Michel Houellebecq
Sottomissione

LA RECENSIONE

Good premise but terrible book.
It's all a listing of names, streets, recipes, wines... in that ostentatious-very-snobbish way that only the French (or rather Parisians) can manage.
Of this "Submission" by Michel Houllebecq I save the brilliant idea of portraying a France right after the 2022 elections, which suddenly discovers, at the polls, it has become pro-Muslim! A certain Mohammed Ben Abbes, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood party, a moderate, seemingly calm figure, is elected as President of the French Republic.

It's all thanks to the alliance between Ps, Ump, and the Udi centrists to stop the rise of Marine Le Pen (who, according to the author, will still be in office).
The new president's greatest desire is the return to patriarchy, the alliance between Mediterranean countries in the name of Allah, the repositioning of women in society, submission to Islam, precisely.

At the same time, we witness the (somewhat unconvincing) conversion of a Sorbonne professor (most likely the author himself): a scholar obsessed with writer Joris Karl Husysmans, the author of the true masterpiece "Against the Grain": a true example of virtuosity and fanciful flair.
What else to say? Boredom and uselessness in a flat read without particular sparks of ingenuity or reflection. Not even the few explicit and uninhibited sex scenes manage to raise the "intellectual flag" that remains dormant throughout the 200-odd pages of the book. Nothing that can really captivate or fascinate you. Nothing that makes you ponder beyond pure cold descriptivism that is not at all interesting (not to say annoying).

A long and pedantic book, which could frankly have been done without and which, if not for the media frenzy caused by its simultaneous release with the events of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, we would have already archived or put up for sale at some second-hand stall for 5€.
Like I found it.

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