An Officer of Civilization
Page 11
The myth of childhood as a time of happiness, innocence, and freedom is constantly refuted by Houellebecq, contaminated by abuse and pathological apathy which all foreshadow the final moral failure, transfigured into pedophilia. Once cloning technology becomes a viable option, the novelistic position regarding parenthood and the desire to breed is unequivocal; since children become a burden, it seems best that childhood never exist. The neohumans are born as adults at the age of 18, avoiding all childhood traumas, especially those related to parental neglect.
Hence Houellebecq’s treatment of the family considers not only the meaning of inter-personal and familial ties, but also the worth of human relations and the worthiness of the self. ← 72 | 73 →
1 On the reciprocal relations between capitalism and romantic love see Eva Illouz, Consuming the Romantic Utopia: Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997). At this stage, writes Illouz, “romantic love has helped reinforce such aspects of the ideology of industrial capitalism as individualism, privacy, the nuclear family, and the separation of spheres by gender”, p. 25.
2 For Bruno Viard, the comparison between Houellebecq and Balzac is viable since both are writers originating from decomposed families. See Bruno Viard, Les Tiroirs de Michel Houellebecq (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2013), pp. 136–146.
3 Concerning practices of romance in the late twentieth century see Illouz, Consuming the Romantic Utopia; Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011 [2003]); Gadi Taub, Against Solitude: Impressions (Tel Aviv: Miskal – Yedioth Ahronoth and Chemed Books, 2011), pp. 151–173 [Hebrew].
4 Eva Illouz, Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation (Cambridge and Malden, Massachusetts: Polity, 2012).
5 Ibid. For these specific terms, see especially chapters 3 and 4, pp. 59–156.
6 Bauman, Liquid Love, p. 48.
7 Jerry Andrew Varsava, “Utopian Yearnings, Dystopian Thoughts: Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles and the Problem of Scientific Communitarianism”, College Literature 32/4 (2005): p. 46.
8 The term initially derives from the field of physics, referring to the most fundamental units of matter that cannot be further divided into smaller particles. The concept relates to the central theme of the novel, namely the possibility of controlling human reproduction by means of cloning.
9 The film Elementarteilchen (2006, directed by Oskar Roehler) is an adaptation of Houellebecq’s novel and presents a visual analogy to this atomization in the form of the protagonists’ apartments, which are shown as anonymous, opaque skyscrapers, with each residential cube completely separate and cut off from its neighboring apartments.
10 Nathalie Dumas suggests that in Houellebeq’s Extension the entity of the couple has been excluded and replaced by power and economy, but the male figure fatally proves the wretched loneliness that accompanies this cultural turn. See Natalie Dumas, “Lutte à 99F: La vie sexuelle selon Michel Houellebecq et son extension à Frédéric Beigbeder”, in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 215–225.
11 Bauman distinguishes between these terms: affinity is elective while kinship is given; affinity aspires “to be like kinship, as unconditional, irrevocable and unbreakable” (emphasis in the original). Bauman, Liquid Love, p. 28.
12 Illouz, Why Love Hurts, p. 216. “Another way to say that modern relationships lack emotional security is to say that they are always on the verge of disappointment. More than that, it is not only disappointment, but the anticipation of disappointment that is a modern feature of love.”
13 Susannah Hunnewell, “Michel Houellebecq, the Art of Fiction No. 206” (interview), The Paris Review 194, Fall 2010, available at
14 Enzo Neppi, “The Autobiographical Topos in Sartre’s ‘Les Mots’”, in Herman Zvi Levy (ed.), Fathers and Sons: Myth, Theme and Literary Topos (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991), pp. 177–195 [Hebrew]. I extend the validation of Neppi’s term to refer to autobiography in particular, and autobiographical discourse in general.
15 Viard, in Les Tirroirs, claims that the entirety of Houellebecq’s oeuvre develops from Michel as a child needing his mother [«un enfant qui veut sa mere», p. 160). He even reads The Elementary Particles as an autobiography. My reading refers to autobiography as an organizational structure including several narrative phenomena.
16 Eva Illouz, Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), p. 108.
17 Bruno Viard, «Faut-il en rire ou en pleurer? Michel Houellebecq du côté de Marcel Mauss et du Balzac», in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), p. 37 (my translation). Maxim Görke also tends towards Mauss’s reasoning (Maxim Görke, Articuler la Conscience Malheureuse: A Propos du Cynisme dans L’Oeuvre de Michel Houellebecq [Grin Verlag 2008 /Ebook 2013]).
18 Viard, «Faut-il en rire ou en pleurer? Michel Houellebecq du côté de Marcel Mauss et du Balzac», p. 34.
19 Here I refer to Mulvey’s concept of “to-be-looked-at-ness”, as discussed in her seminal article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16/3 (1975): pp. 6–18.
20 See Carl B. Holmberg, Sexualities and Popular Culture (London and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1998), pp. 248–253. Holmberg summarizes current theory on hyper-real feminine and masculine body images.
21 See also Clément’s interpretation of Bruno gazing at his mother’s vulva, which she reads as an act of incest in Murielle Lucie Clément, Michel Houellebecq: Sexuellement Correct (Saarbrücken: Editions Universitaires Européennes, 2010), pp. 61–68.
22 Neli Debrova, «Figures et transformations du corps féminin (en asexué) dans Les Particules Elémentaire de Michel Houellebecq», in Murielle Lucie Clément and Sabine van Wesemael (eds.), Michel Houellebecq sous la loupe (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007), pp. 227–240.
23 By ‘abjection’ I refer to Julia Kristeva’s definition of the term as an experience that assails the self, causes loathing, and is incomprehensible. It denotes everything that disturbs the identity, system, and proper order of which the self is well aware. Abjection is a term often mentioned with respect to Houellebecq’s work, see Murielle Lucie Clément, Michel Houellebecq: Sperme et Sang (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003) and idem, Michel Houellebecq: Sexuellement Correct; Sabine van Wesemael, Michel Houellebecq: Le Plaisir du Texte (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005), pp. 99–122. Note that Bülent Diken perceives the Houellebecqian abject hero as belonging to the tradition of misanthropic social satire and originating from the carnival, where he was the slave always prepared to debase himself, see Bülent Diken, “The (Impossible) Society of Spite: Revisiting Nihilism.” Theory, Culture and Society 26/4 (2009): p. 103.
24 Taub, Against Solitude, p. 25.
25 Ibid. 28.
26 According to lllouz, “relationship” is a relatively new cultural category which emerged with the emotional turn and the rise of psychology as the main cognitive construct through which people experience their lives; it is essentially distinguishable from marriage. See Illouz, Why Love Hurts, pp. 226–227. On the emergence of the psychological self, see idem, Cold Intimacies (in particular pp. 1–49, on the intervention of psychology in marriage), and idem, Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008). Regarding the role psychology plays in relationships, see pp. 115–120.
27 Hence the built-in disappointments of relationships, see Illouz, Why Love Hurts, pp. 215–217.
28 Bauman, Liquid Love.
29 It adheres to Illouz’s sociological exegesis of the agony of love, see Illouz, Why Love Hurts.
30 Taub, Against Solitude, p. 63.
31 Clément analyzes the fir
st encounters between principle characters and concludes that all give prominence to sexual dimensions. Whether present or absent, these are nonetheless evident. Clément, Sexuellement Correct, pp. 86–94.
32 Illouz, Why Love Hurts, pp. 41–58.
33 Ibid., 46.
34 David M Halperin, Saint Foucault: Toward a Gay Hagiography (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 20.
35 This is congruent with arguments regarding the centrality of erotic capital or aesthetic value in recent popular research. Hakim’s Honey Money is dedicated to the importance of erotic capital for women, claiming that “in today’s self-service, open and potentially global mating and marriage markets, erotic power plays a larger role than ever before” (see Catherine Hakim, Honey Money: Why Attractiveness is the Key to Success [London and New York: Penguin Books, 2012], p. 35) and to advocating the full valorization of this asset in public and private life. Postrel, in Substance of Style, discusses the rise of the aesthetic imperative and claims that “the most dramatic indicators of the new aesthetic age relate not to product design or environments, but to personal appearance”. See Virginia Postrel, Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness (New York: Harper Perrenial, 2003), p. 24.
36 Illouz, Why Love Hurts, p. 58.
37 Illouz conceptualizes the phenomenon in the following manner: “Sexual and romantic freedom is not an abstract practice, but rather is institutionalized and embedded in a contested but still powerful patriarchy. […] Sexual freedom is similar to economic freedom in that it implicitly organizes and even legitimizes inequalities.” (Why Love Hurts, p. 61).
38 Illouz, Consuming the Romantic Utopia, pp. 153–184.
39 On real and unreal romantic signs, see ibid., pp. 182–183.
40 Valérie’s character is the embodiment of an individual living in a capitalistic culture which demands hard work during the day and enjoyment at night, see ibid.
41 Bauman, Liquid Love, pp. 38–47.
42 Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (New York: Vintage Books, 1994 [1982]), pp. 150–152.
43 Ibid., pp. 98–119. Postman also laments the leveling of intellectual capacities due to the reappearance of new illiteracy, which he ascribes to the culture of television.
44 Ibid., p. 99.
45 This is akin to the reasoning of Christopher Lasch, who was one of the first to articulate the cultural shift which altered the value of the family and forms of societal interaction (his argument extends from American to Western society). Lasch suggests that the upper and middle classes are ruled by the narcissistic personality. The perimeters of consciousness and concern have been narrowed to the intimate sphere of the self. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York and London: Norton, 1991 [1978]).
46 The article was originally published in 1997, following the Dutroux affair. Houellebecq calls pedophilia “inexcusable”, but explains it as indicative of a social illness resulting from the actual conditions of contemporary economy – the overwhelming exposure to sex along with the impossibility of realizing potential: «le pédophile me paraît le boucémissaire idéal d’une société qui organise l’exacerbation du désir sans apporter les moyens de le satisfaire.» [“The pedophile seems to me therefore an ideal scapegoat of a society which exacerbates desire in an organized way without providing the means to satisfy it”] (my translation). Thus the pedophile turns to the only individual who is powerless to resist him – the child.
47 In contrast, the monstrous acts of pedophiles become more horrific as Houellebecq evacuates the dichotomy between dark and light figures, between predators and victims (as in the case of Rudi in Lanzarote, for example). All participants are in the twilight zone, interfering with and preventing immediate resentment.
48 Clément, Sexuellement Correct, pp. 77–78. Clément points out that although Houellebecq flirts with the doxa he never crosses it. She reads this metaphorically, as an existential quest for sustainable love.
49 John McCann, Michel Houellebecq: Author of Our Times (Bern: Peter Lang 2010), p. 110.
50 Holmberg, Sexualities and Popular Culture, p. 93.
Visions of the Future, Persistence of the Real: A Quest
Two of Houellebecq’s novels, The Elementary Particles (Les Particules Elementaires) and The Possibility of an Island (La Possibilité d’une île), take a leap into the future, solidifying the author’s position as a trans-writer who tackles the major questions facing humanity and ascribes great importance to the human knowledge of his time.1 These restless and probing books offer a picture of humanity in the future, while in fact discussing the implications of that future for the present. They belong to the genre of futuristic novels, a sub-genre of science-fiction that grapples with questions relating to the future of humanity and society based on an exploration of elements and technologies already present in current civilization and an analysis of their implications.2
In The Elementary Particles, Houellebecq provides us with a glimpse of humanity 60 years into the future: biotechnology has fulfilled its promise and cloning has become common practice. This is basically the ← 73 | 74 → realization of a utopian project, designed to exterminate the human suffering which results from age and sexuality that could no longer be sustained, described through the life stories of Michel and Bruno. The picture of the future in The Elementary Particles is limited to an account of scientific achievements, delivered by a neohuman who laments the extinction of humanity and its replacement by a superior race. The connection between the diegetic future and present in Houellebecq’s works is evident from the elaborate references to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, especially in The Elementary Particles.3 Bruno, from whose perspective most of the narrative is related, stresses his thesis that Huxley’s technological dystopia is verbatim the fathomed utopia of his generation:
I’ve always been struck by how accurate Huxley was in Brave New World […]. Everything that’s happened since simply brings Western society closer to the social model he described. Control of reproduction is more precise and eventually will be completely disassociated from sex altogether, and procreation will take place in tightly guarded laboratories where perfect genetic conditions are ensured. Once that happens, any sense of family, of father-son bonds, will disappear […]. The society Huxley describes in Brave New World is happy; tragedy and extremes of human emotions have disappeared. Sexual liberation is total – nothing stands in the way of instant gratification. Oh, there are little moments of depression, of sadness or doubt, but they’re easily dealt with using advances in antidepressants and tranquilizers […]. This is exactly the sort of world we’re trying to create, the world we want to live in.
‘Oh, I know, I know,’ Bruno went on […]. ‘Everyone says Brave New World is supposed to be a totalitarian nightmare, a vicious indictment of society, but that’s hypocritical bullshit. Brave New World is our idea of heaven: genetic manipulation, sexual liberation, the war against aging, the leisure society. This is precisely the world that we have tried – and so far failed – to create.’ (Particles, pp. 130–131)
[«J’ai toujours été frappé […] par l’extraordinaire justesse des prédictions faites par Aldous Huxley dans Le Meilleur des mondes […]. Depuis, la société occidentale a constamment tenté de se rapprocher de ce modèle. Contrôle de plus en plus précis de la procréation, qui finira bien un jour ou l’autre par aboutir à sa dissociation totale d’avec le sexe, et à la reproduction de l’espèce humaine en laboratoire dans des conditions de sécurité et de fiabilité génétique totales. Disparition par conséquent des rapports familiaux, de la notion de paternité et de filiation […]. La société décrite par Brave New World est une société heureuse, dont ont disparu la tragédie et les sentiments extrêmes. La liberté sexuelle y est totale, plus rien n’y fait obstacle ← 74 | 75 → à l’épanouissement et au plaisir. Il demeure de petits moments de dépression, de tristesse et de doute
; mais ils sont facilement traités par voie médicamenteuse, la chimie des antidépresseurs et des anxiolytiques a fait des progrès considérables […]. C’est exactement le monde auquel aujourd’hui nous aspirons, le monde dans lequel, aujourd’hui, nous souhaiterions vivre.
«‘Je sais bien,’ continua Bruno… ‘qu’on décrit en général l’univers d’Huxley comme un cauchemar totalitaire, qu’on essaie de faire passer ce livre pour une dénonciation virulente; c’est une hypocrisie pure et simple. Sur tous les points – contrôle génétique, liberté sexuelle, lutte contre le vieillissement, civilisation des loisirs, Brave New World est pour nous un paradis, c’est en fait exactement le monde que nous essayons, jusqu’à présent sans succès, d’atteindre.’» (Particules, pp. 156–157)]
Whereas in The Elementary Particles the utopian future, clearly sought by 20th-century humans, has come into being, The Possibility of an Island interrogates the full significance of the human aspirations which generated this utopia. In the latter work, the future is the realization of the megalomaniac scientific phantasm to put an end to the misery of Daniel1’s generation in fin de millénaire Europe. The novel tells the tale of neohumans after 2000 years of mechanical reproduction, the result of a eugenicist project lasting thousands of years that has generated a new breed of autotrophic creatures to replace the masses. Only vestiges of humanity remain here and there in the world outside the compound. The neohuman is programmed and wired to eradicate the suffering of passion and growing old that characterizes humans. In order to eliminate this pain, a déliaison, a disconnection, is necessary, preventing any real experience; thus the neohuman experiences the world only by reading about the lives of his ancestors, along with his own, added interpretations. The super-human envisioned by genetic engineering as immune to all suffering is in truth a lonely, primitive organism; his only fraternity is genetic, and thus restricted to the diachronic. Synchronic relations with other neohumans are narrowed to communication via computers. This negates any possibility of familial relationships, partnership, community and, in short, society.