/lit/ - Literature

it's amazing what a diet of booze and cigarettes will do to you

I think Atomised is great and Submission is ok

>>10422324
He was never precisely handsome to begin with.

If I'm a sad sack of shit should I read Whatever, or will it make me feel worse? I want to get back into reading books that aren't comics and this and Tao Lin looks like a good starting point.

>>10422337
maybe, but he didn't look like an undead corpse

I’ve read Whatever, Atomised, Submisson and Platform and they’re the best stuff I’ve read by someone who isn’t dead.

Although if Gary Paulsen is still alive he deserves a mention since Hatchet and the winter sequel were my favourites in youth and I’m still grateful for them.

I think The Map and the Territory is his best, though it doesn't seem to be popular. Quite different from his other stuff, very heavy on the self-parody, and also with some Borgesian elements.

Daily reminder that a biography of Houellebecq is available FOR FREE online but French posters are too lazy to translate it.

>>10422568
>he can't speak French

Back to plebbit

>>10422366

If you're just getting back into reading, Tao Lin is a better option.

>>10422337
I think he looked pretty cool when he was more well-groomed

>>10423376
Yeah he wasn't Chad Toundércoque but he looked sharp and intense

What are some works similar to Whatever that isnt by Houellebecq?
Read Praise by Andrew McGahan recently and it was in the same vein.

He's one of my favourites desu. Very easy to read, but a worthwhile addition to existentialist canon. He's deliberately very provocative, offensive and miserable, but I think he does this deliberately to characterise himself as the inevitable product of a sick society.

>>10422539
I thought Submission had some neat ideas but was underwhelming. Anything you recommend?

>>10423737
I found it good but also the least good of what I read. Platform and Atomised were my favourites.

>>10422316
Atomised was great.

>>10422539
I love his style but beware the allure of depression and fatalism, it's a comfortable place to sit with cowardice until >>10422324 Do you really deserve the things you want?

Whatever is actually his best work

>>10423390
Underrated

I liked platform

I liked Whatever ( or Extension of the domain of struggle as a better translation of the original title) really stuck with me expecially the theories on economical and sexual liberalism. He expands on the 80/20 modern sexual market rule quite well.

>>10424522
I actually don’t find his work depressing. If anything it makes me sort of giddy to finally read someone who writes about the world truthfully.

His new book on Lovecraft is difficult to acquire in Canada. Also, I've seen at least three different book covers on Google image search.

Could anyone shed some light on these things?

> ctrl+f
> Not a single mention of his poetry
> Not a single mention of La Possibilité d'une île

I thought you guys were supposed to know about this literature thing.

>>10426392
>His new book

Its not new at all, its several years old and is actually a late published essay he wrote as a young man

>>10427104

I've been tricked.

>>10422316
he’s brilliant and when he dies im gonna dance like a freak to Black Sabbath just for him

>>10422316
well I ain't no Houellebecq girl

>>10426392
1. Search "lovecraft against the world against life scribd" on google

2. See the scribd link

3. Press the small arrow next to the link and press Cached

4. Read the book for free.

>>10427388
Brava

>>10427410

I like to touch books.
A book that cannot be touched is like a woman that cannot be smelled.

>>10427489


-

i concur

>>10427187
why black sabbath? is he a big fan of them or something?

>>10428493
Google houellebecq dancing, it’s sublime

>>10422568
cant find it where is it?

>>10422568
Link. I might do it just for practice.

Also
>he can't read French
How the fuck did you make it through high school, my dude?

>>10427080
fuck off

>>10428493
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlqG0-9SBPA

>>10428765
>>10428790

1. Google: Houellebecq non autorisé Enquête sur un phénomène Scribd

2. Press the small arrow beside the link and choose cached.

"Sure. It’s been hopeless for a long time, from the very beginning. You will never represent, Raphael, a young girl’s erotic dream. You have to resign yourself to the inevitable; such things are not for you. It’s already too late, in any case. The sexual failure you’ve known since your adolescence, Raphael, the frustration that has followed you since the age of thirteen, will leave their indelible mark. Even supposing that you might have women in the future - which in all frankness I doubt - this will not be enough; nothing will ever be enough. You will always be an orphan to those adolescent loves you never knew. In you the wound is already deep; it will get deeper and deeper. An atrocious, unremitting bitterness will end up gripping your heart. For you there will be neither redemption nor deliverance. That’s how it is."

^Read this excerpt on /lit/, it almost made me cry and I've been too scared to read him ever since

>>10428711
That made my day, i love you anon. have you seen the film? Been looking for a while and can't find it anywhere.

>>10430900
Whatever is filled with gut wrenching paragraphs. Here's another:

“The problem is, it's just not enough to live according to the rules. Sure, you manage to live according to the rules. Sometimes it's tight, extremely tight, but on the whole you manage it. Your tax papers are up to date. Your bills paid on time. You never go out without your identity card (and the special little wallet for your Visa!).
Yet you haven’t any friends.
The rules are complex, multiform. There’s the shopping that needs doing out of working hours, the automatic dispensers where money has to be got (and where you so often have to wait). Above all there are the different payments you must make to the organizations that run different aspects of your life. You can fall ill into the bargain, which involves costs, and more formalities.
Nevertheless, some free time remains. What’s to be done? How do you use your
time? In dedicating yourself to helping people? But basically other people don’t interest you. Listening to records? That used to be a solution, but as the years go by you have to say that music moves you less and less.
Taken in its widest sense, a spot of do-it-yourself can be a way out. But the fact is that nothing can halt the ever-increasing recurrence of those moments when your total isolation, the sensation of an all-consuming emptiness, the foreboding that your existence is nearing a painful and definitive end all combine to plunge you into a state of real suffering.
And yet you haven’t always wanted to die.
You have had a life. There have been moments when you were having a life. Of
course you don't remember too much about it; but there are photographs to prove it. This was probably happening round about the time of your adolescence, or just after. How great your appetite for life was, then! Existence seemed so rich in new possibilities. You might become a pop singer, go off to Venezuela.
More surprising still, you have had a childhood. Observe, now, a child of seven, playing with his little soldiers on the living room carpet. I want you to observe him closely. Since the divorce he no longer has a father. Only rarely does he see his mother, who occupies an important post in a cosmetics firm. And yet he plays with his little soldiers and the interest he takes in these representations of the world and of war seems very keen. He already lacks a bit of affection, that's for sure, but what an air he has of being interested in the world!
You too, you took an interest in the world. That was long ago. I want you to cast your mind back to then. The domain of the rules was no longer enough for you; you were unable to live any longer in the domain of the rules; so you had to enter into the domain of the struggle. I ask you to go back to that precise moment. It was long ago, no? Cast your mind back: the water was cold.”

what are his two must read novels?

>As before, the shrieking of the gatekeepers of probity on the issues of Third World prostitution and Islamophobia obscured completely the book's primary theme and its place in Houellebecq's developing universe: the redemptive power of love, and modern society's unrelenting desire to destroy it. Indeed, it is unfortunate that while Houellebecq has been called many things, a romantic is not one of them. For underneath the bile and porn that have made him famous, there is a childlike longing for, and a desperate belief in, love. We can only hope that once the controversies of the moment have faded away, it is for this strange and strangely moving paradox that Houellebecq will be remembered.

Benjamin Kerstein, 'The Western Abyss: Review of Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island, p6; https://www.houellebecq.info/presse/223_azure.pdf

>>10431698
>I knew deep down that this young girl was a marvel; but it was no big deal, I'd done my masturbating. From the amorous point of view Véronique belonged, as we all do, to a sacrificed generation. She had certainly been capable of love; she wished to still be capable of it, I'll say that for her; but it was no longer possible. A scarce, artificial and belated phenomenon, love can only blossom under certain mental conditions, rarely conjoined, and totally opposed to the freedom of morals which characterises the modern era. Véronique had known too many discothèques, too many lovers; such a way of life impoverishes a human being, inflicting sometimes serious and always irreversible damage. Love as a kind of innocence and as a capacity for illusion, as an aptitude for epitomising the whole of the other sex in a single loved being rarely resists a year of sexual immorality, and never two. In reality the successive sexual experiences accumulated during adolescence undermine and rapidly destroy all possibility of projection of an emotional and romantic sort; progressively, and in fact extremely quickly, one becomes as capable of love as an old slag. And so on leads, obviously, a slag's life; in ageing one becomes less seductive, and on that account bitter. One is jealous of the younger, and so one hates them. Condemned to remain unvowable, this hatred festers and becomes increasingly fervent; then it dies down and fades away, just as everything fades away. All that remains is resentment and disgust, sickness and the anticipation of death.

>>10431721
You can see Schopenhauer's influence on him especially in this quote.
He released a book this year called "In the Presence of Schopenhauer". Check it out if you can

>>10431769

Awesome.
Thanks for the heads up.

>>10431496
Not yet sadly

>>10431517
> And yet you haven’t always wanted to die.
> You have had a life. There have been moments when you were having a life. Of
> course you don't remember too much about it; but there are photographs to prove it. This was probably happening round about the time of your adolescence, or just after. How great your appetite for life was, then! Existence seemed so rich in new possibilities.
Fugg

>>10431721
>>10431517
Anon I implore you, please stop this.

I can't tell if there's some deep secret or if it's all just nu-male posturing. Clearly he encapsulates the feelings of sexual jealousy and resentment, but it's written from the jaded perspective of a too-oft rejected beta. Trying to decide whether to read him over Christmas break, or if I should just stick to poetry and the classics.

“I am persuaded that feminism is not at the root of political correctness. The actual source is much nastier and dares not speak its name, which is simply hatred for old people. The question of domination between men and women is relatively secondary—important but still secondary—compared to what I tried to capture in this novel, which is that we are now trapped in a world of kids. Old kids. The disappearance of patrimonial transmission means that an old guy today is just a useless ruin. The thing we value most of all is youth, which means that life automatically becomes depressing, because life consists, on the whole, of getting old.”

is he right?

>>10432177
That's pretty damn true...shit

>>10432019
>Though alone for much of his life, he was nonetheless occasionally in touch with other men. He lived through an age that was miserable and troubled. The country into which he was born was sliding slowly, ineluctably, into the ranks of the less developed countries; often haunted by misery, the men of his generation lived out their lonely, bitter lives. Feelings such as love, tenderness and human fellowship had, for the most part, disappeared. The relationships between his contemporaries were at best indifferent and more often cruel.

>He himself wanted nothing more than to love. He asked for nothing; nothing in particular, anyway. Life should be simple, Michel thought, something that could be lived as a collection of small, endlessly repeated rituals. Perhaps somewhat empty rituals, but they gave you something to believe in.

>The problem- and it was a new one for me-was my dick. It probably sounds strange now, but in the seventies nobody really cared how
big their dick was. When I was a teenager I had every conceivable hang-up about my body except that. I don't know who started it—queers, probably, though you find it a lot in American detective novels, but there's no mention of it in Sartre. Whatever, in the showers at the gym I realized I had a really small dick. I measured it when I got home—it was twelve centimeters, maybe thirteen or fourteen if you measured right to the base. I'd found something new to worry about, something I couldn't do anything about; it was a basic and permanent handicap. It was around then that I started hating blacks.

>>10432019
"Humor won't save you; it doesn't really do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn't matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you've developed a sense of humor, you still end up with your heart broken. That's when you stop laughing. In the end there's just the cold, the silence and the loneliness. In the end there's only death."

>>10432177
Yep, after Brexit there were seriously idiots saying that old people shouldn't get to vote because they'll be dead soon anyway.

>>10432276
That wasn't Hollaback's point.

The point was that the '68 generation (Europe's loathed BabyBoomer equivalent) started worshipping youth and hating the elderly along with tradition, so by the time the 90s rolled about, they were suddenly stupefied to find out that they themselves had grown old and ugly and ended up on the receiving end, desperately trying to be young again now that being old sucks.

>Sexual desire is preoccupied with youth, and the progressive influx of ever-younger girls onto the field of seduction was simply a return to the norm; a restoration of the true nature of desire, comparable to the return of stock prices to their true value after a run on the exchange. Nonetheless, women who turned twenty in the late sixties found themselves in a difficult position when they hit forty. Most of them were divorced and could no longer count on the conjugal bond— whether warm or abject—whose decline they had served to hasten. As members of a generation who —more than any before—had proclaimed the superiority of youth over age, they could hardly claim to be surprised when they, in turn, were despised by succeeding generations. As their flesh began to age, the cult of the body, which they had done so much to promote, simply filled them with an intensifying disgust for their own bodies-a disgust they could see mirrored in the gaze of others.

>Men who grow old alone have it easier than older women. They drink cheap booze and fall asleep, their breath stinks, then they wake up and start all over again; they tend to die young. Women take tranquilizers, go to yoga classes, see a shrink; they live a lot longer and suffer a lot more. They try to trade on their looks, even when they know their bodies are sad and ugly. They get hurt but they do it anyway, because they can't give up the need to be loved. That's one delusion they'll keep to the bitter end. Once she's past a certain age, a woman might get to rub up against some cocks, but she has no chance of being loved.

>I know what the veterans of '68 are like when they hit forty. I'm practically one myself. They have cobwebs in their cunts and they grow old alone. Talk to them for five minutes and you'll see they don't believe any of this bullshit about chakras and crystal healing and light vibrations. They force themselves to believe it, and sometimes they do for an hour or two. They feel the presence of the Angel or the flower blossoming within but then the workshop's over and they're still ugly, aging and alone. So they have crying fits—they do a lot of crying here, have you noticed?

>>10432306
Ironically the women that says so later drives her wheelchair down 5 stories

>>10432261
F-Fuck you anon, why are you doing this to me

>>10422544
I agree, it's an amazing novel, often simple, beautiful, very funny; I guess its minor popularity comes from lack of Houellebecq's typical themes in it. On the other hand he got the G Prize mostly because of how he didn't offend anyone with this one, so...

Personally I hated Atomised because all of the characters were terrible, broken people, although that's his particular genius.

I read Submission and liked it very much, maybe principally because there was that small hint of "goodness" in the novel in the form of the dying light of the medieval church.

>>10432411
I almost cried reading that passage

just kidding I cried reading that passage

>>10432613
I found Submission cowardly

>>10432306
Based quotes poster

>>10432920
How so? Saying that the West is dead to the degree of Islam being an improvement is more beautifully contrarian than actually upholding liberal values in the face of it.

>>10432613
You sound like a woman on goodreads

>Between seven and twelve, a child is an astonishing being -- kind, rational and open, full of joy and convinced that the world is a logical place. He's full of love, and happy to accept what love we're prepared to give. After that it all goes wrong -- it all goes horribly wrong.

>>10432029
I would say the extreme cynicism (he would probably insist on its realism) of his books gives them a neutrality that countermands real bitterness, albeit some of Houllebecq’s characters are very bitter. Unlike in Roth, where impotence leads to crisis and invective, Houellebeq’s characters—e.g. Bruno and Michel in The Elementary Particles—either display a desperate fin-de-siecle decadence or pathological cynicism and removal from the world. This is not to say that Roth, by contrast, does express bitter sentiments, his attitude being at least ostensibly a kind of “Bellowvian” exuberance. Houllebecq’s models seem to be the French decadents, most saliently Huysmans. Also obviously, obvious because nearly every French novelist is, he’s indebted to Flaubert. Possibly he’s read Bernhard as well, and I’ve noticed some subtle affinities with Sebald. He vacillates between and occasionally manages to synthesize satire, the depraved aestheticism of Sade, Huysmans, and Bataille, and Flaubert’s two primary approaches (evinced in The Temptation of St. Anthony and Madame Bovary)

>>10433396
Whoever wrote that has his ages wrong.

>>10431698
Love this. I have always thought Houellebecq wrote about humans worndown and rung by modern Life who long for simple human connection and love. It is very apparent that his stories are about the absence of kindness and love, and he is a very sensitive writer and not repugnant.

>>10422316
Great read, but none of it in its original, authorial language.

>>10432306
This idea was precisely conceptualized by Clouscard.

>>10430900
I have been in despair after reading this, I thought all r9k incel theories had already blackpilled me to the utter extent, but this hit me hard.

>>10430900
>>>/r9k/

>>10433910
Houellebecq writes in a humble ordinary language style so the prose is very easily translated. I wouldn't worry

>>10434100
I’m glad that I faked being a normie in my youth and got at least some good young pussy before retreating from the world, if only to be able to convince myself that my current disinterest is not some form of sour grapes.

This guy knows what’s up:


https://youtu.be/AloNERbBXcc

>>10434201
>This guy knows what’s up:
this is what Curb season 10 is going to be like, isn't it

One thing I find very bizarre about Houellebecq's works is the totally unfitting way the English translations are marketed. The covers make them look like airport novels, something your mum would read. And the titles! "Whatever" is an awful name for his first book. The main character isn't apathetic, quite the opposite: he ends up in a psychiatric hospital for caring too much. Whereas the original title (Extension de la domaine de la lutte) perfectly captures Houellebecq's theme: the [political] struggle of the '68 generation ("la lutte continue") catches up with them and extends to the rest of their lives. I get that it doesn't quite work in English, but "Whatever" turns the whole book on its head.

But okay, even if I assume that the English publisher didn't understand him and didn't really care, the fact remains that Houellebecq approved the titles of the English versions. I just don't get that.

Are there any Frenchfags ITT who can explain how he's marketed in France? I've tried asking French friends about him but since Submission he's just been That Racist Guy who says outrageous things on talk shows so everyone has an opinion on him without having read him. But are his books really portrayed as trashy cheap rubbish like they are in English?

Submission is quite good. Will definitely read more.

>>10434231
> Are there any Frenchfags ITT who can explain how he's marketed in France? I've tried asking French friends about him but since Submission he's just been That Racist Guy who says outrageous things on talk shows so everyone has an opinion on him without having read him.
They don’t deserve him

This picture makes me sad.

Should I give this to my mom?

>As a piece of writing, ''The Elementary Particles'' feels like a bad, self-conscious pastiche of Camus, Foucault and Bret Easton Ellis. And as a philosophical tract, it evinces a fiercely nihilistic, anti-humanistic vision built upon gross generalizations and ridiculously phony logic. It is a deeply repugnant read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/books/books-of-the-times-unsparing-case-studies-of-humanity-s-vileness.html

What did they mean by this?

>>10427080

Is his poetry good then?
I'm thinking of getting this.

It includes:

Le Sens du combat
Les Particules élémentaires
Renaissance
Lanzarote
Extension du domaine de la lutte
Rester vivant
La Poursuite du bonheur
H.P. Lovecraft

A number of these are poem collections.

>>10434674
>Is his poetry good then?
you be the judge of that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLULVpcb5Mw

>Henri is one year old. He is lying on the floor. His diapers are dirty. He is bawling. His mother is walking back and forth, her heels clicking against the tiles of the floor, looking for her bra and her skirt. She is in a hurry to go to her evening rendezvous. This little thing covered with shit, moving around on the tiles, exasperates her. She begins to cry herself. Henri bawls all the more. Then she goes out. Henri has got off to a good start in his career as a poet.

>Marc is ten years old. His father is dying of cancer in the hospital. This pile of worn machinery, with tubes going down the throat, and intravenous drips: this is his father. Only his eyes are alive; they express suffering and fear. Marc suffers too. He too is afraid. He loves his father. And at the same time he is beginning to wish that his father would die, and to feel guilty about it. Marc has work to do. He should cultivate in himself this suffering, so particular and so fertile: this Most Holy Guilt.

>Michel is fifteen. He has never been kissed by a girl. He would like to dance with Sylvie, but Sylvie is dancing with Patrice, and she is manifestly enjoying it. He is frozen. The music penetrates to the deepest core of his being. It is a magnificent slow dance of surreal beauty. He never knew he could suffer so much. His childhood, up until now, had been happy. Michel will never forget the contrast between his heart, frozen with suffering, and the overwhelming beauty of the music. His sensibility is being formed.

L-LOL?

>>10434798
what is this from?

>>10434798
YAMERO

>>10435879
>Generally, the initial reaction of a thwarted animal is to try harder to attain its goal. A starving chicken (Gallus domesticus) prevented from reaching its food by a wire fence will make increasingly frantic efforts to get through it. Gradually, however, this behavior is replaced by another which has no obvious purpose. When unable to find food, for example, pigeons (Columba livia) will frequently peck the ground even if nothing there is edible. Not only will they peck indiscriminately, but they start to preen their feathers; such inappropriate behavior, frequently observed in situations of frustration or conflict, is known as displacement activity. Early in 1986, just after he turned thirty, Bruno began to write.

oh look it's /lit/

>>10430900
Sounds like my 24/7 internal monologue desu

>>10434231
Frenchfag here.
Your friends are right. He has been branded as that racist, provocative guy since Atomized. But he's been playing with that image too. At the same time he's mostly considered as talented and his books are not portrayed as rubbish. The covers don't look trashy like their english counterparts either.
However Submission was considered more bothersome by the politically correct media. It was released the same week as the Charlie Hebdo killings, and sounded like a prophecy a bit too close to reality. Houellebecq also feared for his life in that context.

>>10431621
Elementary Particles and Submission

>>10435935
dang

i'm turning 30 soon

>>10432029
>nu-male posturing
I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're not a fucking idiot, in which case you should read Houellebecq because he's far far away from the category nu-male

>>10432256
white bois be scared
pol methodology exposed

>I realize I'm smoking more and more; I must be on at least four packs a day. Smoking cigarettes has become the only element of real freedom in my life. The only act to which I tenaciously cling with my whole being. My one ambition.

how tf do you even get to 4 packs a day? I've gone up to a pack and a half a day before and it isnt even pleasurable after a few hours

>>10422324
shit affects people differently

>>10434173
>Houellebecq thread
>Not allowed to admit you're a failure sexually
>>>/reddit/

>>10438020
Meant for
>>10434157

>>10434637
>they

She. The review is written by a woman. That should tell you all you need to know.

>>10435935
This should be fucking illegal

>>10437962
tom waits quit smoking a long time ago

Is this the /incel/ general?

>>10438469
It's the litcel general

>>10422366
Yeah, Whatever is a massive bummer. It wasn't very good, either. No idea how it became such a hit in France.

>>10437962
Guy still smoked for 40 something years

>>10438537
Why is the kitty crying?

>>10438815
No gf

>>10423737
>>10424389
This. Platform and Atomised are the deepest and bleakest. Lanzarote is Platform in utero, Whatever has a strong central conceit but reads terribly in English translation (at least I'm blaming it on that), and Submission was largely boring.

Possibility of an Island is good for Wellbeck goes scifi, and Map & Territory is surprisingly contemplative and moving. He certainly knows his milieu and explores the same themes without becoming one-note.

>>10434231
I rather like the marketing subversion, his bleak philosophy disguised with 'tasteful' b/w girls. CK campaign + airport trash = the ultimate stealthpill

Been reading Submission, mainly because I want to gift it to my father but if I hurry I'll be done tomorrow before wrapping it.
Unsure if he'll like it but I think the topic of the islaimizaton of the Europe interests him enough to at least give it a try and as a bit of an old perv he'll probably get a kick out of his crass and vulgar descriptions of sex.

>>10438943
keke

>>10438469
incels don't exist in the first world

read Platform

>>10439510
>incels don't exist in the first world

What the fuck does this even mean

>>10439695
its a very provocative statement meant to make you ponder the ontological status of incels in a post-modern information based society where identity is mediate by social-sexual information streams. The incel cannot exist as they do not leave a trace in the social web which denies them the identity necessary to have ontological status. They're a really avant-garde intellect, this board is full of them, you just have to squeeze yourself into the space-between-spaces to find them. The little fungi that they are

>>10434637
what a terribly, terribly poor understanding of the novel.

the "journalist" probably didn't even understand the authors she namedropped there.

holy fuck, disgusting.

>>10434637
women are incapable of genius or even appreciating it and they feel threatened by reality itself

>>10439695
Because even a NEET can afford a prostitute.

>>10434637
Woman simply cannot understand that novel

>>10439191
why is Lanzarote the least translated and talked about?

Where to go after Whatever and Elementary particles?

>>10439766
From what I remember it was pretty thin
>in both appearance, and demeanor
>scrunches face up at Fred

This thread is now Norm

>>10423390
>Chad Thundércoque
you made a frenchfag chuckle.

>>10422316
So Atomised was actually written as a record of the lives of the two brothers as a way of honouring the memory of their creator, Michel. Why did they detail the movements of Bruno's dick and sex life so often than the underlying science that created them?

After having read Submission: Should I get into Huysmans?

reminder that houellbecq is a humanist claiming compassion is a virtue

>>10441572
He writes awfully negative about humanists for being one himself...

"I understand death now. I don't think it will do me much harm. I have known hatred, contempt, decay, and other things; I have even known brief moments of love. Nothing of me will survive, and I do not deserve for anything of me to survive. I will have been a mediocre individual in every possible sense.
I imagine, I don't know why, that I will die in the middle of the night, and I still feel a little anxious at the thought of the suffering that will accompany the severing of all corporeal ties. I find it difficult to envisage the cessation of life as completely painless and unconscious. Naturally, I know that I'm wrong. Nonetheless, I have trouble convincing myself of that fact.
The locals will find me a few days thereafter, quite quickly, in fact, since in this climate corpses quickly start to stink. They won't know what to do with me and will probably contact the French embassy. I'm far from being destitute, and the case will be easy to deal with. There will certainly be quite a lot of money left in my account. I don't know who will inherit it—the state probably, or some distant relatives.
Unlike other Asian peoples, the Thais don't believe in ghosts, and have little interest in the fate of corpses. Most of them are buried in communal graves. Since I will have left no specific instructions, that is what will become of me. A death certificate will be drawn up, a box will be ticked in a registry office, far from here, in France. A few street hawkers, accustomed to seeing me in the area, will shake their heads. My apartment will be rented out to another resident. I'll be forgotten. I'll be forgotten quickly."

>>10430900
damn

>>10430900
This is some /r9k/ shit

He is excellent

>>10441725
>you will never have your father teach you his craft that he learned from his father before him, using the same tools as your grandfather under the wooden beams of the workshop your great grandfather put there himself

>>10430900
and /lit/ tries to say the incel spirit has no place in intellectual thought

>>10441807
only plebs who don't read dante

>>10430900
Tiny and pathetic

>>10430900
This used to upset me.
Now i just feel some kind of agression that eliminates self pity and regret.

>>10431517
what self-pitying garbage is this?

We know(even /lit/) that life is tough. Get on with it. Nothing new.

>>10441725
this convinced me to read him

>>10441784
what I would give for a comfy cabin in the woods, alone or with the future mother of my children. Why the fuck do people live in cities? I can't fathom willingly putitng yourself in a position you know, at least unconsciously, you'll be stretched and torn apart, where your soul will wear out, never to recover. Rats have no options, but humans could have it better, yet they choose not to. Why? "City life". No matter how big the audience in a theater, cinema or in whatever other urbanite activity, it will always be an empty shell, a gross misrepresentation of beauty, denying true wonder by its own existence. Again, why the fuck do people choose to live in cities?

>>10441816
projection and a lack of mercy seem to go hand in hand with the intellectuals. A total unwillingness to sit down in the mud with a bleeding man and hold his head, hand him a cigarette and pray over his dying form, this I think is the sin of most moderns and post-moderns. the prayer of course means nothing, the cigarette alleviates practically no pain and certainly we can’t expect holding the head of someone with severe brain hemmoraghing or organ failure does much of anything. But, that unwillingness, lack of care, is probably a great indictment of our species far beyond the devestation we’ve caused to the animal kingdom, the great forests or our own souls. What was lost some time, wherever in our brief forray into consciousness, if it was ever prevalent, was probably the last justification we had for not totally annihilating all life on this planet. But, now there is nothing left and for the few who remember whatever that was, the thing that animated our whole species subconscious, there’s just these crocodile tears we’re shedding. Maybe you’re correct in scorning us, though I feel you yourself wish you could bleed like the man you’re turning your face from, and if you could maybe we would all be able to resurrect a moment of peace, a silent, frozen interval of our own divinity which we blew out the moment we decided that the price of compassion was too high relative to the cost it laid upon one’s limited stores of energy which could be better applied to WORKING.

Reminder that Houellebecq prefers poetry

>>10441860
reminder that Houellebecq is a gague of human ensoulment

>>10441725
He more or less details this same paragraph in Submission as the Islamic leader who gets elected advocates a form of distributivism.

He's good, but also a misery merchant and not very imaginative.

Not a great writer, but still an excellent one in regards to our age

>>10441857
People often tell me they like cities because outside of cities there is 'nothing to do' but when I ask them what it is there is 'to do' in their city they're always embarrassed to answer.

>>10431621
Whatever is the best one

>>10430900
That's why even though I love him and have read almost al of his books I cannot just connect with him.
>tfw you did not miss on teenage romance

>>10436154
lol he also orchestrated his own fake kidnapping to elicit advertisement.

>>10443232
That's because they are couch potatoes.
>going to a cafe to write
>going to a cafe to chill with friends
>dancing your heart out in a nightclub
>going to the museum or to an exhibition on a rainy day
>discovering niche restaurants that simply could not exist outside of a densely populated area
>going to a bar with one of the many friends you cannot see that often to catch up and ending up drunk, talking about politics and hooking up with the gals at the table over there
>going to cafe to listen to conversations
>going to the ice rink with a random date
>going to the movie
>going to the swimming pool
>buying street food whilst drunk at 2am
>going to the gym with your friends

Cities are basically a shit ton of people cobbled together. It's high energy, meaning that if you are willing to ride the wave there is always something new to do, or people to meet. Cities are where things happen.

It's not for everyone, but until I'm washed out I'll stay in megalopolis.

>>10430900
>You will always be an orphan to those adolescent loves you never knew.
This is perfect.

>>10430900
>>10444700
if somebody posted this in a critique thread he'd get torn to pieces and be called an edgy fag

so just remember, even though critiques from this site can be helpful, ultimately, write what you want to write and find your audience

>>10444022
Living in the city sounds so fucking awful. City dwellers are basically babies yelling "entertain me!". Then they go to entertainment station 1, entertainment station 2, entertainment station 3....

>>10444754
You could make anything sound bad with reductionism. Plus what is wrong with entertainment? Should we aim to not enjoy ourselves?

>>10444754
Most of the activities I mentioned are social ones. If you're an introvert, then of course cities are not the way to go.

>>10441558
Well it was meant to honour their life, but it wasn't a scientific accurate biography. I guess those scenes were of uttermost importance to understanding the character. I guess the future humans wrote two books, one for their advanced society, and one to encapsulate the 'feeling' of the old world.

>>10441671
That ending hit me hard.

Houllebecq's poetry is rupi kaur tier, but as this thread proves, you bunch of incel fucks would be capable of declaring it genius simply for presonally agreeing with it (which, in principle, differs from the attitude of blue-haired college freaks how exactly?)

>>10445344
He is definitely not a genius, just a solid writer. He might be a bit puffed up because his contemporaries are much worse.

>>10445196
I’m an introverted misanthrope but I like the sense of anonimity in a city. Small town norms require more socialising, in a city it is optional.

The only real problem with cities are the large amount of minorities. Once you have a certain amount of blacks and middle easteners quality of life just goes to shit.

>all this woe is me modernity is to blame bullshit
One reading of Nietzsche and this man looks ridiculous.

>>10444022
>all he does is list going to restaurants
wow what wild variety

>>10445446
Jokes in you, i read Nietzsche and understood nothing

>>10445446
Confirmed for not having read Nietzsche.

Houellebecq is reporting on the egalitarian last man nihilistic hedonist culture Nietzsche was warning us for.

>>10422544
It's the only book of his I've read. I was recommended it knowing nothing about him, and I did really enjoy it.

However I'm not sure if it would be worth my time to go deeper into his work

>>10430900
anybody who's actually experienced teenage romance knows how overrated it is. Houellebecq and other "incel" "thinkers" are creating some impossible ideal that doesn't exist, then getting upset that they never experienced it.

it's pure and simple masochism, and symptomatic of schizotypal thought patterns.

>>10445626 here

hadn't read the whole thread when posting but my post essentially echos this >>10442826 in regards to Houellebecq being a misery merchant. whether or not he believes what he writes, the fact that he writes it and distributes it to people who do says that he is to a certain extent sadistic.

>>10445626
If you have to experience it to know how overrated it is, then it makes no difference. Houllebecq is right.

>>10445674
>then it makes no difference
>Houllebecq is right
he's right that there are others like him ("incels) who feel inadequate and depressed, but their reason for being so is unfounded and frankly quite immature.

"incels" worship something that has no good reason to be worshiped. this notion of youth worship stems from 60s counterculture and the democratization of sex ("free love") see >>10432306 for a more in depth analysis, this is a subject that Houellebecq addresses often (particularly in "Atomised" and "Whatever").

an "incel's" inadequacies are self-created and egocentric ("how can someone like ME not achieve something any normal person does?") and the feeling of worthlessness combined with high self-worth (a consequence of introversion) creates a schizotypal (inconsistent/contradictory thoughts) feedback loop of depression, inadequacy and anxiety.

you need to break the loop if you have any desire to improve and grow as a person, not wallow in self-pity and dread, which gets you absolutely nowhere but where you already are.

unfortunately, the very nature of (negative) feedback loops dictates that this is very difficult to achieve. if you want some actual advice on how to achieve this, I can try to give you some.

>>10445714
> if you want some actual advice on how to achieve this, I can try to give you some.
yes please

>>10445714
If you had never experienced a relationship before, would you feel like you missed out? Why is it that people who have already experienced sex and relationships telling incels that these things are unimportant when that's obviously not the case.

>>10441816
t. Failed normie

>>10434674
Pourquoi ne pouvons-nous jamais
Jamais
Étre aimés?

>>10445744
because they want to depress your fitness and prevent you from changing social paradigms that would depress their fitness its a form of spiteful deceit

exactly like telling a poor person they can be a millionaire

>>10422324
They did an exhibition of his medical scans some time ago, apparently he's pretty healthy

>>10444022
>consuming constantly
>vapid herd mentality
>dynamic subsistence patterns so no bonds are formed
>exhibition and entertainment
yup its a bug

guys, how does H. spend Christmas and new year eve?

>>10445975
Tell us about the bonds you've formed

>>10446144
>no self-examination
>other oriented
>has to skip over the other charges because they’re all spot on

>>10445922
is this rupi kaur? lmao

>>10446151
Friend I'm from a poor village in Croatia, I just think you sound like a posing faggot

Wat should I read first by him?

>>10446811
Start with his first book, Whatever. It's short and it encapsulates his ideas well.

>>10446811
"atomised", then "whatever" I'm also partial to "the possibility of an island"

ideally you should read them in french though, I don't know how good the translations are but his style is very particularly french

>>10446877
>his style is very particularly french
Can you elaborate on this? I don't speak French but it's something I've heard several times before.

>>10446902
the style is very "spoken" much like Céline (another author who's style suffers immensely through translation). the narrator uses a syntax and vocabulary unique to french dialogue, and therefore translations will have to rework and therefore neglect these regionalisms

>>10443807
What authors can you connect to, anon?

>>10422316
Reading Submission, finished Atomised awhile ago. I think he's good on the human relationships and large scale societal affects on individual human relationships, but I really did not find the ending of Atomised good, with his proposal of a new type of asexual man. Will have to read more, I disagree with his veneration of sex, but I enjoy his work.

>>10447023
>Just received an english translation of Journey to the End of the night for Christmas

Fug :D

>>10434637
pic related is the new york times studycunt who wrote that review. To a certain extent I get where she's coming from, but her opinion is still trash, and I think its funny when the elite of today get bothered by art. It must be how the rebels of their boomer youth felt.

>>10434637
>review
>consists almost exclusively of namecalling and spoilers
yikes

>the absolute state of journalism

I read everything by Houellebecq I could get my hands on back in 2012. Sadly his writing hasn't held up for me now, just like Dostoevsky's hasn't. There are certain writers that are incredible to read in adolescence that just don't hold up after you get a job and get married because they're so trapped in that earlier perspective.

Lads, if there's one book you want to read and never get tired of, get the Bible or a complete Shakespeare.

>>10448316
>Lads, if there's one book you want to read and never get tired of, get the Bible or a complete Shakespeare.
can't tell if srs

>>10441857
Chill out nigga, urban life can still coexist with tradition if you try hard enough

>>10449296
how? I think they might be mutually exclusive

>>10449692
You can live in a house and go to church and practice a craft and live a virtuous life in the city.

Your kids will most likely be fucked though.

>>10447255
Not him, but I always liked Camus and Kierkegaard, and felt a connection especially when my sex life kicked off. Regarded Sartre, quite unfairly, as a complete philosophical hack better with plays.

Houellebecq's best piece of writing is in my opinion, Lanzarote, a weird piece of holiday writing, where he sets out to score some german lesbians on the beach, and then it turns into some weirdo Manson-Raelian cult type of horror story.

Also, his spoken word poetry album is bretty gud as these things go.

>>10449700
the overwhelming environment of the city will change your perception of your surroundings and how you interact with them, therefore your behaviour.

basically, your environment influences your state of mind, and the vast disparity between an urban environment compared to a rural one means that they cause radically different behaviours.

SHOULD I feel as worried and kind of frightened about Islam as I read this book? I can't just be reading a scary, pre-dyostopia novel about bashing a contemporary religion, right?

>>10451285
*about Islam as I am while

>>10451285
Dude, that book is more pro-Islamic than the Qur'an.

>>10451318
In conclusion, in a sort of existentialist way. But reading it and feeling repulsed by Islam as the final solution of sorts to a lot of the problems that Houellebecq sees, it does get me a bit paranoid.

>>10451318
>>10451324
I haven't finished reading it, I don't mean to say that this is my analysis about the text and what it means. Just my reaction.

I'm reading Whatever and it is boring me to death, but still kinda diggin it

>>10451332
whenever you're bored, just say "...whatever" and lol but keep reading.