Without doubt, irritated, upset, and takes many consimtiri, that makes you suspect who knows what magical formula used by the author. We now Understanding Platform, Michel Houellebecq's novel, reprinted in the collection Polirom Top 10 +.
Matching style, they say, with Sartre and Camus, Michel Houellebecq electrified, after a relatively long time, French prose. With a whimsical biography, he writes as: abuses, frustration, about social deficiencies. It started with poetry, but seems to be determined and then a preference for prose, defiant manner in which he wrote novels provoke reactions that make an author Houellebecq was living right, if not necessarily widely liked, then even intriguing.
Compared (not always favorably) with elementary particles, novel platform did not disown the fast reaction of literary criticism. Not unanimous, the book is somewhere in the line between farce and a drama of good ticluit "world state".
I'll do justice to the novel's realism by recognizing that - attention, stress - sequential tempted me to take it a little too seriously and make them more difficult to excuse all thickenings of character and action, which otherwise are like crazy. The intent of these steps is to understand (exaggeration, finally drawing a necessary antipathy alarm, etc.), but not yet hide not taste this kind of literary exhibitionism.
And if I did not feel anything going through this book, is because of the avalanche of feelings and events of it, just not to have calmed a little time to think about them. Dispose of them fire off - here I have to agree something Houellebecq's credit because he manages a convincing analogy with a theme of the novel, and consumerism-ie.
Explaining to them, I take the risk of saying that enriched me with a character Plaforma embarrassing: a Michel Renault insisting meet the cynicism of the exhibition, we provide absolutely nothing of what he describes existence does not, in fact, much about it. A character always somewhere else, tired of his mediocrity chore that he himself not only as a commercial, but he emphatically maintains and take over the entire novel: "My dreams are mediocre."
Specifically, the profile tick Michel Renault? He is clerk at the Ministry of Culture ("From now on, my conclusion is clear: art can transform lives. In any case mine" - not that I witness any tests ...), is 40 years old and comes to sex tourists in Thailand (after the receiving an inheritance from his father killed by a Muslim - the first sentence of the novel, "My father died a year ago" is a tribute to Camus's stranger, but perhaps an allusion to the duplicitous nature of writing, by its function parodist). It is ironic and mumbling. Placid, alone. "Do not disturb me, I said, in fact, nothing bothers me". As simple as it manages the other characters in attitudes toward Michel, and did so to the latter: just left me no matter what story did it transcribed into a dark story on TV. But to resume the story: he meets Valerie a vacation and suddenly, in his impasibilitatea Verve plunges directly into an area with nothing irrational emotional storyline: "I then became aware, a little incredulous, that I will review as perhaps we will be happy together. It was totally unexpected joy, I could cry. ". Then, outputs such as "love transforms us into saints" make it ridiculous in the context of emotional Levelling who has supported it without stopping. Are extremely difficult to taste in a small space just a dozen pages.
Then, I guess the Houellebecq amused to put the main character read consumer literature, while he himself made so as to resemble the map novel platform (almost too many, I should say I) with psychology porn movies (which even Michel laugh) how sexual X interlude (the character I go away yet one or two philosophies of life), sexual intercourse how Y, interlude (yes, negligible and it) etc.. And no one eroticul seductive. Nothing sensual narrative impatience always reach these passages, in fact, sexuality itself loses any relevance, although we would suggest that it would still be the only authentic source of life.
To avoid any confusion, not the least bit bothered me that the book is explicit, but that raw types (character or line items are included erotic or are sclerotic, all sad anyway) they claim to compress and then in sentences sententious the way "to live without reading is dangerous, you should limit yourself to life, and not without risks." Ideas are too compressed to their context, but of course, Houellebecq has always save the guise of irony ...
Not a question of credibility, but overflow: count murder, rape, divorce, some organ, not a few speeches racist, a terrorist and a cap-and then in a psychiatric hospital, all taifasuite a character- narrator. Of course, choice is a perspective intradiegetice justified by the very nature of the intimate events of the book, but still felt the need Houellebecq artifice: the last chapter add "if my intention when I started writing these pages, would be my par suffering, make it more bearable, now I know it's not possible ", readers are once again forced the voltage (s confession Michel, now an almost suicidal).
Style - as I see it - pompous, affected and often stiff dialogue did not help him much either, and no other characters too well to view Michel besides I did not even Valerie and Jean-Yves, who often still rustle novel pages. As motivation theme of the book, it was manifested by a comparison with the feeling that the main character was a child, when he climbed on a platform above the mountains, just above fears resented it when he realized what would be lost ... that is all, as happened in adulthood.
It's the only time the character rationalizes his feelings: no longer has a sense of overall quantity of things that I make up life, is a time when it marks something deep isolation (loss of Valerie), it is still unique moment lucidity (in which he "awakens neglected sensibilities", The New York Observerer), giving the quasi-Michel's vision like without judgment.
Finally, reconstructing the story, I can not come to the conclusion that Houellebecq carpeste than moralizing world, secretly, but so embarrassed in his plan, as it put into action by the rude means, taking even if himself in derision.