Submission

by Michel Houellebecq

an author is above all a human being, present in his books, and whether he writes very well or very badly hardly matters—as long as he gets the books written and is, indeed, present in them.

In the same way, to love a book is, above all, to love its author: we wish to meet him again, we wish to spend our days with him.

Modest but robust, it had always served me faithfully.

In the monastery, at least, one was assured of room and board—and, best-case scenario, eternal life as a bonus.

The feeling of closeness when we talked on the phone was too violent, and the void that came afterward too cruel.

They still believed, deep down, in the power of the intellectual elite. It was almost touching.

After thinking it over, I decided that the really prudent thing was to go out and buy another bottle.

And did I really want to die fast, unhappy and alone? In the end, only kind of.

“It’s submission,” Rediger murmured. “The shocking and simple idea, which had never been so forcefully expressed, that the summit of human happiness resides in the most absolute submission.

He, Rediger, was the first to admit the greatness of medieval Christendom, whose artistic achievements would live forever in human memory; but little by little it had given way, it had been forced to compromise with rationalism, it had renounced its temporal powers, and so had sealed its own doom—and why? In the end, it was a mystery; God had ordained it so.

Subject man to erotic stimuli, even in their most standardized form—something as simple as low necklines and short skirts (or in the apt Spanish phrase, tetas y culo)—and he will feel sexual desire. Remove said stimuli and the desire will go away, and in a matter of months or even weeks he won’t even remember his sexuality.