Abstract
This chapter discusses two novels by Michel Houellebecq, Atomised (1998) and The Possibility of an Island (2005), both of which base a large amount of their intellectual focus on the relevance of the objective, material world to philosophical thought. The chapter outlines recent developments in continental philosophy, in which a revived interest in the significance of the material world and a desire to re-engage with the ‘in itself’ after decades of what Quentin Meillassoux terms the crippling ‘correlationism’ between thinking and being, has come to be classified under the banner of speculative realism or speculative materialism. By comparing the work of Alain Badiou and Quentin Meillassoux with Houellebecq’s fiction, I argue that both the speculative realist philosophy of these two thinkers and the aesthetics of the two novels under discussion, despite their alliance with scientific-materialist models of the universe, actually reach towards a transcendent space existing beyond objective reality.
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Notes
- 1.
Alain Badiou, Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy, trans. Oliver Feltham and Justin Clemens (London: Continuum, 2005), 37–39.
- 2.
Alain Badiou, Manifesto for Philosophy, trans. Norman Madarasz (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 61.
- 3.
Alain Badiou, Being and Event, trans. Oliver Feltham (New York: Continuum, 2005), 6.
- 4.
Michiko Kakutani, “BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Unsparing Case Studies of Humanity’s Vileness”, The New York Times Book Review, November 10, 2000.
- 5.
Anthony Quinn, “One Thinks, the Other Doesn’t”, The New York Times Book Review, November 19, 2000.
- 6.
Nicholas Lezard, “Atom Bomb”, The Guardian Review Section, February 24, 2001.
- 7.
Michel Houellebecq, Atomised , trans. Frank Wynne (London: Vintage, 2001), 26. All further references to this text will be given parenthetically.
- 8.
Andrew Marr, “We’re All Doomed…”, Observer, Review Section, May 21, 2000.
- 9.
Gerald Moore, “Gay Science and (No) Laughing Matter: The Eternal Returns of Michel Houellebecq”, French Studies 25 (2011): 45–60 (p. 53).
- 10.
See John McCann, Michel Houellebecq: Author of Our Times (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010), 63.
- 11.
Michel Houellebecq, “The Art of Fiction No. 206” (Interview by Susannah Hunnewell), The Paris Review, 4 (Print Version), http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6040/the-art-of-fiction-no-206-michel-houellebecq, accessed 13 July 2015.
- 12.
Bülent Diken, Nihilism (London: Routledge, 2009), 14.
- 13.
Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage, 1973), 387.
- 14.
Neil Badmington, “Introduction: Approaching Posthumanism”, in Posthumanism, ed. Neil Badmington (Hampshire: Palgrave, 2000), 1–10 (p. 7).
- 15.
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Athlone Press, 1984), 1.
- 16.
Donna J. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, in Posthumanism, ed. Neil Badmington (Hampshire: Palgrave, 2000), 69–84 (p. 70).
- 17.
Jerry Andrew Varsava, “Utopian Yearnings, Dystopian Thoughts: Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles and the Problem of Scientific Communitarianism”, College Literature 32 (2005): 145–167 (p. 162).
- 18.
Varsava, 162.
- 19.
Varsava, 163.
- 20.
Linda Williams, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible’ (London: Pandora, 1990), 20.
- 21.
Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (London: Penguin, 1978), 24.
- 22.
Carole Sweeney, Michel Houellebecq and the Literature of Despair (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), xix.
- 23.
Michel Houellebecq, “The Art of Fiction No. 206” (Interview by Susannah Hunnewell), The Paris Review, 7.
- 24.
Isabelle Stengers, Cosmopolitics I (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 25.
- 25.
Badiou, Infinite Thought, 76.
- 26.
Houellebecq, “The Art of Fiction No. 206”, 9.
- 27.
Jacques Derrida, “This Strange Institution Called Literature” [Interview], in Acts of Literature, ed. Derek Attridge (New York: Routledge, 1992), 36.
- 28.
Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (London: Continuum, 2008), 27.
- 29.
Meillassoux, 5.
- 30.
Meillassoux, 7.
- 31.
Meillassoux, 118, 119.
- 32.
Alain Badiou, Being and Event, 6.
- 33.
Meillassoux, After Finitude, 126.
- 34.
Meillassoux, After Finitude, 104.
- 35.
Meillassoux, After Finitude, 82.
- 36.
See, for example, Adrian Johnston, “Hume’s Revenge: Á Dieu, Meillassoux?” (92–113); Peter Hallward, “Anything Is Possible” (130–141), in The Speculative Turn.
- 37.
Meillassoux, After Finitude, 34.
- 38.
Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island , trans. Gavin Bowd (London: Phoenix, 2006), 3. All further references to this text will be given parenthetically.
- 39.
Mike Gane, “Conflicting Visions of Code-Work In Recent Social Science Fiction”, Information, Communication & Society 11, no. 6 (2008): 799–815 (p. 799).
- 40.
John McCann, Michel Houellebecq: Author of Our Times (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010), 65.
- 41.
Christian Moraru, “The Genomic Imperative: Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island ”, Utopian Studies 19, no. 2 (2008): 265–283 (p. 282).
- 42.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), 299.
- 43.
In another revealing instance of similarity between Houellebecq’s work and that of Meillassoux, Douglas Morrey draws attention to the fact that ‘images of emptiness, stillness and stasis’ provide a key trope in all of Houellebecq’s full length novels to date, and that these images suggest ‘a certain spiritual aspiration’ related to the desirability of meditation and prayer. Just as Meillassoux’s thought has been critiqued for allowing a return to religiosity, Houellebecq, Morrey suggests, links certain aspects of religion with the conditions of the material world. Douglas Morrey, Michel Houellebecq: Humanity and Its Aftermath (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2013), 147. Jstor ebook, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vjgbv.
- 44.
James Wood, “Love, Actually”, The New Republic, August 28, 2006, 25.
Bibliography
Badiou, Alain. 1992. Manifesto for Philosophy. Trans. Norman Madarasz. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Badiou, Alain. 2005. Being and Event. Trans. Oliver Feltham. New York: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain. 2005. Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy. Trans. Oliver Feltham and Justin Clemens. London: Continuum.
Badmington, Neil. 2000. Introduction: Approaching Posthumanism. In Posthumanism, ed. Neil Badmington, 1–10. Hampshire: Palgrave.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1984. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Athlone Press.
Derrida, Jacques. 1992. This Strange Institution Called Literature [Interview]. In Acts of Literature, ed. Derek Attridge. New York: Routledge.
Diken, Bülent. 2009. Nihilism. London: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 1973. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage.
Foucault, Michel. 1978. The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. London: Penguin.
Gane, Mike. 2008. Conflicting Visions of Code-Work In Recent Social Science Fiction. Information, Communication & Society 11, no. 6: 799–815.
Haraway, Donna J. 2000. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In Posthumanism, ed. Neil Badmington, 69–84. Hampshire: Palgrave.
Houellebecq, Michel. 2001. Atomised. Trans. Frank Wynne. London: Vintage.
Houellebecq, Michel. 2001. The Art of Fiction No. 206 (Interview by Susannah Hunnewell). The Paris Review (Print Version). http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6040/the-art-of-fiction-no-206-michel-houellebecq. Accessed 13 July 2015.
Houellebecq, Michel. 2006. The Possibility of an Island. Trans. Gavin Bowd. London: Phoenix.
Kakutani, Michiko. 2000. BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Unsparing Case Studies of Humanity’s Vileness. The New York Times Book Review, November 10.
Lezard, Nicholas. 2001. Atom Bomb. The Guardian Review Section, February 24.
Marr, Andrew. 2000. We’re All Doomed…, Observer, Review Section, May 21.
McCann, John. 2010. Michel Houellebecq: Author of Our Times. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Meillassoux, Quentin. 2008. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. London: Continuum.
Moore, Gerald. 2011. Gay Science and (No) Laughing Matter: The Eternal Returns of Michel Houellebecq. French Studies 25: 45–60.
Moraru, Christian. 2008. The Genomic Imperative: Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island. Utopian Studies 19, no. 2: 265–283.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1969. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Quinn, Anthony. 2000. One Thinks, the Other Doesn’t. The New York Times Book Review, November 19.
Stengers, Isabelle. 2010. Cosmopolitics I. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Sweeney, Carole. 2013. Michel Houellebecq and the Literature of Despair. London: Bloomsbury.
Varsava, Jerry Andrew. 2005. Utopian Yearnings, Dystopian Thoughts: Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles and the Problem of Scientific Communitarianism. College Literature 32: 145–167.
Williams, Linda. 1990. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible’. London: Pandora.
Wood, James. 2006. Love, Actually. The New Republic, August 28.
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Holland, R. (2019). Michel Houellebecq and the Possibilities of Fiction. In: Contemporary Fiction and Science from Amis to McEwan. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16375-4_4
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