by Louis Betty
The atmosphere of sanctimony and recrimination that has surrounded the publication of Houellebecq’s novels is remarkable, and even the critics most engaged with his work have been careful to issue the requisite condemnation of the author’s seemingly egregious neglect of political decency. Murielle Lucie Clément, for example, writes in her article “Le héros houellebecquien,” “The day has come to realize that what we may take to be hilarious witticisms is none other than an ideology deeply rooted in xenophobia, racism, and misogyny” (2006, 97, my translation). Little good is accomplished by trying to defend Houellebecq against such accusations. I only suggest that the sexism, racism, xenophobia, and perhaps homophobia that somewhat more than intermittently crop up in Houellebecq’s novels ought to be subsumed under a general misanthropy; the real interest of his writing lies elsewhere.
Chapter Summaries
This book is divided into five chapters, each of which tackles a specific set of issues related to the religious, philosophical, and metaphysical dimensions of Houellebecq’s work, as well as its relation to French intellectual and literary traditions. Houellebecq’s fiction engages a wide variety of intellectual and academic domains, including quantum physics, sociology of religion, and utopian socialism, and it has been necessary throughout the course of this undertaking to address the myriad theories and ideas that find life in Houellebecq’s texts. Readers of this book will encounter discussions of such subjects as the mind-body problem, positivism, quantum physics, and sociological theories of religion and secularization, as well as mentions of such diverse figures in the history of ideas as Charles Fourier, Maximilien Robespierre, Émile Durkheim, Blaise Pascal, Clifford Geertz, and Talal Asad. Ultimately, this book not only serves to provide a careful exegesis of Houellebecq’s texts, but also situates the author’s engagement with religion,8 theology, and philosophy within the broader context of the history of ideas, both French and Anglo-American. My approach is not intended to ignore the literary or performative dimensions of Houellebecq’s novels, however much Houellebecq may tend at certain places to engage ideas polemically rather than performatively. Rather, as will be clear in subsequent chapters, the intellectual content of Houellebecq’s fiction finds its fullest expression in his stories and characters, which make it worth reading. I offer the following chapter summaries in order to give the reader a clear indication of the direction my comments will take.
In chapter 1, I address Houellebecq’s use of science in his novels and also argue that Houellebecq’s texts present a novelistic mise-en-scène of classical secularization theory. On the one hand, I explore the ways in which materialism and science inform the aesthetic and ideological landscape of The Elementary Particles, in particular the novel’s suggestions that quantum physics may have some application to human biological systems and that human nature might be improved by prevailing upon quantum physics in the fabrication of a new human genome. I contend that, while the science supporting the novel’s vision of a posthuman future is questionable, it nonetheless offers a compelling metaphor for human relations no longer plagued by narcissism, excessive individualism, and physical separation. Second, I argue that Houellebecq’s rendering of an irremediably secular West is in fact a fictional enactment of classical secularization theory, which erroneously holds that modernity and science are incompatible with religion and religious belief. Houellebecq’s novels explore in experimental rather than in realistic or sociological fashion the social and psychological consequences of atheism; far from being so much “bad sociology,” these novels are keen examinations of the lives of men and of societies that no longer lie beneath a sacred canopy.
In chapter 2, I explore Houellebecq’s treatment of new religious movements and the prospects for religious innovation in officially secular states such as France. In The Possibility of an Island, Houellebecq imagines a future European society in which a cloning cult known as Elohimism (based on the Raelian sect that was founded in France in 1974 by the former race-car driver Claude Vorilhon)9 has supplanted Christianity and Islam to become the Old World’s leading religion. The sect promises its adherents immortality through cloning and machine-mind transfer and preaches a cult of youth that limits the meaning of existence to the gratification of sexual and other physical desires. I discuss the beliefs and practices of the Elohimite Church and investigate Elohimism’s claims to religionhood based on classical Durkheimian understandings of religion, more recent formulations that locate the essence of religion in the supernatural, and definitions of religion that focus on its disciplinary and social-structuring, rather than its personal and individual, dimensions. In depicting the birth and rise of Elohimism in The Possibility of an Island, Houellebecq enters into a debate about the future of religious expression in an officially secular society and, more subtly, elaborates an alternative to an Islam that he (at least at the time of writing Possibility) finds abhorrent.
In chapter 3, I place Houellebecq’s writing within the context of nineteenth-century pre-Marxist utopian thought. The utopian scenarios that Houellebecq entertains in novels such as The Elementary Particles and The Possibility of an Island borrow heavily from religious and quasi-religious nineteenth-century French utopianism, specifically the work of Auguste Comte. I examine the writing of utopians Charles Fourier, Claude-Henri de Saint-Simon, and Comte, as well as the revolutionary and religious discourse of Maximilien Robespierre, and read Houellebecq’s portrayal of the posthuman utopias in certain of his novels in conjunction with these thinkers’ work. Although the Houellebecquian utopia is in many respects an experimental choreography of Comtean positivism, Houellebecq faults Comte for failing to make provision for personal immortality in his religion of humanity and, accordingly, elaborates a quasi-religious response to a godless modernity in which immortality is achieved through cloning. However, by the end of The Possibility of an Island, Houellebecq abandons his utopian predilections, depicting the posthuman clone society in a state of even greater existential dereliction than is seen in twenty-first-century Western civilization. I also argue that Houellebecq’s The Map and the Territory represents a break with the techno-religious utopianism that animates his previous works, with France finding salvation from economic ruin by abandoning industrialism and focusing its economy on tourism and a sort of “capitalism of the countryside,” which caters to foreign tourists willing to pay handsomely to partake in the romanticized art de vivre that characterizes France’s image abroad. I end by suggesting a link between France’s “return to tradition” in the novel and a potential return to Catholicism, especially as it relates to the fictional Houellebecq’s conversion to Catholicism just before he is murdered.
In chapter 4, I return to the concept of materialist horror and explore its philosophical foundations. I first offer a definition of the term based on my reading of Houellebecq in previous chapters and then point out some of its most memorable manifestations, focusing in particular on the novel Whatever. Crucially, I argue that the exaggerated nature of Houellebecq’s depictions of contemporary social and moral decadence are to be understood as forms of experiment, wherein characters react in predictable ways to extremely unpropitious existential conditions—godlessness, extinction, and so on. Materialism provides the condition for the experiment, and horror is its result. Last, I draw several parallels between Houellebecq, H. P. Lovecraft, and Blaise Pascal and show how materialist horror as both a philosophical and aesthetic concept emerges from a comparative reading of Houellebecq and these two authors.
Finally, in chapter 5, I discuss Houellebecq’s novel Submission and argue that it represents in many respects a culmination of Houellebecq’s relentless critique of the shortcomings of liberal, Enlightenment civilization. From the collapse of Christianity to the misery of the modern “liberated” woman to the moral apathy and dissoluteness of the novel’s protagonist, François, Submission explores the anxieties of modern freedom in the context of what may be their greatest threat: Islam. Far from being an “Islamophobic” text, Submission i
nstead offers a kind of apologetics for a modern, Westernized Islam called upon to close the historical parenthesis opened by revolutionary civilization and to return humanity to a religiously grounded order. I argue that the novel’s conclusion, in which François’s conversion is described not in the narrative past tense but rather in the conditional, is an attempt on Houellebecq’s part to implicate the reader in the text. In other words, Submission tempts those who have assumed Houellebecq’s critique of liberal, secular civilization to follow that critique to its logical conclusion: conversion to Islam.
Houellebecq as Character: A Brief Consideration
One of the more consternating issues that has surrounded Houellebecq’s novels is the seeming participation of the author in his own texts. From the very beginning, Houellebecq has embedded himself in his stories; the male protagonists of The Elementary Particles and Platform are both named Michel, while Houellebecq himself appears as a fictional character in The Map and the Territory. In some respects, this version of Houellebecq’s novelistic apparitions seems an attempt by the author to outdo his critics in the media. For example, in the passages where Jed Martin meets Houellebecq in Ireland, the latter is depicted in terms so abject that any journalist offering a similar description might well be accused of defamation (see Houellebecq 2012, 100–101). Beyond the issue of any tête-à-tête with the media, however, such autobiographical flourishes give rise to a troubling question for critics and scholars: Is Houellebecq the man simply injecting himself into his novels in a more or less straightforward fashion—writing from what he knows, as it were—or is something rather the opposite taking place? Is it possible that Houellebecq’s entire media persona is a kind of post hoc mirroring of the depressiveness, morbidity, and misanthropy of his characters? In other words, could it be that Houellebecq is having us on, that his novelistic polemics and his public comments—often phrased nearly word for word—are simply two sides of the same fictional enterprise?
I admit to having no evidence to suggest either conclusion, but I do want to issue a caveat concerning the latter viewpoint. Certainly a kind of “Houellebecq brand” has arisen in the popular imagination, that of the gloomy, chain-smoking provocateur lamenting his erotic failures and the agony of old age (see Riding 1999), and it is not out of the realm of possibility (far from it, I would imagine) that Houellebecq has exploited this image to sell his books. At the same time, critics should be careful not to credit Houellebecq with having the ambition, wherewithal, and foresight to accomplish such an unlikely, decades-spanning media coup. Not only does such a feat of media manipulation seem unlikely (France is not North Korea, and Houellebecq is not Kim Jong Un), but, proceeding from the more basic principle that one ought to avoid multiplying entities beyond what is necessary, it seems much more likely that Houellebecq is a serious writer with serious reasons for writing what he does. To conclude otherwise borders on conspiracy theorizing. I will state the matter simply: Michel Houellebecq has something to say in his novels. This does not mean, of course, that Houellebecq’s texts are reducible to polemical tracts parading as fiction, but neither is their philosophical, ideological, and otherwise argumentative content strictly or necessarily ambiguous or “undecidable.” Literature is allowed to be about something, and if Houellebecq chooses to embed himself in his novels, either overtly or covertly, he likely does so because it facilitates his task as a storyteller and a meaning maker. The opposite supposition would seem to assume the burden of proof.
1
Materialism and Secularism
Without a doubt, the twentieth century will remain in the eyes of the general public the age of triumph of the scientific explanation of the world, associated by it with a materialist worldview and the principle of local determinism.
—Houellebecq 2009 (my translation)
My goal in this chapter is twofold. First, I elucidate Houellebecq’s use of science in his novels, and I demonstrate how the philosophical positions vis-à-vis materialism that he sketches out in his nonfiction are enacted in his fiction, most specifically in The Elementary Particles. Houellebecq has tended to entertain scientific and philosophical notions with a great deal of confidence, if not with rigor, enough to warrant a serious study of how they find expression in his novels. Second, because the assumption of a rampant materialism and attendant atheism constitutes a central tenet of the Houellebecquian treatment of modernity, in the remainder of this chapter my concern is with situating this particular treatment within the modern discourse of secularization that emerged during and after the Enlightenment.
Scholarship in the sociology of religion has cast significant doubt on the claim that modernity and religion are incompatible; indeed, some scholars have even declared the thesis defunct. Houellebecq, however, rather curiously employs the thesis as if it were self-evident, potentially leading to the criticism that his novels—or at least their representation of religion in contemporary Europe—are only so much bad sociology. I address this concern and argue that Houellebecq’s mise-en-scène of classical secularization theory is in fact an experimental tactic deployed to explore the social and psychological consequences of outright atheism and the materialistic liberalism it enables.
Houellebecquian Materialism: A Qualified Case?
Michel Houellebecq’s unflagging preoccupation with death, physical decline, suicide, determinism, and atheism is unique in contemporary literature. Indeed, it will come as little surprise to those most familiar with his work that at virtually no point in the Houellebecquian corpus does the reader encounter any or unqualified reference to transcendence or “spirit.” In fact, the notion of spirit is specifically derided in certain passages. In The Possibility of an Island, Daniel, who is considering joining the New Age Elohimite Church, reflects,
I had not only never held any religious belief, but I hadn’t even envisaged the possibility of doing so. For me, things were exactly as they appeared to be: man was a species of animal, descended from other animal species through a tortuous and difficult process of evolution; he was made up of matter and configured in organs, and after his death these organs would decompose and transform into simpler molecules; no trace of brain activity would remain, nor of thought, nor of anything that might be described as a spirit or a soul. My atheism was so monolithic, so radical, that I had never been able to take these subjects completely seriously. During my days at secondary school, when I would debate with a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew, I always had the impression that their beliefs were to be taken ironically; that they obviously didn’t believe, in the proper sense of the term, in the reality of the dogmas they professed [ . . . ]. (2007, 178)
Such a point of view is not limited to Daniel. This same insensitivity to life’s spiritual dimension is also apparent in characters such as Djerzinski and Whatever’s narrator. Of the former, Houellebecq writes, “Far removed from Christian notions of grace and redemption, unfamiliar with the concepts of freedom and compassion, Michel’s worldview had grown pitiless and mechanical. Once the parameters of the interaction were defined, he thought [ . . . ] events took place in an empty, spiritless space [ . . . ]. What happened was meant to happen; it could not be otherwise; no one was to blame” (2000a, 75). And the nameless protagonist in Houellebecq’s first novel says, “On Sunday morning I went out for a while in the neighborhood; I bought some raisin bread. The day was warm but a little sad, as Sundays often are in Paris, especially when one doesn’t believe in God” (2011, 126). Subsequent developments in this text, in particular the narrator’s statement that “the goal of life is missed” on the novel’s final page, offer little indication that Houellebecq’s anonymous character has given much consideration to his divine nature, however much his friend the priest Jean-Pierre may have urged him to earlier (30).
As is typical of Houellebecq, these sorts of pronouncement on godlessness are not limited to his novels’ characters, but also enjoy polemical exposition in certain passages. The Elementary Particles, for example, makes a harrowing diagnosis of cont
emporary existential malaise:
Contemporary consciousness is no longer equipped to deal with our mortality. Never in any other time, or in any other civilization, have people thought so much or so constantly about aging. Each individual has a simple view of the future: a time will come when the sum of pleasures that life has left to offer is outweighed by the sum of pain (one can actually feel the meter ticking, and it ticks always in the same direction). This weighing up of pleasure and pain, which everyone is forced to make sooner or later, leads logically, at a certain age, to suicide. (204)
This perspective is common to many of Houellebecq’s characters. Annabelle of Particles commits suicide when she is diagnosed with uterine cancer (231); Bruno’s girlfriend, Annick, jumps off a Parisian rooftop when her ugliness, along with Bruno’s rejection of her, becomes insufferable (128). In the post-religious, materialist universe of Houellebecq’s fiction, the earthbound sufferer is not to expect any heavenly recompense for his or her pains, and thus no relief from them at the thought of a better world to come. There is only matter, after which, annihilation.