Michel Houellebecq by Douglas Morrey

Michel Houellebecq by Douglas Morrey

An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and the OAPEN library. Michel Houellebecq is perhaps the single most successful and controversial of all contemporary novelists writing in French. Houellebecq has become a global publishing phenomenon: his books have been translated worldwide, three film adaptations of his work have been produced, and the author has been the subject of million-euro publishing deals and of successive media scandals in France. If Houellebecq is unique in contemporary French writing, it is thanks not only to his extraordinary success, but to the unparalleled scope of his narrative ambition. In the work which most forcefully marked his breakthrough to the mainstream – Les Particules élémentaires – Houellebecq made a significant appeal to the science-fiction genre in order to undergird his critique of contemporary society. For Houellebecq presents humanity – at least modern, western humanity – as in a terminal state of decadence and decline and ripe for replacement by its post-human successor. His novels narrate a metaphysical mutation or paradigm shift through which humanity as we know it ceases to be the over-riding value or focus of our world when it comes into conflict with a competitor in the form of a post-human or neo-human species. It is the aim of this book to appraise the global significance of Houellebecq’s novelistic visions while at the same time situating them within the context of French literature, culture and society.

Houellebecq is a critically divisive figure in the French literary landscapeMorrey’s study of some of the most provocative aspects of his work is conducted dispassionately and, as such, is not clouded by authorial provocation. As a result, this is an important and enlightening examination of the social dimension of Houellebecq’s novels.
Russell Wiliams, French Studies, vol 68, no 1 * French Studies, vol 68, no 1 *

Douglas Morrey is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Jean-Luc Godard (Manchester University Press, 2005) and the co-author of Jacques Rivette (Manchester University Press, 2009).

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781846318610
ISBN 10	1846318610
Titel	Michel Houellebecq
Autor	Douglas Morrey
Serie	Contemporary French And Francophone Cultures
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Liverpool University Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2013-03-19
Seitenanzahl	212
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar