Does liking Michel Houellebecq make me a pervert?

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Anyone?

― vignt regards (vignt_regards), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 00:50 (eighteen years ago)

I don't know. Have you been having strange urges?

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 01:21 (eighteen years ago)

It doesn't. Licking the covers of his books, however, does.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 05:50 (eighteen years ago)

Yes. And liking Tolkein makes you a Hobbit.

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 07:18 (eighteen years ago)

... And reading JT Leroy probably means you're having an identity crisis.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 07:33 (eighteen years ago)

...and liking Murakami makes you surreal.

― Ionica (Ionica), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 07:38 (eighteen years ago)

... and liking Dan Brown makes you a moron.

What?

― Ray (Ray), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 08:59 (eighteen years ago)

Why is Houellebecq perverted? Because he's sexually obsessed and inserts (see what I did there?) frank writing about sex into his narratives?

― M. White (Miguelito), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 13:11 (eighteen years ago)

It doesn't make you perverted, it just means that you like Houllebecq. And, you know, it takes all sorts.

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 13:12 (eighteen years ago)

It's totally not perverted to write a tome glorifying 3rd world sex tourism with occasional props given to incest and sex with minors; anyone who says so is a prude.

― vignt regards (vignt_regards), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 16:38 (eighteen years ago)

And, you know, it takes all sorts.

Is that what it takes? I always wondered what it took.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:06 (eighteen years ago)

(sorry, I've been on a Mamet binge lately)

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:07 (eighteen years ago)

i can't remember the last time i read a book that DIDN'T glorify 3rd world sex tourism with occasional props given to incest and sex with minors.

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:14 (eighteen years ago)

Compare and contrast: writing about something and advocating something.

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:08 (eighteen years ago)

I'm pretty sure that Platforme advocated sex tourism.

― vingt regards (vignt_regards), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:10 (eighteen years ago)

American Psycho glorifies serial-killing and banking.

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

I mean hey don't get me wrong I still love him, esp. les particules elementaires, but I'm just sayin'...

― vingt regards (vignt_regards), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

Platforme's thesis was pretty clear. Do you not believe that fiction is capable of advocating something?

― vignt regards (vignt_regards), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

I haven't read Plateforme yet to be fair, but Houellebecq's relationship to his previous narrative voices seems completely ambiguous to me.

It's immaterial anyway. Do you want to feel like a "pervert"? Go ahead, nobody's stopping you. It's perfectly possible to read something without feeling implicated, tho.

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:16 (eighteen years ago)

And fiction can't advocate anything. People do that.

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:18 (eighteen years ago)

Houellebecq's relationship to his previous narrative voices seems completely ambiguous to me.

I don't know - have you read this article in the LRB? http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n03/tait01_.html

Do you want to feel like a "pervert"? Go ahead, nobody's stopping you.

Finally, permission.

And fiction can't advocate anything. People do that.

People advocate positions through fiction. Fiction is the vehicle. Saying fiction can't advocate is like saying pamphlets can't advocate, or newspaper articles, or political commercials.

― vingt regards (vignt_regards), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

i can't remember the last time i read a book that DIDN'T glorify 3rd world sex tourism with occasional props given to incest and sex with minors

Hell, can I come browse through your library, Josh? I'm currently working my way through Ferrets, Rabbits and Rodents: Clinical Medicine and Surgery - for fun!

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:35 (eighteen years ago)

xpost

No, because a piece of fiction is not a pamphlet or a tract. It's ambiguous precisely because it is fiction. It can be a vehicle for ideas, sure, but it can't be a manifesto. No matter how hard it tries.

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:37 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not trying to say that fiction exists in some airy dimension removed from politics and ideology, but that its status as fiction undermines the possibility of it effectively advocating any human action. Every utopia is a dystopia, or something.

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:41 (eighteen years ago)

So that even if Houellebecq swears on oath that He is the narrator of each of his novels and that He means every word his literary personae say, we're quite free as readers to not take him at his word and to read him differently.

(I almost never read interviews or biographies, because I don't want to know what the "artist" has to say about their own work. Which might be perverse of me ;) )

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:46 (eighteen years ago)

Sure, tracts are more direct, but ultimately it's just a matter of degree. Pamphlets can be vague, too. Personally I interpret most political ads as ironic. My point is that fiction is perfectly capable of advocating something, and that authors can write with deliberate intention even if you choose to ignore or interpret this intention differently.

Which might be perverse of me ;)

Come on in, the water's fine.

― vingt regards (vignt_regards), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:58 (eighteen years ago)

I'm just thinking out loud, really. I take your point that there's more of a continuum than a clear border between fiction and non-fiction, but I won't go near that whole intentionality thing. It strikes me that Houellebecq won't either - he uses or satirizes Behaviourist language a lot. I'd question the sincerity of his public persona, too. But those are murky, swirly waters to wade into.

What is a pervert, anyway?

― Why does my IQ changes? (noodle vague), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 19:08 (eighteen years ago)

At least some works of fiction advocate that works of fiction are worth reading.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 20:01 (eighteen years ago)

That LRB article sure is something.

(I haven't read any Houellebecq yet)

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 20:17 (eighteen years ago)

oh of course fiction can be used to advocate for anyhting, and often is - for instance Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Jungle or ABCTV's recently five hour film on the events leading up to 9/11. I would tend to think though that the best fiction is almost always more ambiguous in its intentions.

As to Houellebecq's Platform, only the most amazingly shallow reading could interpret it as "advocat[ing] sex tourism." The book is a SATIRE of late-capitalism!

― Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Thursday, 14 September 2006 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

I think 'satire' is too strong a word for Platform.

― Ray (Ray), Thursday, 14 September 2006 06:49 (eighteen years ago)

eighteen years pass...

Picked up Annihilation yesterday and am already 100 pages in. Shaping up to be his best since Submission. I nearly didn’t finish Serotonin (his worst imo of near perfect oeuvre). I suspect he’s not for too many ilxers but discussion of it will be here.

― avoid boring people, Monday, 14 October 2024 10:54 (ten months ago)

oh wow, I stopped after 50 pages seemed super weak to me

will reconsider

― corrs unplugged, Monday, 14 October 2024 12:12 (ten months ago)

started reading the very very long profile of him in the new york times magazine and got about halfway through before my french ennui kicked in and i stopped. writers just aren't always so fascinating.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/magazine/michel-houellebecq-france-profile.html

― scott seward, Monday, 14 October 2024 12:23 (ten months ago)

I skimmed that profile. It was kind of funny in a sad way. The terms stipulated that the interview would start in Houellebecq's apartment in the afternoon and then continue over dinner in a restaurant. Which would repeat each day for three days. But on the first day he drinks so much wine in the apartment that he falls asleep in the restaurant, and then oversleeps and misses the next day's scheduled session.

― o. nate, Tuesday, 15 October 2024 01:16 (ten months ago)

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