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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.
Houellebecq's debut novel is painfully realistic portrayal of the vanishing freedom of a world governed by science and by the empty rituals of daily life.
Houellebecq's debut novel is painfully realistic portrayal of the vanishing freedom of a world governed by science and by the empty rituals of daily life.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
This edition
- Format
- 160 pages, Paperback
- Published
- January 14, 1999 by Serpent's Tail
- ISBN
- 9781852425845 (ISBN10: 1852425849)
- Language
- English
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Michel Houellebecq (born Michel Thomas), born 26 February 1958 (birth certificate) or 1956 on the French island of Réunion, is a controversial and award-winning French novelist. To admirers he is a writer in the tradition of literary provocation that reaches back to the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire; to detractors he is a peddler, who writes vulgar sleazy literature to shock. His works though, particularly Atomised, have received high praise from the French literary intelligentsia, with generally positive international critical response, Having written poetry and a biography of the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, he brought out his first novel Extension du domaine de la lutte in 1994. Les particules élémentaires followed in 1998 and Plateforme, in 2001. After a disastrous publicity tour for this book, which led to his being taken to court for inciting racial hatred, he went to Ireland to write. He currently resides in France, where he has been described as "France’s biggest literary export and, some say, greatest living writer". In 2010 he published La Carte et le Territoire (published the same year in English as The Map and the Territory) which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt; and, in 2015, Submission.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 944 reviews
February 19, 2019
Endless Adolescence
Meh. An amalgam of Harry Enfield (as Kevin the Teenager), Charles Anthony Bruno (Strangers on a Train), with a smackerol of Patrick Bateman (American Psycho). Praised in some quarters for its balance of philosophy and gritty dialogue, it's difficult to tell whether Whatever is really meant to be taken seriously...and, if so, as what. An angry, possibly psychotic 30ish IT nerd with an awkward adolescence has a breakdown and recovers...or perhaps he doesn't. It doesn't matter much either way. Maybe it's necessary to be French to get it.
Meh. An amalgam of Harry Enfield (as Kevin the Teenager), Charles Anthony Bruno (Strangers on a Train), with a smackerol of Patrick Bateman (American Psycho). Praised in some quarters for its balance of philosophy and gritty dialogue, it's difficult to tell whether Whatever is really meant to be taken seriously...and, if so, as what. An angry, possibly psychotic 30ish IT nerd with an awkward adolescence has a breakdown and recovers...or perhaps he doesn't. It doesn't matter much either way. Maybe it's necessary to be French to get it.
November 30, 2020
The British translator or publisher should be beheaded (or, well, at least vigorously booed) for calling this book "Whatever" when its French title is something amazing like "Extension of the Domain of the Struggle" -- if we otherwise lived in a total utopia, I'd say restoring the English translation's title to something closer to the original would be a major issue in this year's elections. This one seemed at first like it was written by someone other than the masterful dude who did "The Elementary Particles" and "The Possibility of an Island". I blamed the translator at first, then Houellebecq's youth, and considered it in the 2/3-star range: intemittently clever but otherwise "eh". But then the narrator goes to a club for young singles and things take off - steam gathers, themes condense, the prose pushes ahead and doesn't just muse about the connection between moving furniture (especially beds) and suicide. What's cool too is that many of the themes are the same ones he develops in later books, but here he's a little more flatly vulgar or theoretical, his tone/style shifts (occasionally exuberantly purple and then also a bit more spare/poetic at times too, more regionally French). But then things really rise and end well in the 3/4-star range (nails the landing). Definitely worth reading, and maybe even re-reading, considering it's 154 not-so-dense pages. Anyway, whatever: I'd like to petition for a new translation by Gavin Bowd or Frank Wynne, someone who'd respect the original title and maybe debritishify things a bit.
October 22, 2020
A "Naked Lunch" minus all that heroin, a "Fight Club" minus the cast of rambunctious spacemonkeys.
A voice as singular (and freshly French) as Francoise Sagan's. A Novella that is ambitious, small, bitter-- it hints at the horrible and barely makes note of the magical in the everyday. Boredom is the biggest enemy, as WE ALL KNOW. Brutal, smart, crazy, incredibly edgy, a stylish nouvelle-classique at only 155 pages!
A voice as singular (and freshly French) as Francoise Sagan's. A Novella that is ambitious, small, bitter-- it hints at the horrible and barely makes note of the magical in the everyday. Boredom is the biggest enemy, as WE ALL KNOW. Brutal, smart, crazy, incredibly edgy, a stylish nouvelle-classique at only 155 pages!
August 31, 2021
A fost o vreme în care Michel Houellebecq chiar a scris cărți bune...
Ce conține romanul? Oleacă de eros fantasmat, puțintică meditație și discuție cu privire la chestiunile arzătoare ale zilei (era, totuși, în 1994), din care spicuim:
1. Declinul iubirii-pasiune (iubirea inventată de trubaduri în secolul al XII-lea), confuzia dintre sexul cel mai vulgar și amorul eterat, romantic, de palpitații și suspinuri; dispariția completă a amorului romantic; amenințarea frigidității (a se vedea personajul Veronique).
2. Indiferența individului obișnuit - toți am devenit de multișor niște indivizi obișnuiți, societatea abundenței ne-a trecut la comun, ne-a uniformizat, nu mai există deosebiri între noi, iar cînd apare Diferitul, precum în cartea lui Houellebecq, îi sucim gîtul sau îl trimitem la balamuc - indiferența, zic, față de un alt individ obișnuit și a tuturor indivizilor obișnuiți față de ei înșiși și față de toți ceilalți indivizi obișnuiți;
3. Greața, plictisul, neantul (cu N mare), vidul, nimicul (cu N mare), scîrba (temele lui Sartre, Camus, Ionesco, John Williams, da, chiar el); eu unul m-am cam săturat de aceste subiecte răsuflate; le-am făcut la școală; mi se pare suficient;
4. Absența comunicării într-o societate informatizată, care și-a făcut un Idol din informație și comunicare; muțenia universală;
5. Lipsa de compasiune, de milă, lipsa de idei, lipsa unui scop, absența unui ideal; constatarea dezabuzată a faptului că toate idealurile propuse de societate sînt goale, praf și cenușă;
6. Regresul mintal al oamenilor, al speciei umane în întregul ei;
7. Moda psihanalizei și a celorlalte terapii cognitiv-comportamentale, de grup, relațional-emotive etc. (și Philip Roth ia în derîdere practicile asociațiunilor de anonimi, literatura psihanalitică, de dezvoltare spirituală): faine și de tot hazul paginile consacrate femeii „în analiză”; am rîs pe înfundate, să nu mă audă nevasta; Houellebecq chiar avea haz (nu știu dacă-l mai are);
8. Epuizarea vitală a tuturor pămîntenilor, fără excepție, și presupusa epuizare vitală a speciilor încă necunoscute de pămînteni (asta am pus-o de la mine);
9. Misoginia; misandria; invidia; ura surdă, mocnită; disprețul;
10. Căutarea bezmetică a unui partener sexual volatil (de o seară, de o zi, de un ceas); lupta pentru cucerirea lui; extinderea acestei lupte, decăderea vechilor ritualuri de seducție, amurgul Occidentului etc.
Deci, ca să închei, romanul mi-a plăcut. Extinderea domeniului luptei este o carte bună (fără a fi o capodoperă). Mi-a plăcut și stilul de propoziții simple, seci, tăioase. De-o pildă: „Îl știu pe tipul ăsta [e vorba de Raphael Tisserand]; am pălăvrăgit de cîteva ori lîngă automatul de cafea. De obicei, spunea bancuri porcoase; presimt că această deplasare în provincie va fi sinistră”. Faptul ca propozițiile țăcănesc așa (ca mașina de scris) nu m-a deranjat, mă îngrozesc, mai degrabă, frazele interminabile, acelea pe care scriitorul uită să le încheie, a trecut vremea lor.
Așadar. Un narator anonim povestește cîteva momente din biografia proprie (o călătorie, un Crăciun, un stagiu în spital) și o face cu ironie, umor și cinism. Dar nu exagerează cu cinismul. Personajul se simte diferit de ceilalți, dar nu poate afla de unul singur în ce constă diferența dintre el și oricare altul. Reflectează, gîndește la una și alta. Are 30 de ani, lucrează ca agent într-o firmă de servicii informatice, este singur și nu prea pricepe de ce. La sfîrșitul cărții ajunge într-un stabiliment de alienați, unde e îngrijit cu mult profesionalism.
Nu este sigur dacă își va tăia sau nu venele...
Ce conține romanul? Oleacă de eros fantasmat, puțintică meditație și discuție cu privire la chestiunile arzătoare ale zilei (era, totuși, în 1994), din care spicuim:
1. Declinul iubirii-pasiune (iubirea inventată de trubaduri în secolul al XII-lea), confuzia dintre sexul cel mai vulgar și amorul eterat, romantic, de palpitații și suspinuri; dispariția completă a amorului romantic; amenințarea frigidității (a se vedea personajul Veronique).
2. Indiferența individului obișnuit - toți am devenit de multișor niște indivizi obișnuiți, societatea abundenței ne-a trecut la comun, ne-a uniformizat, nu mai există deosebiri între noi, iar cînd apare Diferitul, precum în cartea lui Houellebecq, îi sucim gîtul sau îl trimitem la balamuc - indiferența, zic, față de un alt individ obișnuit și a tuturor indivizilor obișnuiți față de ei înșiși și față de toți ceilalți indivizi obișnuiți;
3. Greața, plictisul, neantul (cu N mare), vidul, nimicul (cu N mare), scîrba (temele lui Sartre, Camus, Ionesco, John Williams, da, chiar el); eu unul m-am cam săturat de aceste subiecte răsuflate; le-am făcut la școală; mi se pare suficient;
4. Absența comunicării într-o societate informatizată, care și-a făcut un Idol din informație și comunicare; muțenia universală;
5. Lipsa de compasiune, de milă, lipsa de idei, lipsa unui scop, absența unui ideal; constatarea dezabuzată a faptului că toate idealurile propuse de societate sînt goale, praf și cenușă;
6. Regresul mintal al oamenilor, al speciei umane în întregul ei;
7. Moda psihanalizei și a celorlalte terapii cognitiv-comportamentale, de grup, relațional-emotive etc. (și Philip Roth ia în derîdere practicile asociațiunilor de anonimi, literatura psihanalitică, de dezvoltare spirituală): faine și de tot hazul paginile consacrate femeii „în analiză”; am rîs pe înfundate, să nu mă audă nevasta; Houellebecq chiar avea haz (nu știu dacă-l mai are);
8. Epuizarea vitală a tuturor pămîntenilor, fără excepție, și presupusa epuizare vitală a speciilor încă necunoscute de pămînteni (asta am pus-o de la mine);
9. Misoginia; misandria; invidia; ura surdă, mocnită; disprețul;
10. Căutarea bezmetică a unui partener sexual volatil (de o seară, de o zi, de un ceas); lupta pentru cucerirea lui; extinderea acestei lupte, decăderea vechilor ritualuri de seducție, amurgul Occidentului etc.
Deci, ca să închei, romanul mi-a plăcut. Extinderea domeniului luptei este o carte bună (fără a fi o capodoperă). Mi-a plăcut și stilul de propoziții simple, seci, tăioase. De-o pildă: „Îl știu pe tipul ăsta [e vorba de Raphael Tisserand]; am pălăvrăgit de cîteva ori lîngă automatul de cafea. De obicei, spunea bancuri porcoase; presimt că această deplasare în provincie va fi sinistră”. Faptul ca propozițiile țăcănesc așa (ca mașina de scris) nu m-a deranjat, mă îngrozesc, mai degrabă, frazele interminabile, acelea pe care scriitorul uită să le încheie, a trecut vremea lor.
Așadar. Un narator anonim povestește cîteva momente din biografia proprie (o călătorie, un Crăciun, un stagiu în spital) și o face cu ironie, umor și cinism. Dar nu exagerează cu cinismul. Personajul se simte diferit de ceilalți, dar nu poate afla de unul singur în ce constă diferența dintre el și oricare altul. Reflectează, gîndește la una și alta. Are 30 de ani, lucrează ca agent într-o firmă de servicii informatice, este singur și nu prea pricepe de ce. La sfîrșitul cărții ajunge într-un stabiliment de alienați, unde e îngrijit cu mult profesionalism.
Nu este sigur dacă își va tăia sau nu venele...
October 8, 2013
The pervasive emptiness of human life is the main theme of this book. Thirty-year old narrator is a computer engineer in France and he is living alone in his apartment. In his spare time, he writes about animals, smokes four packs of cigarettes a day, has no friends, he has no sex life. While reading, even if I am already 49, I could feel the narrator's loneliness. I have all those he lacks, I write book reviews and read a lot and all those keep my idle mind busy when I am supposed to be relaxing. We know that evil thoughts normally lurk in one's idle mind.
I am an I.T. manager and have been in I.T. or related fields for most of my 30-year corporate life. I can say that I.T. is oftentimes really a sad profession. You deal with a machine every hour of your working day. You make sure that it runs and your users are happy. You make sure that the behavior of the program is predictable, efficient and repetitive. You make sure that the reports the big shots in the company are accurate and always available at their fingertips.
The narrator, in this first book by Michel Houllebecq, is an unnamed person does not find meaning in anything he does. At 30, he is still a virgin and so he frequently masturbates along in his apartment. Probably because of this, he finds women as pure sexual objects or object of his masturbatory fantasies. Probably because of this, he has difficulty relating to them. One day, he and his co-worker Tisserand are sent to Rouen to train users on a software. It this there when twists to their empty lives happen that eventually lead to fatal death to one of them.
The prevalent mood of the book is bleak and sad. There are some funny moments because I always find humor in solitude, that's how weird I sometimes get. Houellebecq's writing is sparse and edgy. Sometimes, his thoughts go everywhere, i.e., directionless but I supposed that he is just trying to reflect to his readers the nature of the character.
This is my first Houellebecq and I am happy that I finally tried reading him. Definitely not my last.
I am an I.T. manager and have been in I.T. or related fields for most of my 30-year corporate life. I can say that I.T. is oftentimes really a sad profession. You deal with a machine every hour of your working day. You make sure that it runs and your users are happy. You make sure that the behavior of the program is predictable, efficient and repetitive. You make sure that the reports the big shots in the company are accurate and always available at their fingertips.
The narrator, in this first book by Michel Houllebecq, is an unnamed person does not find meaning in anything he does. At 30, he is still a virgin and so he frequently masturbates along in his apartment. Probably because of this, he finds women as pure sexual objects or object of his masturbatory fantasies. Probably because of this, he has difficulty relating to them. One day, he and his co-worker Tisserand are sent to Rouen to train users on a software. It this there when twists to their empty lives happen that eventually lead to fatal death to one of them.
The prevalent mood of the book is bleak and sad. There are some funny moments because I always find humor in solitude, that's how weird I sometimes get. Houellebecq's writing is sparse and edgy. Sometimes, his thoughts go everywhere, i.e., directionless but I supposed that he is just trying to reflect to his readers the nature of the character.
This is my first Houellebecq and I am happy that I finally tried reading him. Definitely not my last.
April 13, 2020
2.75 stars
If there was ever a writer who has dished out multiple blows to society’s nervous system then Houellebecq is that writer. He writes with a declaration of hostilities, with a filthy-minded stronghold for abjection, like he has nothing to lose. He knows a lot of people probably despise him, but does he really care? While I can't say I would want him as a friend, I will say that I've read much worse writers than him. I actually thought Atomised was really good, thought Platform was not bad, but didn't think much of Lanzarote, which featured a totally dislikeable narrator I so wanted to kick in the nuts. I guess this novel sits somewhere in the middle, probably trying to grope the others. Our protagonist here could have easily appeared in any of those later novels above, so not a lot has changed there in that respect: basically, our guy is a sexually frustrated asshole. Reflecting bitterly on his inability to seduce the opposite sex, and the exhaustion of even trying that goes with it, our disaffected computer expert takes a work trip to the provinces with a gormless colleague. After a series of humiliations at foul discotheques, he encourages his colleague to commit a killing in revenge for his exclusion from an erotic paradise. With a mood of sexual paranoia, Houellebecq brutally, with malicious intent, writes of sexuality as a system of social hierarchy, and how sexual liberation would have been better off out of fashion. Might have thought more of this had I not read the others, but he's now starting to become a bit of a bore. I'm just hoping Submission is something entirely different if I decide to read that.
If there was ever a writer who has dished out multiple blows to society’s nervous system then Houellebecq is that writer. He writes with a declaration of hostilities, with a filthy-minded stronghold for abjection, like he has nothing to lose. He knows a lot of people probably despise him, but does he really care? While I can't say I would want him as a friend, I will say that I've read much worse writers than him. I actually thought Atomised was really good, thought Platform was not bad, but didn't think much of Lanzarote, which featured a totally dislikeable narrator I so wanted to kick in the nuts. I guess this novel sits somewhere in the middle, probably trying to grope the others. Our protagonist here could have easily appeared in any of those later novels above, so not a lot has changed there in that respect: basically, our guy is a sexually frustrated asshole. Reflecting bitterly on his inability to seduce the opposite sex, and the exhaustion of even trying that goes with it, our disaffected computer expert takes a work trip to the provinces with a gormless colleague. After a series of humiliations at foul discotheques, he encourages his colleague to commit a killing in revenge for his exclusion from an erotic paradise. With a mood of sexual paranoia, Houellebecq brutally, with malicious intent, writes of sexuality as a system of social hierarchy, and how sexual liberation would have been better off out of fashion. Might have thought more of this had I not read the others, but he's now starting to become a bit of a bore. I'm just hoping Submission is something entirely different if I decide to read that.
February 11, 2020
Extension est le premier roman de Michel Houellebecq, dont l’œuvre précédente (quelques recueils de poésie et un essai sur H.P. Lovecraft) était restée essentiellement confidentielle. Bref, c’est Houellebecq à ses débuts.
Ce premier roman est assez bref et peut pratiquement se lire d’une seule traite. Il s’agit du récit à la première personne d’un obscur ingénieur informatique vers la fin des années 1980 — un personnage assez proche, peut-être, de son auteur avant qu’il ne parvienne à la gloire littéraire qu’on connaît.
Les détails de la vie de cet antihéros et de ses états d’humeur sont, somme toute, assez banals ; comme l’indique le narrateur : « Nous sommes loin des Hauts de Hurlevent, c’est le moins qu’on puisse dire. La forme romanesque n’est pas conçue pour peindre l’indifférence ni le néant ; il faudrait inventer une articulation plus plate, plus concise et plus morne. » Et c’est précisément ce que Houellebecq parvient à faire : peindre un lointain descendant de Raskolnikov ou du Deume de Belle du Seigneur, dans des teintes fades, naïves et qui donne à l’ensemble une grande fluidité. Tout effet de style est marqué par l’ironie ou par l’autodérision (et il faut souligner que Houellebecq ne manque pas d'un humour à la fois grinçant et feutré).
Mais ce roman est aussi porteur d’une thèse. L’« extension du domaine de la lutte » désigne le libéralisme économique et sexuel, et la vision de Houellebecq, avec ses personnages amers, désabusés, vaniteux, cyniques, frustrés, dépressifs, désespérés, suicidaires, est essentiellement anti-libérale et réactionnaire, voire nihiliste. Bref, c’est Houellebecq à ses débuts et, déjà, Houellebecq est un punk.
Ce premier roman est assez bref et peut pratiquement se lire d’une seule traite. Il s’agit du récit à la première personne d’un obscur ingénieur informatique vers la fin des années 1980 — un personnage assez proche, peut-être, de son auteur avant qu’il ne parvienne à la gloire littéraire qu’on connaît.
Les détails de la vie de cet antihéros et de ses états d’humeur sont, somme toute, assez banals ; comme l’indique le narrateur : « Nous sommes loin des Hauts de Hurlevent, c’est le moins qu’on puisse dire. La forme romanesque n’est pas conçue pour peindre l’indifférence ni le néant ; il faudrait inventer une articulation plus plate, plus concise et plus morne. » Et c’est précisément ce que Houellebecq parvient à faire : peindre un lointain descendant de Raskolnikov ou du Deume de Belle du Seigneur, dans des teintes fades, naïves et qui donne à l’ensemble une grande fluidité. Tout effet de style est marqué par l’ironie ou par l’autodérision (et il faut souligner que Houellebecq ne manque pas d'un humour à la fois grinçant et feutré).
Mais ce roman est aussi porteur d’une thèse. L’« extension du domaine de la lutte » désigne le libéralisme économique et sexuel, et la vision de Houellebecq, avec ses personnages amers, désabusés, vaniteux, cyniques, frustrés, dépressifs, désespérés, suicidaires, est essentiellement anti-libérale et réactionnaire, voire nihiliste. Bref, c’est Houellebecq à ses débuts et, déjà, Houellebecq est un punk.
January 25, 2012
You have this friend who works in IT. He is rendered sick at the torturous formality and bureaucratic inevitability of existence, and slaps you on the face twice before bursting into tears. You phone his friend Tisserand who is unbearably ugly and hits on you twice, for help. You say: “You are so hideous, no woman would go anywhere near you, you disgusting pustule of a man.” Tisserand breaks down in tears but comes back with a brutal salvo: “You women are callous stiff planks who’re only out for yourselves!” Or words to that effect. But your friend who works in IT is looking extremely peaky. He, naturally, has no problem getting laid (despite his own physical shortcomings, i.e. he looks like Michel Houellebecq) but he does seem to be coming down with a bad case of lifesickness. Clearly, traveling around France training people in IT packages is no sound basis for a life. So your friend writes strange animal stories then checks himself into a psych ward. You don’t hear from him for a while, for he is a gone man. A long gone man. (P.S. Worst cover and mistranslated title ever. Original: Extension du domaine de la lutte).
Favourite passage:
“Writing brings scant relief. It retraces, it delimits. It lends a touch of coherence, the idea of a kind of realism. One stumbles around in a cruel fog, but there is the odd pointer. Chaos is no more than a few feet away. A meagre victory, in truth. What a contrast with the absolute, miraculous power of reading! An entire life spent reading would have fulfilled my every desire; I already knew that at the age of seven. The texture of the world is painful, inadequate; unalterable, or so it seems to me. Really, I believe that an entire life spent reading would have suited me best. Such a life has not been granted me.” (p12)
Favourite passage:
“Writing brings scant relief. It retraces, it delimits. It lends a touch of coherence, the idea of a kind of realism. One stumbles around in a cruel fog, but there is the odd pointer. Chaos is no more than a few feet away. A meagre victory, in truth. What a contrast with the absolute, miraculous power of reading! An entire life spent reading would have fulfilled my every desire; I already knew that at the age of seven. The texture of the world is painful, inadequate; unalterable, or so it seems to me. Really, I believe that an entire life spent reading would have suited me best. Such a life has not been granted me.” (p12)
October 15, 2016
This is my first Houellebecq so I still give him the benefit of doubt. Even more so since it's only his debut novel. Poor writing and sexist. A critique of society, that supposed to be his main forte, is flat and banal. Yet another story about emptiness of corporate life and a guy that sees the point of life in "love". Love not meaning creating a partnership with a woman but simply fucking her. In the same time constantly whining how the only woman in his life that mattered was selfish and damaged by shallowness of modern relations, and basically was a bitch and a loose one.
Another antihero of modern literature? Ok I could take that but only if it wasn't so trivial.
Another antihero of modern literature? Ok I could take that but only if it wasn't so trivial.
December 23, 2019
This was the longest greentext that I had read ever
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