorrect, sadly for him, even fewer are likely to take it seriously as neo-conservatism inevitably replaces the niahlistic anarchy of feminist political correctness as the western religion. Here however, as in his other novels, it is rather painfully beautiful to witness his characterisation of an aging white man's final acceptance of that reality.

This book does what David Foster Wallace tried to do with his recent short story A Depressed Person (which is, despite the usual ponderous Wallace footnotes and other narrative quirks, a fine read nonetheless). It details a terrifying solipsism and depression. Plus, it's damn funny: the narrator, unnamed in Whatever, passes spare time writing animal stories that are highly moral (use of "m" word here not in the usual pejorative sense). Houllebecq is great at skewering so-called "sexual liberation," showing as he does the fact that liberations of that sort lead only to hierarchies -- in the case of sex, there are the haves and have-nots, the pretty and the repulsive. I can't wait for The Elementary Particles to be released in October.

THe original tittle for this book is 'extension du domaine de la lutte' (extension of the struggle field) and in French it sounds exactly like one of those manifestos 70s terrorists like to publish in between bombings and assassinations. Maybe this is a simple warning from the author: I AM DANGEROUS!Well Michel Houelebecq doesn't look too dangerous and his ideas are either a posture of pessimistic contempt or the work of a dangerous lunatic, probably both. Still EDDDLL is before all a great novel. If you're into the subversive discourse of the author on the loathsome nature of sexual freedom and the need to overcome it you should read its 2nd novel (and last years'tremendous best seller in France): les particules elementaires.PS: a film adaptation of EDDDLL has just been releised in France.

Written in a dry, ascerbic tone, WHATEVER follows one man's downward spiral as he feels increasingly less conected with the world and society that surrounds him. The book deals with many questions regarding modern times, picking up the ball, as it were, where writers like Kafka left off. The paradox presented in this book is that with the increase in speed and circulation of information and communication tools, people seem to be overloaded and more isolated. At times the book meanders and one never gets really close to the other characters but it seems appropriate in a novel about the solipsistic nature of our times. A true pessimist, Michel Houellebecq does not allow his character to surrmount his seperation from other (or as Hawthorn would have said his "black veil"). The novel is well worth reading and I'll be interested to to read other works by Houellebecq.