Interventions 2020 Quotes

“Az irodalom mélységesen fogalmi művészet (...) Semmit sem lehet állítani, tagadni, relativizálni, kigúnyolni a fogalmak segítsége nélkül, szavak nélkül. Innen fakad az irodalmi tevékenység meglepő robosztussága: az irodalom megtagadhatja magát, elpusztíthatja magát, lehetetlennek nyilváníthatja magát, miközben mégis önmaga marad.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Intervenções

“Le but de la fête est de nous faire oublier que nous sommes solitaires, misérables et promis à la mort. Autrement dit, de nous transformer en animaux. C'est pourquoi le primitif a un sens de la fête très développé. Une bonne flambée de plantes hallucinogènes, trois tambourins, et le tour est joué : un rien l'amuse. À l’opposé, l'Occidental moyen n'aboutit à une extase insuffisante qu'à l'issue de raves interminables dont il ressort sourd et drogué : il n'a pas du tout le sens de la fête. Profondément conscient de lui-même, radicalement étranger aux autres, terrorisé par l’idée de la mort, il est bien incapable d’accéder à une quelconque fusion. Cependant, il s'obstine. La perte de sa condition animale l'attriste, il en conçoit honte et dépit ; il aimerait être un fêtard, ou du moins passer pour tel. Il est dans une sale situation.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“Even more, they cannot play this role in front of another being. And yet they ought to be able to do so: for this dissolution of being is a tragic dissolution; and we all continue, moved by a painful nostalgia, to ask the other for what we ourselves can no longer be; to seek, like a blinded phantom, this weight of being that we no longer find within ourselves. This resistance, this permanence; this depth. Of course, everyone fails, and the loneliness is excruciating.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“The goal of festivity is to make us forget that we are alone, miserable, and destined for death. Said otherwise, to transform us into animals. That's why the primitive has a very developed sense of festivity. A good flambée of hallucinogenic plants, three tambourines, and that's all they need: a trifle amuses him. On the other hand, the average Westerner only attains an insufficient ecstasy that comes from interminable raves from which he emerges deafened and drugged: he doesn't have any sense of festivity at all. Deeply self conscious, radically foreign to others, terrorized by the idea of death, he is quite incapable of reaching any synthesis. Nevertheless, he persists. The loss of his animal condition saddens him, he considers it shame and spite, he would like to be a party animal, or at least seem like one. He's in a nasty situation.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“The conditions of breeding and slaughter are morally appalling. As for halal or kosher slaughter, it adds a little touch of exotic barbarism.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“The author, who takes it upon himself to express it, obviously runs the risk of being identified with this negative part of the world. That’s what makes writing an at times difficult activity: taking on all the negative.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“You must participate in competition, in struggle, in the life of the world. If you stop, you no longer exist. If you fall behind, you’re dead.’ Denying any notion of eternity, defining itself as a process of permanent renewal, advertising aims to vaporize human subjects, to transform them into obedient phantoms of becoming. And this skin-deep, superficial participation in the life of the world is supposed to take the place of the desire for being.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“Unlike most people I don’t fear death, as I get older I rediscover my long-forgotten youth, and once in a while, when the going gets tough, I bury myself comfortably in my work. My books already guarantee me a form of immortality.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“For the writer, the microcomputer was an unexpected liberation: it was not really a return to the flexibility and userfriendliness of the manuscript, but it became possible, all the same, to engage in serious work on a text. During the same years, various indicators suggested that literature might regain some of its former prestige – albeit less on its own merits than through the self-effacement of rival activities. Rock music and cinema, subjected to the formidable levelling power of television, gradually lost their magic. The previous distinctions between films, music videos, news, advertising, human testimonies and reporting tended to fade in favour of the notion of a generalized spectacle.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020