Submission

by Michel Houellebecq

the only thing left to people in their despair was reading.

the exhausting and dreary succession of aggravations that made up daily life,

really my only goal in life was to do a little reading and get in bed at four in the afternoon with a carton of cigarettes and a bottle; and yet, at the same time, I had to admit, I was going to die if I kept that up—I was going to die fast, unhappy and alone. And did I really want to die fast, unhappy and alone? In the end, only kind of.

People don’t really care all that much about their own death. What they really worry about, their one real fixation, is how to avoid physical suffering as much as possible.