The Most Prophetic Novel of the Century
Hello,
I’ve released a new video on my book channel ‘Nick Reads’, which you should definitely watch if you haven’t seen it.
It’s about Michel Houellebecq’s Submission, which imagines a world where Islam has taken over France.
I read the book four times and condensed my findings into a five minute essay. As my grandad used to say ‘I can’t do much more than that, can I?’
A lot of people get this novel wrong (including Aaron Bastani), and this video clears up all the confusion and is just jolly interesting.
If you’ve already seen it, perhaps click on it anyway and let it play for five minutes for the algorithm. I will owe you one if you do this (obviously this is just a figure of speech, don’t show up at my house late at night with a shovel).
But it would really help me get this new channel going. Though obviously the ultimate aim is to break free from politics, fake my own death and change my name. But that’s later.
The video is below if you have five minutes.
Many thanks,
Nick
I read and half-enjoyed this a while ago. There's certainly a lot of reference to sex in the book, which didn't seem very relevant to the main theme. I naïvely thought it was there because the author was French.
I'll watch this shortly, once I'm out of the dull work meeting that's currently taking place.
One thing that many people seem to miss about Houellebecq is the humour in his writing, and it's a very dry wit. There were parts of Submission where I almost laughed out loud, which may seem incongruous, given that overall it's a pessimistic - almost nihilistic - novel. Laughter in the dark, as they say.