Platform
by Michel Houellebecq
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 867)
Read in April, 2008
Reading this book was fun, in a kind of infuriating way. It exists, more or less, to elicit criticism, which I have in spades. Here's the summary: dude, get a life.
The protagonist -- who's more or less to be identified with the author -- enjoys just about nothing other than sex, and even that leaves him numb by the end. Yes yes much of the plot involves his being in love, but he and his love interest (a fantasy creature who always has a cup of coffee for him after his morning blowjob) never se...more
The protagonist -- who's more or less to be identified with the author -- enjoys just about nothing other than sex, and even that leaves him numb by the end. Yes yes much of the plot involves his being in love, but he and his love interest (a fantasy creature who always has a cup of coffee for him after his morning blowjob) never se...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
assholes
As far as authors who I've read alot, this guy would be one of them. Don't really know why. Got his biography of Lovecraft that was deadly overserious and awesome, when I worked at a bookstore we got some readers copy, and thought I'd check out Elementary Particles because people were stoked on it. Picked this up really cheap and finally read it. Clearly, this guy is a little punk ass who believes maybe a half of what he writes about, but he does present his "novels of ideas" in a sup...more
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Picked this up out of curiousity, and I can see why he is such a hit in France. There is a category of people here that embraces forced cynicism and intellectual masturbation. Frankly, I couldn't find anything smart about it, but perhaps I'm limited. Funny, I got to page 107 before deciding that time is too precious to waste on something I don't like - the same number of pages I read of Céline's equally irritating Voyage au bout de la nuit - a staple of French literature (and a book one shouldn...more
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Read in February, 2008
"Se puede vivir en el mundo sin comprenderlo, basta con que te proporcione alimentos, caricias y amor. En Pattaya los alimentos y las caicias son baratos, según los criterios occidentales e incluso los asiáticos. Del amor me cuesta hablar. Ahora estoy seguro deque Valèrie fue una radiante excepción. Se contaba entre esos seres capaces de dedicar si vida a la felicidad de otra persona, de convertir esa felicidad en su ojetivo. Es un fenómeno misterios. Entraña la dicha, la sencillez, l...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommended to Kees by:
Léon
Of course I can see what the writer is doing, and I can understand the need for explicit scenes in a book that deals with this subject-matter, but there's so many of them that I found myself skipping them after a while, because I got bored.
Then what's left is a novel of hopelessness. All aspects of human nature are seen in a negative light by the author, and the only hope that he introduces into his novel is blown away by a bomb. Not a very optimistic man, is Mr Houellebecq.
Interestingl...more
Then what's left is a novel of hopelessness. All aspects of human nature are seen in a negative light by the author, and the only hope that he introduces into his novel is blown away by a bomb. Not a very optimistic man, is Mr Houellebecq.
Interestingl...more
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Read in June, 2007
i'm really into this guy right now. he seems to hate everything, which i can appreciate. this had a surprising tenderness to it, in comparison to The Elementary Particles, even though there's plenty of bitter social critique. what i like most is Houellebecq's realization that the we in the West are like the declining Roman Empire. he's able to articulate this thesis through his characters but as well as through interjections on social theory.
this book is not without flaws, in particular ...more
this book is not without flaws, in particular ...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in April, 2007
Houellebecq is like a fine drug for me, and, as such, I know I must abstain because it leads only to paranoia, antisociality and cynicism. However, there are more moments of pure pleasure in his writings than most any others. This is not one of my favorites, perhaps because I knew how things would manage to turn out. Nevertheless, it is a great, quick read. It focuses on sex tourism, from an amoral, apolitical, more or less cynical point of view. Raises fine questions, interesting critique of We...more
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Read in August, 2005
recommends it for:
misogynist pricks
Houellebecq has his moments of funny, particularly in describing the merdique travails of modern air travel. And it's not his statement in this book that Islam is a violent religion that particularly earned my vitriol. Nor is it his "provocative" thesis that the only way to save the French tourism industry is through sex tourism, though both of those seem to have done it for a number of readers. Clever man that he is, Houellebecq sets up his provocations so that any critics just sound ...more
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Read in August, 2006
I wish books/movies wouldn't end neatly with main characters dying.
Also,
if you read this book, take extra special care that you don't happen to be rolling a large suitcase on wheels a few blocks from the 'underground train' to your friend's house at midnight on a warm night in a neighborhood of mixed population including some active prostitutes. Because perhaps while you are doing this, a couple in a car will pull to the wrong side of an intersection while you are in the crosswalk in a way...more
Also,
if you read this book, take extra special care that you don't happen to be rolling a large suitcase on wheels a few blocks from the 'underground train' to your friend's house at midnight on a warm night in a neighborhood of mixed population including some active prostitutes. Because perhaps while you are doing this, a couple in a car will pull to the wrong side of an intersection while you are in the crosswalk in a way...more
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recommends it for:
people with a high threshold for misanthropy
I just finished this today, reading outside by a corporate fountain on pine street. Fitting considering the book is a brilliant commentary on the intersection of globalization and sexualtiy, or what's left of sensuality in western culture. Houellebecq loves a good disaffected misanthrope and sometimes it's hard to follow an unreliable narrator who's got such a pessimistic worldview but this book really opens up. I didn't get annoyed with the characters the way I did through most of The Elementar...more
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Read in September, 2007
"Oferecer o corpo como objeto agradável, dar gratuitamente prazer: é isso que os ocidentais não sabem mais fazer. Perderam totalmente o senso da doação. Podem até se esforçar, mas não conseguem mais sentir o sexo como algo natural. Não apenas têm vergonha dos própios corpos, que não estão à altura dos que vemos nos filmes pôrnos, mas também, pelo mesmo motivo, não sentem nenhuma atração pelo corpo do outro. É impossível fazer amor sem um certo abandono, sem a aceit...more
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I had to give a presentation on this book in my "Travel Writing" class during my Sophomore year of college. The experience of reading the book had been so conflicted--Is sex fulfillling, or just the purest expression of how empty human life is? Does Houellebecq hate everyone or just Muslims?--that it probably wasn't my finest collegiate moment. It did, however, allow me to use the word 'sodomy' in an academic context and get into a near shouting match with a woman who I would one day c...more
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Read in April, 2008
I complained to my buddy John about burning out on GOOD books and needing to be BLOWN AWAY and he recommended Houellebecq (whose name I love!). And while I wasn't particularly blown away by the writing itself, or the plot, I did find the tone, and the philosophy of the main character quite fascinating. I can't figure out where the "recommended to" button is on this business, but I would recommend it to horny misanthropes. You're in good company here!
(I'd also like to point out I d...more
(I'd also like to point out I d...more
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I kept reading reviews suggesting Houellebecq was the resurrective answer to the perennial pronouncement of the novel's death. But, I found both these books (Platform, and the Elementary Particles) disappointing. They are not bad, as such, but don't seem by any stretch to take the novel in a new direction. Instead, they seem like novels born of the twentieth century's literary progression--Platform begins by recalling Camus' The Stranger--without taking wild deviating or "novel" tur...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Jerome by:
Tom Wolferecommends it for: men
This is about an alienated/depressed Frenchman who inherits some money and goes on a group tour of Thailand. You can guess what he does there. The narrator is similar to Merusault from "The Stranger" but much more aware of himself.
The book is very well written and seems very fresh. One of the only books written post 2000 that I've actually enjoyed.
However, the pace of the book is VERY slow. In fact, I'd say many people will probably find the middle third flat-out boring. It...more
The book is very well written and seems very fresh. One of the only books written post 2000 that I've actually enjoyed.
However, the pace of the book is VERY slow. In fact, I'd say many people will probably find the middle third flat-out boring. It...more
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Read in April, 2007
Advancement of unpopular thought which could be described as neo-chauvanist theory, in any event unapologetic intelligent, hetero-male behavior on earth as it is, twinged with the classic French ennui. Shocked, horrified, and unable to understand realities of the global sex trade as it stands today? Give this a try for perspective. It's not gonna convert any entrenched, but might shed some light for others. Despite whatever details some of you won't be able to handle in the telling, it's a l...more
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Read in June, 2006
The second book I've read by this author and didn't know what to expect but its more of the same. I've never read any of those grocery store love novels but Houllebecq has a way of describing sex that is very vivid. The book is very entertaining and the dialogue is great. The characters are always the same, some older guy with sexual inhibitions and self-esteem problems but very honest about his shortcomings. Guy has tragedy, leaves town, meets girl who opens him up to a world of sex he neve...more
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Read in July, 2007
I like Houellebecq's books, they are slightly disturbing but thought-provoking. Platform, to me, was an examination of the tourist industry with particular focus on the adage of sex sells. This seems to be a metaphor for life in Western society generally, the crumbling of morals in favour of marketing and focusing on the individual's desires, and the fact that it all seems to be going in one messy direction. It's cynical and offers no real solutions, but that's Houellebecq really.
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What an angry man is Michel Houellebecq...
A detached man of critical views and strong sexual needs inherits his murdered father and goes on a trip to Thailand. The writing is provocative, and would be more so if I thought that the author was the narrator. He's annoying, funny, disgusting and sexy. There's a resemblance to Camus, too. And Celine.
A detached man of critical views and strong sexual needs inherits his murdered father and goes on a trip to Thailand. The writing is provocative, and would be more so if I thought that the author was the narrator. He's annoying, funny, disgusting and sexy. There's a resemblance to Camus, too. And Celine.
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Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
dudes only really
its not that its not written well - its that its the onlybook ive ever totally encuontered a gender divide on who hates it or loves it. dudes love it. i found the tone underlying the author's charachter voice just so damn grating and then he like changes it in the end in a sneaky way to make you think you didn't get that impression the whole time. its all about this in-crisis male sexuality ...impressive but i'm so not buying it. ugh.
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