In October this year, the eagerly awaited, latest novel by Michel Houellebecq, “Annihilations”, in the Polish translation by Beata Geppert, hit the bookstores. About how eagerly – the decision of the publishing house W.A.B. about accelerating the book launch was accelerated by a week. The results were both unforeseen and deplorable – the first batch of books fell apart in the hands and had blurred print. Of course, everything has been remedied and the copies currently available in bookstores are technically complete.

Michel Huellebecq is a very famous writer in France and in the world. His career, which began in 1994 with the novel “Extension du domaine da la lutte” gained momentum in 1998 with the novel Particules Elementaires and since then each new book by the writer has been eagerly awaited. The press, always ready for exaggerations and pompous generalizations, hailed Huellebecq as a prophet of our times, because the premiere of “Submission” about the takeover of power in France by Islamists coincided with an attack by Islamist militants on the offices of the satirical weekly “Charlie Hebdo”, which resulted in many deaths and shocked the Western public opinion. In addition, the last issue of Charlie Hebdo before the attack had a caricature of the writer on the cover, and the caption jokingly referred to him as a prophet.

The foundations for Houellebecq's prophetic fame had already been laid by the earlier novel "Platform", where the novel's Islamist attack on the tourist center was supposed to anticipate the tragedy of the World Trade Center.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE In turn, the novel “Serotonin”, in which – apart from the depression suggested by the title - there is a theme of farmers' protests against state policy, was supposed to anticipate the “yellow vest” movement, which broke out two weeks after the book was published in bookstores. After “Serotonin”, the faith in the writer’s prophetic abilities was strengthened even more and one of the great disappointments of the latest novel “Annihilations” is that Houellebecq did not foresee the war in Ukraine. And it would be neat - the French premiere was in January, Russia's attack on Ukraine in February.

The recent Polish Nobel Prize winner, Olga Tokarczuk, somewhere expressed the view that, to tone it down a bit, literature is not for everyone*. For those in search of simple tips and warnings, reading literally and looking for current signposts in it – definitely not. There are also true readers for whom it is not difficult to understand metaphors and contexts, but not yet “adult” to treat obscenities without reflexes of resentment and indignation. For the more sensitive, the explicitly veristic eroticism in Huellebecq’s books may seem like pornography.

The writer also does not value Christianity or any religion. In an interview for the monthly “Lire” he said that “believing in one God is an act of total imbecility, I can’t find another word for it. And the stupidest religion is Islam. Reading the Koran is overwhelming ... overwhelming! The Bible is at least beautiful, because The Jews had a bloody literary talent ... and for that you can forgive a lot”. The interview was in 2001 and the writer no longer needs police protection.

Houellebecq hates corporate capitalism and the social system he creates, but he gets everyone - liberal intellectuals, feminists, elderly hippies. The enfant terrible of European literature, blunt, malicious and cynical. His books do not bring any hope, and the human condition is loneliness in a soulless and absurd world. Can the latest novel of such a person be put under the Christmas tree in a decent home?

Everything seems to indicate that it cannot. The main character, Paul Raison (reason) has not spoken to his wife Prudence (prudence) for ten years. Paul’s mother, when she was still alive, spent her days in the shed. The retired art restorer avoided contact with Paul’s father, Édouard, while sculpting. The hero’s younger brother, Aurélien, is married to a journalist greedy for success and money, by the way, a feminist, Indy. Her progressive stance is evidenced by the fact that she ordered a black child in California with a surrogate, telling her family, falsely, that Aurelian was infertile. She gave the child the Old French name Godefroy, because tradition can and must be deconstructed.

In the novel, they drink a lot and dislikes nothing and no one, and only sex can relieve emptiness, hopelessness and despair in the short term. Although, perhaps to the disappointment of regular readers of Houellebecq, after the first mention of the old fellatio on page 42, nothing happens on this matter for the next two hundred pages. How is it supposed to happen when the men in the book are pushed away from the table, bed and fridge shelf, humiliated by a black “son” or terminally ill.

France in “Annihilation” faces the 2027 presidential election. The current president – easily identifiable with Emmanuel Macron – decides to use Putin’s trick with Medvedev, i.e. to let someone else from his grouping for one term in order to be able to run again after him. The law limits presidential terms to two consecutive terms, but it does not specify how many there may be at all. In this regard, the TV comedian Benjamin Sarfati is bustling among spin doctors and journalists, whose problem is said to be not the media packaging, generally known, but the content.

His name in Hebrew is close to the meaning of French, he is a Sephardic Jew, which leads to the genuine candidate from the last election, Eric Zemmour. Zemmour himself is mentioned incidentally in the author’s narrative, perhaps to confuse clues, because Zemmour has content, and not just any content. His journalism and the book “French Suicide” says about France more or less what many of Houellebecq’s own intuitions do.

The secret services in the novel cannot solve the mystery of the terrorist attacks on a container ship with Chinese goods, a sperm bank and a ship with emigrants. The assassins upload their exploits online, as well as a credible-looking video of the decapitation of a minister in the novel'’ government, Bruno Juge. Juge (the judge) is based on the real finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, private friend of the author. Next, this thread leads to the atmosphere of The Da Vinci Code - there are pentagrams, the image of Baphomet and the mention of the Templars.

Bruno Raison, an official in the cabinet of Minister Juge, helps in the investigation, because he is known in the special services, one of the heads of which was his father. Édouard Raison has a stroke at the beginning of the novel. His life was saved, but there is no contact with him, over time he can move his eyes and eyelids, slightly with one hand.

The misfortune of the elderly of the Raison family unites the family. Brothers Bruno and Aurélien have a sister, Cécile, a devoutly practicing Catholic. Her husband, Hervé, has contacts with the far right, and it is from these circles that help will come when the conditions in the hospital where Édouard is staying become systemically callous and therefore dangerous for his life.

The partner of the widower Édouard Raison, Madeleine, sees the meaning of her existence in her dedication to the sick. At the table of Cécile, who is a great cook, the siblings are seen as often as never in years. On his way to his ministry, Bruno sometimes stops by the always empty church. He even tries to say goodbye, knowing that first the forehead, but then to the left or to the right? Without really knowing why, he lights the candles – the father is in a vegetative state, which causes deeply forgotten behavior. Cécile prays and no one mocks her – is it really Houellebecq?

When further misfortunes affect the family, only a sense of bond, closeness and mutual tenderness can bear them. Cancer affects Bruno himself, who managed to renew his marriage with Prudence. His wife will be with him to the end. The only hope in “Annihilation” is in those closest to you, even though a slow, painful and violent death - Aurélien commits suicide - surrounds the family from the beginning. Cécile seems to have it the easiest, who is sustained by faith. Paul Raison will probably never find the way to God, but the lack of it in the modern world undoubtedly worries the author.

In France, the habit of politically- orientated writers is even more perceptible than in Poland. The left-wing French press has long since put a cross on Houellebecq.It is no longer seduced by its reluctance to religion, adventures of heroes in a swingers club and other flavors of this type. Initially, it was taken in, although the writer never defined himself politically, he was always “Against everyone” and everything, as the title of one of the Joris-Karl Huysmans novels to which he was compared says. Other comparisons include Honorius Balzac and even Emil Zola - Houellebecq is supposed to describe contemporary society in a cross-section – these comparisons are after “Annihilation”.

Michel Houllebecq more than once mocked recipes for the world of the '68 generation and the only thing leftist about him is the appearance of a tramp who looks like his own grandfather. Recently, only the right wing can expect paeans of praise.

By the way, Marine Le Pen, a politician of the National Rally, is mentioned in “Annihilation”, and this is not a caricature, but a well-prepared candidate, a dangerous opponent in the presidential election. Well, look! And then there’s the church the hero enters and the need for love and closeness in the family.

This narrowing of the battlefield (“Extension du domaine da la lutte” is Houellebecq's first novel) does not harm the writer. “Annihilation” was made in 300,000 copies and sold 85,000 in its first weekend. In the first month, “only” - as the reluctant wrote - 180,000, and data from other sources speak of 400,000. In Poland, books are not sold as much as in France, but just like there, they are talked about and written about.

“How is it possible that this charismatic writing viper has lost its venomous fangs? – asks Ann Manov in her essay on the novel, quoted affirmatively by Gazeta Wyborcza. And she goes on to write: “Could there be a sentimental turn in Michel Houellebecq’s career? After all, we are dealing here with a novel about a broken family, which, in the face of tragedy (the stroke of the elderly father), closes its ranks and finds anew, even if only for a moment, closeness, some small sense of existence”.

In the second half of the 18th century, when sentimental (sentimentalist?) and idylls were written, significant names were also used, but in other types of works, and that's about all that can be said about Houellebecq’s “sentimental turn”. There are also not mentioned doctors: Lesage (Wise) and Lebon (Good), and Doutremont’s computer science can also be read significantly (from another world). Houellebecq was not and is not sentimental in the colloquial sense. He is and was an acute sensitive who hides himself behind the mask of cynicism and literally brutal, decadent narrative. What the leftist public so loved to read with a thrill was always the refuge of the distraught romantic.

On the Kultura Liberalna portal, the conversation about “Annihilation” began with the sentence: “Houellebecq went from a writer admired by the left to a writer of the extreme right, at least in the French sense”. Well, the extreme - maybe not so extreme in our country - right wing can be delighted with “Annihilation”, because the left sees the family as the provider of traumas that negatively determine the whole life. The biological family is opposed there – as a remedy – by the patchwork family in the extended sense, which may include “stranger and gay”, and the interviewees in Kultura Liberalna became disgusted with the hope of family closeness, admittedly a new one for the writer. And the reluctance to euthanasia revealed in the novel, combined with the praise of the family, makes the writer a guide of the national right - on this occasion, the name of the ruling party in Poland was even mentioned. It was further in the conversation that it was a literary bad book, kitschy, bordering on a Harlequin.

In Gazeta Wyborcza it Is criticised for the fact that Houellebecq is banal, repetitive and tacky in “Annihilation”.“Polityka” claims that “Annihilation” is not a book for Europe facing Putin's imperialism and rising oil and gas prices, and that in our country it is just a soulless health service that makes Houellebecq’s protest against euthanasia look pale. These characters of Houllebecq are detached: “From a sharp and uncompromising writer, he became a fairy-tale and sweet writer, and excessive sugar, as we know, is harmful”...

From accusations that the writer has lost his form, or perhaps never had it, to pointing out detachment from the realities of life, especially in Polish hospitals, which can be accused to the detriment of all literary classics and the overwhelming majority of contemporary literature. In left-liberal circles, seeing writers as companions on the road is insurmountable, and yet Olga Tokarczuk said that: “Literature is not for ... everyone”. Mmany years of admiration for Houellebecq must have resulted from – what a terrible, excluding word – misunderstanding. And under the Christmas tree in a decent home, you can give “Annihilation” remembering that “literature, of course, is not for ... everyone”.

– Krzysztof Zwoliński
– Translated by Dominik Szczęsny-Kostanecki

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

*"Literature is not for idiots. To read books, you need to have some competence, some sensitivity, some understanding of culture" - Olga Tokarczuk at the Góry Literatury festival in Nowa Ruda, July 2022