Home
sign up| reviews / editor book review |
 content by: editor |
Sex and death from the controversial French author. Daniel is an ageist misogynist, amongst other unsavoury qualities. Lucky for him he’s also a cutting-edge French comedian, and has used his antisocial material to get filthy rich. In a parallel narrative, meanwhile, his genetic copy, Daniel24, studies Daniel’s autobiography, musing over impulses and emotions which the futuristic neo-human no longer understands. There’s something big and true in here, concerning modern culture’s obsession with hedonistic youth and the fear of ageing, matched with a fierce, unflinching vision of where it all may lead. But this theme is obscured by increasingly depressing bouts of pornography which quickly cease to shock and start to bore. Moreover, Houellebecq has an unnerving knack for creating female characters that seem to exist solely to validate Daniel’s oft-repeated views on women (in short: young is sexy, 40 is repulsive, intellect is secondary). With every female in the book a cipher, the otherwise haunting vision of a reformed global society rings disappointingly false. Michel Houellebecq - The Possibility Of An Island, out now published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
 comments
Read members' comments related to this book.
|
 |
related info
 useful links
note: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
art  art archive Watch artist interviews and see images from British exhibitions. |
send to a friend
access 1000s of articles