escholarship uc item 8h50z8df
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
1/10
Peer Reviewed
Title:
Michel Houellebecq: The Impossibility of Being an Island
Journal Issue:
Paroles geles, 25(1)
Author:
Rowlins, James, USC
Publication Date:
2009
Publication Info:
Paroles geles, UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies, UC Los Angeles
Permalink:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8h50z8df
Keywords:
Houellebecq, Realism, intertextuality, Balzac, Christianity, Humanism
Abstract:
Michel Houellebecq has encouraged the French press and media to cast him as an isolatedwriter with island status. Despite his attempts to revolt against trends in criticism sincepoststructuralism, Houellebecq creates an intertextual archipelago that links his work to bothliterary history and contemporary cultural thought. In addition to making reference to twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon novels and film, Houellebecq employs narrative techniques typical ofnineteenth-century realist writers from the French tradition, like Zola, Flaubert, and, especially,Balzac. His use of speculation as a narrative device and his attention to moral defects in hischaracters could lead readers to believe that he supports a return to Humanist philosophy thatshuns literary developments since May 68. However, the rebellious stance that appears in hisnovels and his recently published correspondence with Bernard-Henri Lvy ultimately betrays anengagement with the same literary and cultural ideas against which he attempts to rebel. As aresult, Houellebecq illustrates the impossibility of being an island even while depicting himself,like his characters, as a social outcast.
http://escholarship.org/http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8h50z8dfhttp://escholarship.org/uc/item/8h50z8dfhttp://uc/search?creator=Rowlins,%20Jameshttp://escholarship.org/uc/ucla_french_pg?volume=25;issue=1http://escholarship.org/uc/ucla_french_pg -
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
2/10
57
Michel Houellebecq: The Impossibility of Being an Island
__________________________________________________
James Rowlins
University of Southern California
Michel Houellebecq has positioned himself as one of
contemporary literatures foremost outsiders. Eschewing
mainstream French literati, his own readership, criticalreception, and the academy, he presents a striking example in
his novels of the paradoxes of literary singularity. As Murielle
Clment suggests in Houellebecq revisit , his work can be
characterized as une le impossible (104), or an impossible
island. This paper will explore key elements of his troubled
dialogue with the canon through questions of narrative
aesthetics and Humanist philosophy, with a focus on themanifold influences from literary history that impact his
prose. In particular, he borrows from the realist mode of
expression exemplified in nineteenth-century authors like
Balzac, in a return to pre-postmodern models and a brazen
rupture with contemporary literary theory. In reading
Houellebecq as a reactionary figure, I will suggest that his
island status relies on an archipelago of influence that
links his work to contemporary debates in French literary
circles, even as it attempts to isolate his writing from literary
criticism since poststructuralism.
Although Houellebecqs claims to island status can
certainly be traced to the author himself, the literary press has
been keen to fan the flames of a quixotic egotism by
permitting him to offer extensive treatises on his own
singularity. In an interview with Inrockuptibles , the author
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
3/10
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
4/10
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
5/10
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
6/10
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
7/10
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
8/10
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
9/10
-
8/6/2019 eScholarship UC Item 8h50z8df
10/10
72
---. Interventions. Paris: Flammarion, 1998.
---. Les particules lmentaires. Paris: Flammarion, 1998.
---. Plateforme. Paris: Flammarion, 2001.---. La possibilit dune le. Paris: Fayard, 2005.
Lvy, Bernard-Henri, and Michel Houellebecq. Ennemis
Publics. Paris: Flammarion & Grasset, 2008.
Leonard, James S., et al. Author-ity and Textuality: Current
Views of Collaborative Writing. West Cornwall, CT:
Locust Hill Press, 1994.
Lloyd, Vincent. Michel Houellebecq and the TheologicalVirtues. Literature & Theology 23 (2009): 8598.
Rabouin, D. Dantec / Houellebecq: le Temps des Prophtes?
Magazine Littraire 1 November 2000: 2330.
Redonnet, M. La barbarie postmoderne. Art Press (244)
March 1999: 6064.
Sncal, D. Lentretien. Lire 1 September 2001: 3235.
Weitzmann, M. Lentretien des Inrocks. LesInrockuptibles 16
April 1996: 5659.