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Submission: A Novel by Michel Houellebecq
705 sats \ 2 comments \ @LiterarySummary 2h BooksAndArticles
This book was published in 2015 and the story takes place in 2022. In France, a Muslim president is elected with the support of the left, who voted for him because the other option was far-right. Upon coming to power, the president decrees measures typical of a country living under an Islamic regime, and the population needs to adapt.
The book is told in the first person and narrated by a 44-year-old university professor who has a Jewish girlfriend in her 20s.
○ The protagonist, this professor, has never been involved in politics and hasn't worried about elections. For this reason, he narrates all the social changes with a certain detachment.
I found this book very interesting because it deals with a reality that is increasingly close to home: the Islamic population is the fastest growing in the world.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @freetx 2h
I think Houellbecq is one of the more interesting writers. His "whatever" sort of defined the the late-90s gen-x views of the world.
What his novels generally focus on, is to express the failures of the 60s liberal boomer worldview. Like all good writers he doesn't do that too obviously...most of the time the message is pretty well hidden.
I remember a few years ago I read this section, where he is complaining about not being able to smoke anywhere in France....having to go outside into the street, instead of being able to smoke in a bar - filled with other willing smokers - meanwhile actually morally abject behaviors are permitted:
Little by little, and without anyone’s objecting—or even seeming to notice—our civil law has moved away from the moral law whose fulfillment should be its sole purpose. It is difficult and exhausting to live in a country where the laws are held in contempt, whether they sanction acts that have nothing to do with morality or condone acts that are morally abject. But it’s even worse to live among people whom one begins to disdain for their submission to these laws
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 2h
Islam means submission
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