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/lit/ - Literature

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11956897 No.11956897 [Reply] [Original]

Which books / writers influenced Houellebecq?

I've almost finished reading The Literature of Despair, critical anaylsis of Houellebecq, and it talks about the fact that Michel was raised in an far left / communist environment, and was a part of left-wing circles in Paris in the 80s, and how his anti-neoliberal, anti-68er work was one of many such works (fiction and non-fiction) being published at the time.

He's obviously a well-read guy, and references many sociologists, historical figures and so on. And he often discusses things in sociological terms, doing away with realism and instead just pasting a long speech given by his protagonist during a conversation.

Which specific books or writers do you think influenced him the most?

>> No.11956903

He mentioned Schopenhauer, even wrote something about him I think.

>> No.11956911

>>11956903
Yes Schopenhauer and Pacal are major influences, but I'm talking about more recent (post-1960s) sociologists and philosophers who redpilled him on globalism, neoliberalism etc.

>> No.11956915

he's the french equivilent of stephen king.... which isn't a terrible thing at all.
but lets not pretend he's one of the greats

>> No.11956917

you fucking villager

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=houellebecq+influences

>> No.11956923

>>11956911
>unironically using the term "redpilled"

BASED AND REDPILLED

>> No.11956931

>>11956897
Jean-Patrick Manchette, check him out

>> No.11956944
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11956944

He used to name-check Andre Gide often

>> No.11957035
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11957035

Hijacking thread - are there any similar artists you would recommend if I really liked Houellebecq.

>> No.11957047

>>11957035
Lauren Southern

>> No.11957089

>>11956911
I think he's a fan of Alain DeBenoit (sorry if I messed up the name. I'm phoneposting)
>>11957035
Check out Laszlo Krasznohorkai.
>>11957047
t. Never actually read Houellebecq

>> No.11957095

>>11957089
>>11956911
Alain de Benoist

>> No.11957174
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11957174

>>11956897
Observance of modern society influenced him.

>> No.11957186

wiki page mentions Clouscard; while I'm not sure if he is a confirmed influence his theory of '68 as the birth of a socially liberal/deregulated capital episteme is consistent with the post-68 world of Whatever, Atomised, Platform and Lanzarote.

The Schopenhauer link is quite well-known given his short book on him. Houellebecq mentions Balzac and Comte a lot in interviews. He clearly sees himself as a realist of his time in the way Balzac was - someone whose novels use plot and character to map the contours of contemporary social relations, economics, etc. Maybe that sounds pretentious but I think it's at least true that Houellebecq sees himself as a social commentator.

>> No.11957194

>>11956897
He namedrops Deleuze and Celine in The Elementary Particles.

>> No.11957274

HPL and Rene Guenon.

>> No.11957285

Okay, I've had enough - how the fuck do you pronounce his name?

>> No.11957293

do you think houellebecq has read Chantal Delsol

>> No.11957303

>>11957285
wellback

>> No.11957304

>>11957285
hollaback

>> No.11957318

HP Lovecraft

>> No.11957478

>>11957035
Lois Ferdinand Celine

>> No.11957514

>>11957293
No idea, have you?

>> No.11957686

>>11957478
It's not a woman, faget

>> No.11957698

>>11956897
Read the work he did with BHL - Public Enemies, if you haven't already. It goes into almost excruciating depth about his influences. There's plenty of name dropping.

>>11956915
Perhaps in equal popularity, but King is wal-mart tier, produces dozens upon dozens of hasty novels, and generally is devoid of real insight. He did write the intro for the HPL book, but I assume that was just to draw in the American King-centered horror crowd.

>>11957095
This is a stretch. Aside from both feeling unease or tension with neoliberalism I don't see much of an influence.

>>11957186
>The Schopenhauer link is quite well-known given his short book on him.
Need this translated ASAP. Although it seems quite short I'm still interested. It was well regarded in the reviews I saw.

>>11957478
He states in Public Enemies that he doesn't actually like Celine, and that everything after Journey was simply dull.

>> No.11957740

>>11957186
>He clearly sees himself as a realist of his time in the way Balzac was
Where do I start with Balzac? He wrote so much...

>> No.11957747

>>11957740
Old Goriot.
It's all about the Jews.

>> No.11957758

>>11956915
He IS one of the greatest. The recent french canon goes Proust > Celine > Houellebecq

>> No.11957763

>>11957285
ouelleback

>> No.11957771

>>11957747
Perfect. Thanks!

>> No.11957779

>>11956915
>>11957758
Both wrong.
Not great, not S. King tier shit either. Just above average in general, and good in spots in particular.

>> No.11957792

>>11957758
>He IS one of the greatest

jesus. its like saying updike is the greatest post ww2 american writer. he's good but not great.

One can only assume you are young and have languished in state education institutions for a significant period of time

>> No.11957813

>>11957792
I'm not even a murricunt, friend.

Also, you must have little clue about the influence of popularity and controversy on an author's legacy and remembrance if you believe it's too early to tell that Houellebecq will be remembered as one of the modern geniuses in 50 years.

>> No.11957821

>>11957792
>Updike
>Comparable to Houellebecq
anon, Updike was never relevant outside of the US, and he was a one trick pony

>> No.11957852

>>11957813
now you are being silly; and for evidence I send you to take a look at the bestseller lists for the first decades of the 20th century: no one has ever heard of most of them. [read Bestsellers: A Very Short Introduction for more info.] So much for popularity.
Controversy? Horribly topical and anecdotal at most.

>> No.11957856

>>11957852
It's more than obvious that I am talking about popularity among intellectuals, academics, upper class. Are you just baiting? Am I replying to a /b/ tier troll?

>> No.11957871

>>11957856
no, it's not obvious at all. and you can't even fall back on the "English isn't my mother language" meme since the latinate root of the word "popularity" involves precisely 'the people', the masses, the plebs, in direct distinction to the elites and your much-vaunted intellectuals and upper classes. No one in their right mind ever gave a flying fuck about what some fuckwad "Herr Doktor Professor" thought was "great literature" and neither should you. It is simply not an argument.

If you are French, you ought to be ashamed of yourself and fuck off and read Valéry's Bilan de l'Intelligence.

>> No.11958132

>>11957871
you're an immense brainlet

>> No.11958212

>>11958132
casse-toi pauvre con

>> No.11958249

>>11957186
Clouscard is honestly the greatest French thinker of the 20th century.

>> No.11958259

>>11957285
wellbeck, french here

>> No.11958261

>>11957285
French here. It’s pronounced “well-Beck”.

>> No.11958299

>>11956897
Mentioned in interviews and/or books:

Lovecraft
Huysmans
Balzac
Fleubert
Céline
Schopenhauer
Baudelaire
Dostoyevksy
Nietzsche
Hugo
Vigny
Musset
Nerval
Verlaine
Mallarmé
Pascal
Clifford D. Simak
Cyril Kornbluth
R.A. Lafferty.
Auguste Comte

>> No.11958384

>>11958261
>>11957698
Just read The Elementary Particles, where do I go from here? Platform, The Map and the Territory, or Submission??

>> No.11958501

>>11956897
Huxley

>> No.11958548

>>11958384
Platform felt like more of the same as Elementary Particles, in that it was a lot of sex, tourism, and sex tourism. Not near the level of EP but certainly worth a read at some point

The Map and the Territory includes a fair bit of self-reference to Houellebecq, and is perhaps best saved for after The Possibility of and Island or Submission.

Submission will just make you want to read Huysmans. Possibility is more sci-fi oriented, but I'd say has some more polished versions of ideas expressed in EP.

Try either of those two works.

>> No.11959319

>>11958384
Be aware that The Map and the Territory is a piece of shit that has nothing to offer.

>> No.11959331

>>11957821
Houellebecq's a fucking one trick pony, all he ever writes about is how sex is unequally distributed

>> No.11959332

I feel like he was influenced a lot by Jack London and HG Wells.

>> No.11959340

>>11958384
you shouldn't have read the elementary particles, 'whatever' (extension of the domain of struggle) is the same thing just compressed

>> No.11959350

>>11956897
Sometimes I get the impression he's read a lot of Zygmunt Bauman, though it could be that they arrived at similar conclusions.

>> No.11959372

>>11958501
Yeah, Huxley is one of his biggest influences. There are whole chapters in Atomized (I think it's that one?) about Brave New World, but the structure of his novels is really close to other Huxley stuff. Point Counter Point has the same kind of feel as hollaback - characters are just representative of an ideal, and the novel is largely about sociological sentiments and feelings rather than stuff that feels more personal or concerned with aesthetics or whatever.

>> No.11959375

>>11959332
HG Wells is a pretty good call - TONO BUNGAY is a wild novel that sorta feels like Houellebecq

>> No.11959384

>>11959331
He writes on more than just that. In fact, that idea you're mentioning is from a single paragraph in Whatever, I think.

>> No.11959394

>>11959340
Well, TEP is always mentioned as his capital work. And while I haven't read Whatever, the sci-fi ending of TEP is what makes it unique.

>> No.11959711

>>11956911
Lovecraft obviously

>> No.11959755

>>11959384
To be fair, distribution of sex is an undercurrent/theme throughout his books, and I have read all but one or two

>> No.11959774

>>11956897
Houellebecq (his character in The Map and the Territory) is well read on authors such as Guenon and Fourier.

>> No.11959790

>>11958548
>a fair bit of self-reference to Houellebecq
Nigga he is straight up a character in the book.

>> No.11959937

I often wonder if he ever read Leon Bloy

Probably not, he'd be a better writer then and wouldn't have made that shitty argument against Bloy in Soumission

>> No.11959983

>>11959937
Bloy was the meme reference for that generation of pseuds; MG Dantec, Nabe and co.; and wee Michel there. Whether they read him properly or not is another matter.

>> No.11960336

>>11959983

Dantec is the only decent writer out of this bunch, even though his works is pretty uneven
Nabe's work is shit tiers.

>> No.11961389

>>11959711
Did you read his paper on Lovecraft? Lovecraft could be an influence for his characters, not necessarily his writing.

>> No.11961402

>>11956897
>pasting a long speech given by his protagonist during a conversation

Ayn Rand?

>> No.11961411

do you think Houellebecq has ever read Greg Egan

>> No.11961887

>>11961389
wrong, it's all sex and money with both of them, albeit in very different forms.

>> No.11961916

>>11957174
This.
I don't think you need to read a shitton of books in order to write good shit or even understand.

>> No.11962002

Houellebecq is fucking trash

>> No.11962218

>>11957758
>Proust
t. undergrad taking a literature class. Proust sucks.

>> No.11962220

>>11962218
But he's part of the canon. Stating who is classified as canon has nothing to do with one's personal tastes, you brainlet.

>> No.11962237

>>11957186
Clouscard and Michéa, yes.

>> No.11962240

>>11957747
>Old Goriot

What a horrible title translation.

>> No.11962341

>>11956897
Why do neoliberals hate this guy so much?

>> No.11962431

>>11962240
you'd rather the pedophilic sounding Father Goriot, eh?
t. never read it in English

>> No.11962554

>>11962341
Do they?

Probably because he hates consumerism.

>> No.11963561

bump

>> No.11963567
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11963567

>>11962341
They hate everyone who smokes the youth elixir panacea tobacco.

>> No.11963716

Somewhere he praises Thierry Jonquet too.
But Thierry Jonquet isn't so good.

>> No.11964319

>>11961887
what I mean is that the person of H.P. Lovecraft, the impotent, frightened, racist personage is a sketch of the traits his characters exhibit in his novels, he even described his paper on Lovecraft as being his first novel with Lovecraft as the protagonist. There may be some instances in which Lovecraft's literary style is imitated in Houellebecq's work, the dream sequences which his characters describe, a certain mounting sense of dread, the grotesque spectacles of violence which appear abruptly reminding the characters and readers of the horror, yet I can't help feel that even if a particular passage lends itself to Lovecraft's influence it ultimately becomes a sort of sad parody of the man, not an homage. It seems to me his attitude toward Lovecraft is one of pity, bald, unabashed pity, the sort of dehumanizing pity Nietzsche and Ayn Rand warn against, I have never been a reader of Lovecraft, I read "Dreams in the Witch-House," years ago, and enjoyed it, and never really pursued his writing in earnest. I know many people who have, he is obviously highly regarded in the fantasy/horror genre, it wasn't until reading Houellebecq's essay on him that I had some light shed on his life and work, now his legacy perplexes me, the fact he attained no recognition in his lifetime is interesting, the fact that unlike Celine his reputation has not been particularly sullied or overshadowed by his venomous racism, he seems to arouse pity in his admirers who will probably provide excuses for this or that idiosyncrasy or behavior, always giving the benefit of the doubt rather than simply scorn the man as a talent-less hack, fuming with indignation, reduced to a wreck living with his mother and scribbling all his frustrations down on paper

>> No.11964503

>>11964319
>unlike Celine his reputation has not been particularly sullied or overshadowed by his venomous racism
you should be less affected by la bienpensance, mon ami.

>> No.11964561

>>11963567
lmao @ those rationalisations
I love Houellebecq and all, but I also quit smoking a couple of months ago and I feel better than ever. Shortness of breath, depression, tonsil inflammation--all that shit and more is gone.

>> No.11964649

>>11964503
Oui, avec plaisir, Monsieur

>> No.11965509

>>11956897
My diary desu.

>> No.11966267

>>11959384
nah that was the main idea in TEP too... waaah why can't I ahve sex it's not fair etc.

>>11959394
the sci fi ending was the only remotely interesting thing about that book... so audacious. he is really bad at pretending to write like a scientist