Whether Michel Houellebecq is a great writer will be debated for as long as his books are read. What few will deny is his status as one of the early 21st century’s most challenging and original artists.
That might not be saying a great deal. After all, the first 25 years of the new millennium – at least in the West – are unlikely to be remembered as a time of great artistic or intellectual originality. Just look at recent winners of the Turner Prize, or read one of Sally Rooney’s novels.
Still, Houellebecq stands out thanks to his willingness to say the things other writers don’t dare to. In an era when artists and authors tend to share the same ‘progressive’ worldview, Houellebecq has consistently refused to bend the knee to fashionable orthodoxies. He remains a critical figure for those who still believe in a writer’s ability to capture the unique ‘spirit’ of the age they live in. Taken together, his works chronicle and explore the creeping sense of decline shared by many in the West.
Born in 1956, Houellebecq’s journey from young dilettante to literary fame was far from orthodox. By all accounts, he enjoyed an unpleasant childhood, taking the surname ‘Houellebecq’ from his paternal grandmother, who raised him in place of his indifferent parents. After school, he studied agronomy at university in Paris, before working as a computer programmer. He published his first novel, Whatever, in 1994, when he was 38, and has had seven more novels published in the roughly three decades since.
While Houellebecq’s literary journey has been unusual, there was one familiar aspect: the repeated rejections he received from French publishers. It is easy to see why. What he was writing simply didn’t chime with the era. It was the 1990s. Sexual liberation and multiculturalism were seen as unequivocally good, and capitalism was viewed as triumphant. Sensible writers accepted all this. Houellebecq did not.
It was not until 1998 that Houellebecq eventually broke through, with the publication of his second novel, Atomised. In the finest French tradition, it provoked disgust and awe in equal measure. According to the New York Times, Atomised was ‘bilious, hysterical and oddly juvenile’. The judges of the Dublin Literary Award, which the novel won in 2002, described it as ‘extraordinary’. A fair-minded reader might find it hard to fault either response.
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Author: Ruth King
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