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arirang 's review for:
Serotoninas
by Michel Houellebecq
With apologies to Gwen Stefani: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgjkth6BRRY
Few times I've been around that track
So it's not just gonna happen like that.
This is my 5th Houellebecq novel and his 8th.
In the best, and most quoted, line in Shaun Whitehead’s translation of Michel Houllebecq’s Serotonin, the narrator argues that, for Western culture, the third millennium is one millennium too many, in the way that boxers have one fight too many, which is perhaps the overriding theme of all of the author’s works.
When I read Houellebecq’s previous novel – Submission translated by Lori Stein – it felt like a boxer taking on an easy fight for the purse money, rather than taking on a challenge. From my review of Submission:
And this one feels like one novel too many, with a punch-drunk novelist lashing out, but his trademark shots no longer landing.
I heard that you were talking shit
And you didn't think that I would hear it
People hear you talking like that, getting everybody fired up.
At one point in the novel, the narrator comes across a part-refurbished ancient chateau: It was less of a castle than an incoherent collection of buildings in various states of conservation, but it was hard to reconstruct the initial plan.
Which again feels like the novel the reader is reading. Much of the focus of the reception of the novel has been on the prescient story of the protesting farmers, anticipating the Gilets Jaunes movement. But this is dealt with in less than 10% of the novel, inserted rather randomly 2/3rds of the way through, and a novel featuring French farmers railing against the withdrawal of subsidies isn’t so much prescient as historical.
And the attempts to fire-up the audience feel increasingly pathetic. There is one particular, completely out of context, scene involving a German tourist and a 10-year old girl that is very hard to excuse.
The opening of the novel – which explains the narrator ditching his current girlfriend – appears included simply to add some canine pornographic detail that even the narrator admits I thought contributed little to the overall tale.
'Cause I ain't no Houellebecq guy
I ain't no Houellebecq guy.
Overall, a bizarre inclusion on the Booker International List
This Guardian review – from a reader new to Houellebecq – is on the nail: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/29/serotonin-michel-houellebecq-review
Few times I've been around that track
So it's not just gonna happen like that.
This is my 5th Houellebecq novel and his 8th.
In the best, and most quoted, line in Shaun Whitehead’s translation of Michel Houllebecq’s Serotonin, the narrator argues that, for Western culture, the third millennium is one millennium too many, in the way that boxers have one fight too many, which is perhaps the overriding theme of all of the author’s works.
When I read Houellebecq’s previous novel – Submission translated by Lori Stein – it felt like a boxer taking on an easy fight for the purse money, rather than taking on a challenge. From my review of Submission:
Overall - frustrating. The novel has the typical issues with any of his books - the sexism and general misanthropy, the flat prose - but that's part of the package and I have read and really enjoyed both The Elementary Particles and The Map and the Territory. And the Huysmans angle here could have made this a great novel - until Houellebecq decided to dumb the whole concept down to generate sales.
And this one feels like one novel too many, with a punch-drunk novelist lashing out, but his trademark shots no longer landing.
I heard that you were talking shit
And you didn't think that I would hear it
People hear you talking like that, getting everybody fired up.
At one point in the novel, the narrator comes across a part-refurbished ancient chateau: It was less of a castle than an incoherent collection of buildings in various states of conservation, but it was hard to reconstruct the initial plan.
Which again feels like the novel the reader is reading. Much of the focus of the reception of the novel has been on the prescient story of the protesting farmers, anticipating the Gilets Jaunes movement. But this is dealt with in less than 10% of the novel, inserted rather randomly 2/3rds of the way through, and a novel featuring French farmers railing against the withdrawal of subsidies isn’t so much prescient as historical.
And the attempts to fire-up the audience feel increasingly pathetic. There is one particular, completely out of context, scene involving a German tourist and a 10-year old girl that is very hard to excuse.
The opening of the novel – which explains the narrator ditching his current girlfriend – appears included simply to add some canine pornographic detail that even the narrator admits I thought contributed little to the overall tale.
'Cause I ain't no Houellebecq guy
I ain't no Houellebecq guy.
Overall, a bizarre inclusion on the Booker International List
This Guardian review – from a reader new to Houellebecq – is on the nail: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/29/serotonin-michel-houellebecq-review