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Finished Houellebecq's debut novel Whatever (1994)
| cock of michael obama | 09/24/24 |
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Date: September 24th, 2024 1:26 AM Author: cock of michael obama After reading Houellebecq’s wonderful Submission (2015), I went back and read his first novel Whatever (1994) which he had published when he was 38 years old. It tells the story of a 30 year old mid-level French programmer who is completely blown out by life. He wanders through the novel smoking endless cigarettes (up to four or five packs a day), no sex, experiencing no joy in life, just going through the motions, almost total anhedonia. He’s sent to travel for work with an acquaintance/companion named Tisserand, who at 25 years old is desperate to form a relationship with a woman, but he can’t because he’s simply too ugly. Tisserand meets a bad end, and the main character has an unrelated mental breakdown.
The novel wrestles with the ubiquitous nihilism permeating society, and it also delves into the nature of unleashed female sexuality in the form of hypergamy - i.e. if women are not constrained by society to limit their sexual impulses, they all chase the same small percentage of high-status, good-looking men, and many men are left out in the cold entirely. The novel presages the pick-up artist (PUA) movement of the 2000s and the incel movement of the last decade long before these things became popular.
Overall Whatever is not written nearly as strong as Submission, but that’s understandable given this was his first novel. Still, I’m a bit concerned about the overlapping themes between the two novels and hope he has more tricks up his sleeve than repeating the same blown-out-nihilism and interest in sex dynamics in the rest of his oeuvre. Especially because like an over-eager beaver I bought nine of his books after reading Submission.
6.5/10. |