Book Review - Whatever by Michel Houellebecq

 Whatever by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Paul Hammond

London: Serpent's Tail, 1998 (original French publication 1994)     ISBN 1852425849

Events conspire - I had no intention of reading this book now (or perhaps ever), but serendipity brought it about. I had just read a review of Houellebecq's new novel Aneantir which also described Houellebecq's writing career and I became intrigued. Not long after I acquired his first three novels (in translation, I am an unfortunately mono-lingual) and so set about reading Whatever for two immediate reasons - it is the first novel Houellebecq wrote, and it is short, at 155 paperback pages.

What did I think? Well, I'm assuming his later novels are better and carry more weight, as I found Whatever quite disappointing. I've been thinking about it a while, and I'm still not really sure what this novel was about, or what it was trying to say.

Is it a critique on modern life and the consumerism that has invaded every corner, including sexual? Or is it poking fun at that critique? The main protagonist, a 30 year old programmer, takes us through his life, his boring job, his lack of love-life and his ennui, which spirals into depression. The other characters in this novel are figures of scorn (Tisserand, the work colleague, fat, virginal and hopeless), or to be derided because they have modern life worked out and are going to be successful.

The narrative is interspersed with excerpts from the stories that the narrator writes, which are dialogues between animals, and are full of pseudo-psychological insights into behaviour. Is Houellebecq making fun of such theories by putting them into the mouths of dogs and cows, or is he trying to tell us that animals are smarter than humans? Again, I'm not sure.

One thing our narrator does have is a Swiftean disgust with the human body and what it exudes. He is particularly disgusted by the vagina, and refers to it more than once as a "veal escalope". He is not only a misogynist, but a misanthrope, both in the physical and on the mental planes.

I'm not sure (again!) whether Houellebecq intends for his narrator to be an example of someone trapped in the modern consumerist nightmare and unable to get out. The problem in the book if this is indeed the case is that the narrator is intelligent enough to see what the modern nightmare is, and yet does nothing at all to try and free himself from it before succumbing. He sinks to the bottom quickly, and the reader is not given enough information to understand why he does, or to be sympathetic to his plight.

It's obvious, if you have read this far into this review, that I struggled to like this book. It doesn't speak to me at all, and in fact I think it is indulgent and takes the reader for granted, which is never a good thing.

There is such a fuss about Houellebecq that I feel that perhaps this novel is not a good place to start with him - but after reading it I'm not sure I'd want to continue.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell