The truth is, this summer has given me a lot of reading opportunity, yes, without getting to the point of one of the government’s vice presidents explaining in a television interview that he has 15 days off and can take a vacation. Reading 12 books. Well, one of my favorite books is Michel Houellebecq’s novel Annihilation (Anagrama, 2022), as I’ve been a fan of his novels for years.
On this occasion, I liked the play he opened with the readers in Annihilation, both because of his use of the omniscient narrator intertwined with judgments, and because of the way he conceived this thematic progression. The reader is never quite sure where he or she is going, as in the case of Platform (2002) or Submission (2015)—two novels that will likely have “read” them.
On this occasion, the novel has three distinct themes but overlap throughout the narrative. It begins as a kind of techno-thriller for current taste, with massive and striking attacks through the use of information technology, seasoned with entertaining documents, drawings and images that introduce a certain esoteric nuance, namely Don. no problem! At the start of an election process in France in 2027, it continues with a derivative of chronic and political intrigue where it places action with its assessments of the lower classes, immigration, the baby boomer problem, euthanasia, ecofascism, middle class. this does not exist; as well as about the political leaders we can observe in our countries: “The absence of political convictions in a leader was a sign of maturity, not cynicism”, p.495. And finally, it leads to the most human and everyday, namely the evolution of a family in which Paul is the axis of the whole plot.
Paul, in his late fifties, is a senior official at the French Ministry of Economy with more than a decade of unsuccessful marriage. As everything revolves around her life, the rest of the plot will become the necessary context for constructing and understanding her story. The inner feelings that define man in Houellebecq are always present in many different manifestations.
All of this is 600 pages divided into seven chapters, each with different short chapters, where the action takes place in an orderly manner over time, using the use of an omniscient narrator in the third person. The traditional novel need not experiment with its structure, because the theme in its context is where its strength lies, sometimes diminished by the abuse of dreams in the narrative. To do this, in its usual line, “horny”, “horny”, “fuck”, “women eager to serve a western dick”, etc., together with a cultured vocabulary and the use of a sexual vocabulary in certain situations. Besides the use of irony in almost all areas: “one of the northern cities where people have been unemployed for three generations.” (p.72); “God was a bad communicator, such amateurism was unacceptable in a professional setting” (p.134).
But there is life behind everything, not in front of everything. Our society is based on family and married life without long-term solutions (p.45). Only love is worth it. To achieve happiness you must be a man of action: “thinking and life are absolutely incompatible” (p.62); because not acknowledging the impermanence of things (p.429), life itself is what hinders happiness, because it is really enough to “live” (p.354).
And why should you read this novel? Because even though greats like Houellebecq don’t always make masterpieces, they are a pleasure to read; they always underline important aspects of our society, protected by narrative fiction and not without a particular visionary value. And without having to agree with many of his views, I always share with him what human nature is.