The new Houellebecq is

The Name of the mountains is lots of people who have never read a book by him, even those who have no interest at all for literature . Not a few can spell it even.

for two reasons. Firstly, the Suggestion of his novels, that literature could be today, "relevant" or "seismograph". Because Houellebecq is not the issues of our time March – the crisis of Western civilization, the threat of Islamist terrorism, the consequences of unfettered capitalism, consumerism, individualism?

Some people write to the author at all prophetic. He described the attacks shortly before they occurred? He has not drawn in "submission" the Vision of the Grande Nation, which is a voluntary Islami? And, ghastly coincidence, occurred the massacre of the editorial staff of "Charlie Hebdo" in that day, as the blade appeared with a Houellebecq-caricature on the title page?

Record-breaking year in France

The second reason for Houellebecqs popularity beyond the literature, the transformation of the author into a media figure, under their own active Using. The man as the Antitype reliable for headlines. He is a Trump of the spring, trumpeted Islamophobic, homophobic and sexist slogans in the world. He dredged interview inside, or falls asleep during performances pointedly. He staged in a Lite environment that is stylistically dominated by beautiful stars like Bernard-Henri Levy rates, as a "paumé", as a sort of Vagabond, with stringy hair and the look.

Also, the Anti-anti-types he has mastered: last September, he led in perfect Tenü, the cross of the Legion of honor in his button-hole, his Chinese girlfriend Lysis to the registry office.

So it comes that each new novel by Michel Houellebecq is before an event, or, like the "Figaro", it is stated: "C'est déjà un événement." In France Sérotonine "started" with a Record run of 320'000 copies, accompanied by Jubilation from the criticism. The German Translation, which also leads the "happiness hormones" in the title, is as of today in the book of acts.

The political connection is not missing this time, too: In one scene, angry farmers, whose farms no longer profitable to block a highway, and they are shot together by the riot police CRS. Has Houellebecq seen, for example, the "gilets jaunes" before? That would be too much of an honor for a man whose political world is marked the picture with "vague and contradictory" friendly (he recently praised in an Interview Donald Trump as one of the best American presidents, by the way, Switzerland also as the "only democracy in the world").

Now, the farmers-and the slaughter is only an Episode. "Serotonin" is about the slow decline of a man into Depression. This man told us, we accompany him deeper and deeper, but also a reminder of trips in a time when there was still vague prospects of a possible happiness. The title is of course ironic; the novel could also "Captorix" hot to the antidepressant of the Hero – Florent-Claude Labrouste he is, and hates how almost everything in the world, this name takes to endure the life in any way at all.

However, the medium also lowers the Libido, and thus we are in the center of Houellebecq's universe. The happiness, the Hero is chasing after, he, like all his predecessors, only in the Form of Sex, imagine of a dominant male, frequent and vigorous Sex. Houellebecq readers will find themselves on familiar territory; it is, if the geometrically would be possible, an area with only one Dimension. Women are "pussies" (as Stephan as translated Small, just a shade friendlier "chat"), to prepare the man of pleasure; or "not or no more Sluts" if they do.

Houellebecq does not hesitate in "Serotonin", this world-view should be declined also in the pornographic Register through. His last playmate, a Japanese luxury creature called Yuzu, is a pure cliché, but with regard to "their sexual services on a very high level, particularly in the crucial area of the Blowjobs came, she licked the glans devotedly, without ever the eggs from the eyes to lose their only weak point was the deep Throat", but will anyway be overestimated.

However, wants to get rid of Florent-Claude Yuzu, especially after he discovered pornographic videos of her, where she's doing it with 15 men (including a "hündischer Mini-Gangbang" comes from). Anyone who reads Michel Houellebecq because of its "Points", is well served; later in the novel, the Hero describes in detail, and is quite characteristic of a pedophile video.

He has happiness in love

It has not experienced everything in this novel, however, is certainly sexist scrap, delivered in provocative Pose and careless prose, and this is perhaps the most amazing thing. Always, you could think so at Houellebecqs figures under the guise of the misanthrope, the trains of a desperate romantic. The masculinity geprotze drowned out the silent cry of a neglected, never quite grown-up child to love.

Here are the scream sounds a little louder. Florent-Claude knows that there must be luck in love – because he has experienced it. With his parents, a Platonic ideal couple (but the love came at the expense of the son, what could some explain). And even five years with Camille, which he lost because of a stupid page jump. The time with Camille transfigured in the memory to the Kitsch, only Florent-Claude is far from to recognize the cause of his amorous failure in his woman image, in its tail fixed to selfishness.

After all, This blind Verranntheit has something Moving, which will also be felt by the reader from the monotony of Lebensekels, the pseudo-philosophical Jargon (of the Phallus as a "precondition for the possibility of the Manifestation of love", etc.), the education fuchtelei and the other Houellebecq are angeödet manners Style.

in fact, the Hero and his inventor are occasionally not only capable of empathy, but also be able to Express them. This empathy applies to the cows on a Norman farm, but also farmers, where the fall in milk prices (i.e. "Europe") and cut off the air to life. In such passages, the Suada of the Icherzählers is vivid and alive. You can even win a heat that surprised to Houellebecq readers – and maybe even the author himself.

Michel Houellebecq: Serotonin. Roman. From the French by Stephan Small. Dumont, Cologne, 2019. 335 p., CA. 35 Fr. (editor-in-Tamedia)

Created: 07.01.2019, 09:45 PM