[accessed 3–6–2011].
14 Sabine van Wesemael, “Le Freudisme de Michel Houellebecq. Extension du Domaine de la Lutte, une Histoire de Maladie”, in Sabine van Wesemael (ed.), Michel Houellebecq Etudes Réunies (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 117–126.
15 Booker analyzes the appearance of sexual images in the second half of the twentieth century in the context of Jungian psychology. He maintains that when the ego takes over the representation of the self, images of sexual activity in its most functional, crude and perverted form appear. This is explained by the disconnection between the ego and the deep archetypal framework of the self by which human beings are linked to the deeper elements of their mind, giving them a sense of connection, belonging, meaning and purpose. When awareness is limited exclusively to the ego, the physical aspects of human love undergo a process of radicalization and crude, functional images of sexuality multiply. See Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots: Why we Tell Stories (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), pp. 455–494.
16 Morrey correctly remarks that “Houellebecq’s discourse on sex […] is at heart a discourse on humanity”. See Douglas Morrey, Michel Houellebecq: Humanity and its Aftermath (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), p. 11.
17 Elinor Fuchs, The Death of Character: Perspectives on Theatre after Modernism (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996).
18 In a society in which sexual liberalism or unlimited possibilities do not exist – that is, one that does not function according to supermarket logic – everyone can find happiness since they are able to perceive matters on a deeper level.
19 Donna Haraway. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in Late Twentieth Century”, in idem, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), pp. 149–181.
20 However, even the illusion of choice has enormous social significance, according to Friedman. See Friedman, Lawrence. The Horizontal Society. New Haven Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1999, p. 240.
21 Slavoj Žižek, Matrix: The Big Other and Virtual Reality, trans. by Yair Or (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2003), p. 12 [Hebrew].
22 Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Society of Control”, Theory and Criticism 24 (2004): pp. 235–240 [Hebrew].
23 Kathryn Hume, Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature (New York and London: Methuen, 1984).
24 Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, p. 90.
25 This distinguishes the parody from the pastiche; whereas the pastiche is an empty, a-historical and nostalgic signifier in its approach to the past, the parody is ironic and critical, even in its approach to past styles. See ibid., p. 94.
26 Ibid., p. 91.
27 Hutcheon notes that her definition of postmodernist parody clashes with the accepted reading of this device. It is usually claimed that postmodernism quotes past styles in a devalued, decorative, de-historic manner, ignoring the context of artistic production and turning its back on conceptual forms. This relies on the claim that this cultural mode is most suited to contemporary culture.
28 It is further notable that according to Hutcheon’s classification, both erotic and parodic literatures belong to the narcissistic genres, i.e. self-conscious meta-fiction. See Linda Hutcheon, Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox (New York and London: Methuen, 1984).
29 It is interesting to note that in the cinematic adaptation of the novel Extension du Domaine de la Lutte (1999), director Philip Harel employs an analogical cinematic device, incorporating a continuous full-screen clip from an authentic pornographic movie. The faces of the actors are completely absent from the clip, with the focus entirely on the contact between their genitals.
30 The number of inhabitants is different in the French and English versions.
31 In The Elementary Particles, Houellebecq writes in the name of his protagonist Michel Djerzinski, who lays the foundations for the ability to clone human beings in the future, “Love binds, and it binds forever. Good binds while evil unravels. Separation is another word for evil” (p. 251) [«L’amour lie, et il lie à jamais. La pratique du bien est une liaison, la pratique du mal une déliaison. La séparation est l’autre nom du mal.» p. 302].
32 McCann, Michel Houellebecq: Author of Our Times, pp. 5–9.
33 Ibid., pp. 25–26.
34 On this matter, see a comparison between vacation sites designated for the western tourist as described in Houellebecq’s novella Lanzarote and the novel Platform, and the closed, secured territory of the neohumans in The Possibility of an Island. The absolute autonomy of the neohumans in their closed environment is, in fact, the quintessential technological realization of the tourist’s uninvolved position. The tourist fantasy provides total freedom for the individual, disconnected from others and from any national, territorial, or cultural sense of belonging. This is the living environment of the neohuman, cut off and separated from the world. See Maud Granger Remy, “Le tourisme est un posthumanisme. Autour de Plateforme”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 277–286.
35 McCann, John Michel Houellebecq: Author of Our Times, pp. 177–183.
36 Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth Century Art Forms (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000 [1985]), p. 82.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake (London: Virago, 2009).
Balzac (de), Honoré. César Birotteau (Librairie Jules Tallandier, 1967) [1838].
——— César Birotteau, trans. Robin Buss (London: Penguin Books, 1994).
Borges, Jorge Luis. Collected Fiction, trans. Andrew Hurley (New York: Viking Press, 1998).
Houellebecq, Michel. Extension du Domaine de la Lutte (Paris: Maurice Nadeau, 1994).
——— Les Particules Elémentaires (Paris: Flammarion, 1998).
——— Rester Vivant et autres textes (Paris: Librio Flammarion, 2008) [1998].
——— Interventions 1 (Paris: Flammarion, 1998).
——— H.P. Lovecraft: Contre le Monde, Contre la Vie (New York: Editions du Rocher, 1999).
——— The Elementary Particles, trans. Frank Wynne (New York: Random House. 2000).
——— Lanzarote (Paris: Flammarion. 2000).
——— Plateforme, (Paris: Flammarion, 2002).
——— Platform, trans. Frank Wynne (New York: Random House, 2002).
——— Lanzarote, trans. Frank Wynne (London: Vintage, 2004).
——— La possibilité d’une île (Paris: Fayard, 2005).
——— Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, trans. Dorna Khazeni (H.P. London: Orion Books, 2005).
——— The Possibility of an Island, trans. Gavin Bowd (New York: Vintage, 2007).
——— Interventions 2: Traces (Paris: Flammarion, 2009).
——— La Carte et le Territoire (Paris: Flammarion, 2010).
——— Whatever, trans. Paul Hammond (London: Serpentstail, 2011). ← 165 | 166 →
——— The Map and the Territory, trans. Gavin Bowd (New York: Knopff, 2012).
Houellebecq, Michel et Bernard Henri-Lévy. Ennemis Publics (Flammarion/ Grasset et Fasquelle, 2008).
——— Public Enemies: Dueling Writers Take On Each Other and the World, trans. Miriam Frendo and Frank Wynne (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2011).
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World (New York: Harper Collins, 1946) [1932].
——— Island (New York: Harper Perennial, 2009) [1962].
Wiezeltier, Meir. The Concise Sixties (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1998) [Hebrew].
Filmography
Harel, Philippe (Dir.). Extension du Domaine de la Lutte. Perf. Philippe Harel, José Garcia. France, 1999.
Houellebecq, Michel (Dir.). La Possibilité d’une Ile. Perf. Benoit Magimel, Patrick Bauchau. Mandarin Cinema, 2009.
Roehler, Oskar (Dir.). E
lementarteilchen. Perf. Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Ulmen. Germany, 2006.
Secondary Sources
Agamben, Giorgio. Qu’est-ce qu’un dispositif? Trans. Martin Rueff (Paris: Editions Payot et Rivages, 2007).
——— “What Is the Contemporary?” In Giorgio Agamben, What is Apparatus and Other Essays, trans. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatolla (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 39–54.
Adams, Tim. “The Book of Daniels”, The Observer, May 30, 2005.
Alberoni, Francesco. L’Erotisme, trans. Raymonde Coudert (Paris: Ramsay, 1994).
Allan, Graham. Intertextuality (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).
Amar, Ruth. “La diversité du bonheur dans le roman français des XXe et XXIe siècles”, in Ruth Amar (ed.), L’écriture du bonheur dans le ← 166 | 167 → roman contemporain (New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp. 3–18.
——— «‘Chacun de nous est un désert’: Solitudes multiples au vingtième siècle», in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Le Malaise Existentiel dans le Roman Français de L’Extrême Contemporain (Saarbrücken, Germany: Editions Universitaires Européenne, 2011), pp. 11–33.
Ammann, Jean-Christophe. “Jeff Koons: Triumph out of Failure”, in Angelika Muthesius (ed.), Jeff Koons (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1992), pp. 6–11.
Anders Baggesgaard, Mads. «Le corps en vue – trois images du corps chez Michel Houellebecq», in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 241–252.
Armon-Azoulay Elie.“Free Radical (on Robert Hughes)”, Haaretz, August 13, 2012 [Hebrew].
Arrabal, Fernando. Houellebecq! (Version Française), trans. Luce Moreau (HMR Ebook, 2013).
Ballesta, Antonio Muňoz. “Houellebecq au-delà de Houellebecq”, in Murielle Lucie Clément et Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq à la Une (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 233–245.
Bankowsky, Jack. “Pop Life”, in Jack Bankowsky, Alison M. Gingeras and Catherine Wood (eds.), Pop Life: Art in a Material World (London: Tate, 2009), pp. 19–38.
Barthes, Roland. “The Grain of the Voice”. Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang 1977), pp. 179–189.
Baudrillard, Jean. Symbolic Exchange and Death, trans. Iain Hamilton Grant (London: Sage, 2011).
——— Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glazer (Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 1994) [1981].
——— “The Despair of Having Everything”. Le Monde Diplomatique, November 14, 2002.
——— Carnaval et Cannibale, Le Mal Ventriloque (Paris: L’Herne, 2004).
Bauman, Zygmunt.“From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity”, in Stuart Hill and Paul du Gay (eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996), pp. 18–36. ← 167 | 168 →
——— Globalization: The Human Consequences (Cambridge: Polity, 1998).
——— Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 2009).
——— Culture in a Liquid Modern World (Cambridge: Polity, 2011).
——— Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011).
Beck, Stefan. “A Satyr against Mankind”, New Criterion, March 1, 2006, pp. 15–21.
Bellanger, Aurélien. Houellebecq Ecrivain Romantique (Clamecy: Edition Léo Scheer, 2010).
Benois, Denis. Littérature et engagement: de Pascal à Sartre (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2000).
Berger, Kevin. “A Society Ruined by Rampant Individualism: French Writer Slams the Legacy of the ‘60s in a Novel about Two Brothers”, SFGate, available at
Bessard-Banquy, Olivier. Sexe et Littérature Aujourd’hui (Paris: La Musardine, 2010).
Betty, Louis. “‘Michel Houellebecq, meet Maximilian Robespierre’: A Study in Social Religion”, L’Erudite Franco-Espagnol 1 (2012): pp. 19–33.
Biedermann, Hans. Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings behind Them, trans. James Hulbert (New York: Meridian Penguin, 1994).
Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987).
Booker, Christopher, The Seven Basic Plots: Why we Tell Stories (London and New York: Continuum, 2004).
Booth, Wayne C. A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974).
Bouju, Emmanuel. “Que peut (être/faire/espérer) le roman français aujourd’hui? Energie romanesque et reprise d’autorité”. Lecture at Bar Ilan University, May 22, 2013.
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, trans. Randal Johnson. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). ← 168 | 169 →
——— The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, trans. Susan Emanuel (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
Braudeau, Michel, Lakis Proguidis, Jean-Pierre Salgas and Dominique Viart. Le Roman Français Contemporain (Publications ADPF, 2002).
Bremner, Charles. “Novelist’s Latest Shock is to Write Himself off”, The Times, August 21, 2010.
Brighelli, Jean-Pierre. La Société Pornographique (Paris: François Bourin Editeur, 2012).
Brinkmann, Svend. “Changing Psychologies in the Transition from Industrial Society to Consumer Society”, History of Human Sciences 21/2 (2008): pp. 85–110.
Brooks, Peter. Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1984).
Buchweitz, Nurit. “Visions of the future, humans and posthumans in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake”, in Jeremy Strong (ed.) Faces of the Apocalypse [forthcoming].
Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1987).
Carlston, Jacob. “Ecriture Houellebecqienne, Ecriture Menippéenne?”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 19–30.
Cashmore, Ellis. “Celebrity in the Twenty-First Century Imagination”, Cultural and Social History 8/3 (2011): pp. 405–413.
Ceunebroeck, Fanny. “Michel Houellebecq ou la possibilité d’une bible”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq à la Une (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011), pp. 209–220.
Chabanel, Sophie. Managers Relisez vos Classiques! De Zola à Houellebecq, un Autre Regard sur L’Entreprise (Paris: Eyrolles, 2011).
Chatman, Seymour. Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990).
Chevallier, Stéphane and Christiane Chauviré. Dictionnaire Bourdieu (Paris: Ellipses, 2010). ← 169 | 170 →
Chilvers, Ian and John Glaves-Smith. Oxford Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Clayton, Jay and Eric Rothstein (eds.). Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History (Madison, Wisconsin and London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991).
Clément, Murielle Lucie. Michel Houellebecq: Sperme et Sang (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003).
——— “Michel Houellebecq, Erotisme et Pornographie”, in Sabine van Wesemael (ed.), Michel Houellebecq Etudes Réunies (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004), pp. 99–116.
——— Michel Houellebecq Revisité: L’Ecriture Houellebecqienne (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007).
——— Michel Houellebecq: Sexuellement Correct (Saarbrücken: Editions Universitaires Européennes, 2010).
Clément, Murielle Lucie and Sabine van Wesemael. Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007).
——— Le Malaise Existentiel dans le Roman Français de L’Extrême Contemporain (Saarbrüc
ken: Editions Universitaires Européenne, 2011).
——— Michel Houellebecq à la Une (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2011).
Cohen, Avner. “Rationalism in the Age of Relationalism”, Oranim: Interdisciplinary Journal 2 (2009): pp. 8–16 [Hebrew].
Cooper, Simon. “Terror on the Beach”, Arena Journal 19, September 22, 2002, pp. 27–34.
——— “Imagining the Post-Human: Recent Books by Kazuo Ishiguro and Michel Houellebecq Offer Guides of Sorts to the Post-Human”, Arena Magazine 81, February 1, 2006, pp. 19–20.
Cornille, Jean-Louis. “Extension du domaine de la littérature ou j’ai lu l’Etranger”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 133–143.
Cover, Rob. “Population Decline and the End(s) of Civilization: Cultural and Media Approaches to Apocalypse from the Perspective of Population and demography”. Lecture at the conference Apocalypse: Imagining the End, Mansfield College, Oxford, July 2013.
Coward, David. A History of French Literature: From “Chanson de Geste” to Cinema (Cornwall: Blackwell Publishing, 2004). ← 170 | 171 →
Cruickshank, Ruth. Fin de Millénaire French Fiction: The Aesthetics of Crisis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Da Silva, Juremir Machado. En Patagonie avec Michel Houellebecq (Paris: CNRS, 2011).
David, Michel. La Mélancolie de Michel Houellebecq (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011).
Debrova, Neli. “Figures et transformations du corps féminin (en asexué) dans Les Particules Elémentaire de Michel Houellebecq”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 227–240.
Delorme, Julie. “Du guide touristique au roman. Plateforme de Michel Houellebecq”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 287–300.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Society of Control”, Theory and Criticism 24 (2004): pp. 235–240 [Hebrew].
Demonpion, Denis. Houellebecq Non Autorisé: Enquête sur un Phénomène (Paris: Maren Sell Editeurs, 2005).
An Officer of Civilization Page 24