Interventions 2020

The death of God in the West was the prelude to a formidable metaphysical soap opera that continues to this day. Christianity's masterstroke was to combine a fierce belief in the individual with the promise of eternal participation in the Absolute. When that dream evaporated, various attempts were made to offer the individual a minimum of being. The latest of these attempts is advertising, which seeks to arouse desire and transform the subject into a docile phantom doomed to follow advertising's every whim. But, like all previous attempts, this skin-deep, superficial participation in the world fails, and unhappiness and depression continue to spread.
 
However, we can all produce a cold revolution in ourselves by stepping outside the flow of information and advertising. We need to take some time out, unplug the television, turn off our iPhones, stop buying stuff, stop wanting to buy stuff, temporarily detach ourselves and adopt an aesthetic attitude to the world. We just need to stay still for a few seconds.
 
This is one of the key themes developed by Michel Houellebecq in this collection of his texts and interviews from the last three decades. Here he explains and elaborates his point of view, discusses his novels and addresses a wide range of topics from politics, religion and literature to suicide, euthanasia and paedophilia. An indispensable book for anyone interested in the work of one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time.

List of contents

1. Jacques Prévert is a jerk
2. The Mirage by Jean-Claude Guiguet
3. Approaches to distress
4. Staring into the distance: in praise of silent cinema
 
5. Interview with Jean-Yves Jouannais and Christophe Duchâtel
 
6. Art as peeling
7. Creative absurdity
8. The party
9. Time out
10. Opera bianca
11. Letter to Lakis Proguidis
12. The question of paedophilia
13. Humanity, the second stage
14. Empty heavens
15. I have a dream
16. Neil Young
 
17. Interview with Christian Authier
 
18. I don't love myself
 
19. Sky, earth, sun
 
20. Leaving the twentieth century
 
21. Philippe Muray in 2002
 
22. Towards a semi-rehabilitation of the hick
 
23. Conservatism, a source of progress
 
24. Prolegomena to positivism
 
25. I'm normal. A normal writer
 
26. I have read my whole life long
 
27. Soil cutting
 
28. The lost text
 
29. Interview with Frédéric Beigbeder
 
30. A remedy for the exhaustion of being
 
31. Interview with Marin De Viry and Valérie Toranian
 
32. Interview with Agathe Novak-Lechevalier
 
33. Emmanuel Carrère and the problem of goodness
 
34. Donald Trump is a good president
 
35. Conversation with Geoffroy Lejeune
 
36. A bit worse. A response to a few friends
 
37. The Vincent Lambert affair should not have taken place

About the author

Michel Houellebecq is a French writer, poet and essayist.  His many bestselling books include Platform, The Possibility of an Island, Submission and Serotonin.  He won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2010 and, in 2019, he was awarded the Légion d'honneur, France's highest order of merit.

Summary

The death of God in the West was the prelude to a formidable metaphysical soap opera that continues to this day. Christianity's masterstroke was to combine a fierce belief in the individual with the promise of eternal participation in the Absolute. When that dream evaporated, various attempts were made to offer the individual a minimum of being. The latest of these attempts is advertising, which seeks to arouse desire and transform the subject into a docile phantom doomed to follow advertising's every whim. But, like all previous attempts, this skin-deep, superficial participation in the world fails, and unhappiness and depression continue to spread.

However, we can all produce a cold revolution in ourselves by stepping outside the flow of information and advertising. We need to take some time out, unplug the television, turn off our iPhones, stop buying stuff, stop wanting to buy stuff, temporarily detach ourselves and adopt an aesthetic attitude to the world. We just need to stay still for a few seconds.

This is one of the key themes developed by Michel Houellebecq in this collection of his texts and interviews from the last three decades. Here he explains and elaborates his point of view, discusses his novels and addresses a wide range of topics from politics, religion and literature to suicide, euthanasia and paedophilia. An indispensable book for anyone interested in the work of one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time.

Report

'The most famous French novelist of his generation.'
The New Yorker
 
'An author who captures the times like no other.'
Evening Standard
 
'Fascinating'
Euro News
 
'The author has a rare power: the ability to predict at least the general form of the future.'
Foreign Policy
 
"these essays are a good place to get acquainted with that voice, acidic, pitiless, but too full of humor and awareness to shy from"
The Local Voice
 
"boasts an array of subjects of great depth and provocation."
Washington Examiner

Product details

• Authors: M Houellebecq, Michel Houellebecq
• Publisher: Polity Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.02.2022
• EAN: 9781509549955
• ISBN: 978-1-5095-4995-5
• No. of pages: 314
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy; Non-fiction book > Dictionaries, reference works > Foreign-language dictionaries; Literaturwissenschaft, Philosophie, Europäische Literatur, Literature, Philosophy, European Literature, Allg. Literaturwissenschaft, Allg. Philosophie