‘Whatever’ by Michel Houellebecq
What’s in a name? Rather a lot apparently. After all, there must be some good reason that Stieg Larsson’s Män Som Hatar Kvinnor - literally, Men Who Hate Women - landed on our fair shores as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as there is surely a valid explanation for the Americans dropping ‘philosopher’ in favour of 'sorcerer’ in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, though I personally don’t understand that one. They have philosophers in the US, don’t they? Anyway, more on point, Michel Houellebecq’s first novel was published in his native France as Extension du domaine de la lutte, which translates directly as An Extension of the Domain of the Struggle. Hmm…doesn’t quite roll off the tongue now does it? So, four years later, when the time came for the novel to be published in English, some bright individual decided on an ominous yet less wordy title: Whatever.
Whatever is narrated by a nameless middle management worker who is, in the grand tradition of Renton and Meursault, an anti-hero, at once sneering and indifferent, getting by but never really 'living’ in earnest. Our nameless anti-hero smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and writes oddly bestial short stories in his time away from the office. The novel - which feels more like a novella as it is told in short, subject-specific bursts - is set in Paris, the so-called City of Light. Hold your sighs though folks, Whatever is set not in the romantic Paris of the sixth and seventh arrondissements but in the suburbs, the banlieue, the unprepossessing neighbourhoods one will most likely pass through when heading into the city centre from the world’s most annoying airport (more commonly known as Charles de Gaulle).
As the neither-here-nor-there title implies, Whatever doesn’t really have a plot as such, aside from our anonymous protagonist hopping on a train to Rouen in order to school some of their civil servants in new computer software. He takes a lot of trains, in fact most of the novel involves SNCF rail travel of some kind. This all sounds very dull, I’m sure, but the beauty is in the telling. That said, I’m not sure 'beauty’ is the right word. As one reviewer so rightly states, Michel Houellebecq is 'the mischief-making enfant terrible of new-wave French fiction.’ AndWhatever is indeed a fiercely opinionated book, at times even a touch misogynistic, as in the following passage:
'Generally speaking, there’s nothing to be had from women in analysis. A woman fallen into the hands of the psychoanalysts becomes absolutely unfit for use, as I’ve discovered time and again […] Innocence, generosity, purity…all such things are rapidly crushed by their uncouth hands […] A ruthless school of egoism, psychoanalysis cynically lays into decent, slightly fucked-up young women and transforms them into vile scumbags of such delirious egocentrism as to warrant nothing but well-earned contempt. On no account must any confidence be placed in a woman who’s passed through the hands of the psychoanalysts. Pettiness, egoism, arrogant stupidity, complete lack of moral sense, a chronic inability to love: there you have an exhaustive portrait of the 'analysed’ woman.’
Pfft, mischief-making indeed. I believe I may even have tutted out loud while reading this. I just hope that this brazen lady-baiting is nothing more than a clever bit of character work and in no way related to Houellebecq’s own values and beliefs, otherwise a boycott may be in order. Regardless of how talented a writer is, if they are this prejudiced then they are not worthy of my time or attention. There are so many writers out there who aren’t total bigots, the bigots just aren’t worth bothering with. Hence why you will never see anything by V.S. Naipaul on my page. Phew…polemicist tangents aside, Whatever is a fast-paced and funny read, and in spite of its flaws - most of which are probably deliberate - it is rather enjoyable.
This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in September 2012.