We need more of Houellebecq

This is a great modern novel. We need to have more of this author available in audible. The sooner the better.

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9 people found this helpful

great but depressing

great book some what boring and pointless but i think thats the idea. alot to be said want to read more by the writer

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Excellent

Great novel. Superb narration. First class work from the author and narrator. A very erudite tome.

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6 people found this helpful

Dark, truthful and humorous

This is the story of a depressed, middle-aged, rich Parisian man and his struggle to manage his mental health and lost love life.

There are two ways you can look at this: he is an arrogant, selfish bore, obsessed with sex (he talks about wet pussy far too frequently for a man of his years), or it is a common tale about the physical and mental decline of a man whose life is entirely unfulfilled. Both these perspectives of the book are true.

Florent-Claude Labrouste, is a government agricultural specialist who escapes his cold, high maintenance, young Japanese girlfriend and hides in various hotels that will permit smoking (he discovered pornograhpic videos of her at swingers events).

He is prescribed anti depressants by his doctor to counter his low levels of serotonin which further reduce his libido, which wasn't great to begin with.

Eventually he moves to Normandy to meet up with an old friend Aymeric, a farmer/landowner, and to pursue the memories of lost loves to see where things began to wrong in his love life.
Aymeric is a broken man too. His wife and children have left him, his business is floundering and all he has left are vodka and guns.

The farmers are campaigning against government, EU and global policies which are crippling their industry and lives. Aymeric is central to the campaign which includes road blockades and armed confrontations with police. At the height of a protest Aymeric demonstrably shoots himself during a tense stand-off. This sparks the deaths of a further ten people. There are 600 suicides a year in the French agricultural industry.

Labrouste, through his job, contributed to the situation with the farmers so there is further guilt added to his depression.

Labrouste finds, and begins to stalk, an ex-love, Camille. He still has feelings for her and she is now a single mother with a small child. Labrouste watches her from a distance and hatches a monsterous plan to shoot the child so he and Camille can be together again. Fortunately, he can't go through with it and returns to see his doctor.

This time the doctor advises him to visit prostitutes and even passes him the contact details of three such ladies. I do hope this kind of thing happens in real life in France, it is social prescribing French style -vive le système de santé Français.

However. Labrouste is too lethargic to pursue even this course of treatment. Instead he moves back to Paris to contemplate suicide before his money runs out.

Although I've made this book sound desperately miserable, it's not. It's dark but it is also hilarious with smatterings of humour, it is smartly written and Houellebecq is a sharp observer

I feel that he doesn't want the reader's to like the characters but to show a number of truths. The lost loves are all Labrouste's fault and I wanted to shake him at times because of his impotent lethargy, he's not yet fifty!

The destruction of the French agricultural industry may be a mataphor for the decline of French pride and tradition and the decline of Labrouste may be a metaphor for the loss in direction and potency of middle-aged men. Labrouste is castrated by anti depressants.
No one cares about the dairy farmers and no one cares about middle-aged men.

The book will be hated by feminists because its about a self-absorbed man, because its politically incorrect and because of the two dimensional female characters but Houellebecq is provocative and probably just doesn't care.

There is no happy ending here and no lessons, it's outcome is uncompromisingly bleak. Please read this book.

John Sackville's reading is faultless and brings the story to life.

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Delightfully dark.

One of the darkest things I've read and also one of the funniest books I've read. There's a part where he suggests that Skype is even more intolerable than.... well, it's dark.

Fantastic.

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3 people found this helpful

A good distasteful book

One may not like the narrator (I refer to the first person narrator of the story, not the reader of the book), one is not perhaps intended to. One may not like the theme of the book, perhaps this too is not intended. But one is compelled to stay with this work to the end, like a massive bitter rubbery green olive.

Like a massive bitter rubbery green olive, this book is highly memorable, and unpleasant. Recommended.

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1 person found this helpful

Expected much more

Story was a bit shallow, although entertaining. Performance of the narrator was excellent though. Ok, but far from great.

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Another great story by Michel.

It's s great writing. I recommend listening to this audiobook. I even think about getting a paperback and reading it again.

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1 person found this helpful

I must have listened to this about 50 times.

Every now and then I search to see if anymore of Michele’s novels have been given the Audiobook treatment, and every time I am left disappoint. This is my favourite book, it is a masterpiece. It is also my favourite Audio book reading, John Sackville became the character, it’s almost like he was born to read this English translation. If there is to be more audiobook adaptions of Houellebecq’s work, THEY MUST BE READ BY JOHN SACKVILLE.

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1 person found this helpful

New day Same Houellebecq

It is not that his work is bad. But I felt I have read this book before. Little has changed in the way Houellebecq writes, what he writes about and how he writes about it

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