Michel Houellebecq, SUBMISSION

Thanks to Caroline for the recommendation of la fourmi ailée at 8 rue du Fouarre. We were a group of eight with sole possession of the restauant’s mezzanine. Caroline, Catherine, Maren, Mark, Michel, Monika, Philippe and Tracey were in attendance. Service, by the way, was cheerful and efficient. 

The evening’s discussion centered on "Submission: A Novel" by Michel Houellebecq.  The meeting began with a comparison of Voltaire’s “Candide" and Houellebecq’s "Submission: A Novel”, and how, through a provocative style of writing, each turned the spolight on contemporary French society and, in Houellebecq’s case, particularly the notion of creeping Islamization aided by a morally bankrupt political class and a dull, accepting public. Everyone enjoyed the book, which was read in both French and English, and, for some, Houellebecq’s sense of humor, including the protagonist’s obsession with TV dinners. In line with that perhaps, it was suggested that the book might be a good subject for a Woody Allen movie. Note was made that the description of life in academics was quite accurate even though the author did not attend university. It was mentioned that if you want to be a star in academics, it is often convenient to have a peculiar subject as your area of expertise.   Those among who had read other books of Houellebecq’s and were acquainted with the author noted that much of the traits of the the protagonist were shared by the author (autobiographically as it were), that the main characters and story line fits in with the author’s usual characters and that while Houellebecq is politically provocative here, his range of provocation goes much wider in his other books. We discussed whether the novel would have been so successful if not for the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, what would Huysmans have done in the protagonist’s position and whether or not the protagonist had a grand plan or just took advantage of opportunities (the protagonist doesn't want to be considered an intellectual but is happy to reap any benefits of the same). For some, the protagonist was in some ways reminiscent of the main character in Camus’ “The Stranger”. Everyone agreed that the trip by the protagonist to the monastery (from which he is brought back by his smoke alarm) was a bit out of place. Credit was given to the appropriate choice of François Bayrou as Prime Minister as he is regarded as someone seen as desperate for high office. We thought the novel would have created a bigger scandal in Great Britain (the thought that someone, a politician even, would have three wives would be completely unacceptable). We also gave credit to Houellebecq for being a visionary - we saw parallels in Belgium’s Flemish and Walloons uniting against a common foe as did the French left and right in the novel against the far right common foe.

All in all, we thought it was a good read that presented a scenario that is perhaps not far from plausible.

Postscript - while writing these notes I found what I thought to be interesting blog post on the book which I found quite interesting and perhaps you might too. It contains some points that we mentioned and some others that we didn’t.

An excerpt - "Houellebecq has in effect taken France's history of collaboration with the Germans under Vichy and transposed its attitudes of acceptance to a contemporary threat. Likewise, Submission recalls Voltaire's Candide: Or Optimism, with Rediger in place of Dr. Pangloss and Francois in Candide's role. As such, it is very, very, very French. And again, Submission is also the title of the 2004 Dutch film by Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali that led to his murder and her exile. The gist of their film was that Islam literally meant submission. The full blog entry is here - http://laurencejarvikonline.blogspot.fr/2015/10/michel-houellebecq-submission.html.

And then I found this http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-houellebecq-learned-from-huysmans. One could go on and on.

Mark