Whatever by Michel Houellebecq Won Prix Goncourt In 2010 For The Map And The Territory
Just thirty, with a well-paid job, depression and no love life, the narrator and anti-hero par excellence of this grim, funny and clever novel smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and writes weird animal stories in his spare time. A computer programmer by day, he is tolerably content, until, that is, he's packed off with a colleague - the unimaginably ugly, sexually-frustrated virgin Raphael Tisserand - to train provincial civil servants in the use of a new computer system... A painfully realistic portrayal of the vanishing freedom of a world governed by science and by the empty rituals of daily life.
The balance between philosophy and narrative detail is perfectly judged; the book slips down easily like a bad oysterAs is the nature of such things, it is grimly comic -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *
The mischief-making enfant terrible of new-wave French fiction * Independent *
Le grand fromage du jour * The Face *
It could well turn out to be a cult here too... Astonishing * Time Out *
Snappy, bite-sized, and often very funny. Is it European exhaustion? Is it the soul of man under late capitalism? Millenial gloom? Post-Christian despair? Is it the Death of Love? Whatever. But Houellebecq describes it perfectly * Literary Review *
Funny, terrifying and nauseating * Independent *
This boy needs serious therapy. He may be beyond help * Washington Post *
The mischief-making enfant terrible of new-wave French fiction * Independent *
Le grand fromage du jour * The Face *
It could well turn out to be a cult here too... Astonishing * Time Out *
Snappy, bite-sized, and often very funny. Is it European exhaustion? Is it the soul of man under late capitalism? Millenial gloom? Post-Christian despair? Is it the Death of Love? Whatever. But Houellebecq describes it perfectly * Literary Review *
Funny, terrifying and nauseating * Independent *
This boy needs serious therapy. He may be beyond help * Washington Post *
Novelist and poet Michel Houellebecq was born on the 26th of February 1958, on the French island of Reunion. At the age of six, Michel was given over to the care of his paternal grandmother, a communist, whose family name he later adopted. His literary career began when, at twenty, he started to move in poetic circles in France. Whatever, Houellebecq's first novel, has been translated into several languages. A novel of darkness and despair, it is, at the same time, full of humour. Since 1996, Houellebecq's work has been published by Flammarion, where Raphael Sorin is his editor. His second collection of poems, Le sens du combat («The Meaning of the Fight»), obtained the Prix Flore in 1996. In 1997, Rester vivant and La poursuite du bonheur, in revised form, were re-released in one volume. In 1998, he received the prestigious Grand Prix National des Lettres Jeunes Talents for the entirety of his literary output. He has also won the Prix Novembre (for Atomised). The spring of 2000 saw the debut of his first album, Presence humaine, where he sings a number of his poems to the music of Bertrand Burgalat. He currently lives in Ireland.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781852425845 |
| ISBN 10 | 1852425849 |
| Title | Whatever |
| Author | Michel Houellebecq Won Prix Goncourt In 2010 For The Map And The Territory |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Profile Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1999-01-14 |
| Number of pages | 160 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |