Platform (1988)

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From Booklist The controversial French author of The Elementary Particles (2000) turns in another unremittingly bleak novel. In addition to amplifying his views on the decadence of Western civilization, Houellebecq displays an absolutely chilling prescience in his depiction of a violent Muslim sect. Misanthropic, sexually frustrated bureaucrat Michel embarks on a "Thai Tropic" package tour, amusing himself with snide commentary on his fellow vacationers and frequent visits to sex clubs. Although he is attracted to business executive Valerie, he has trouble engaging her in small talk. However, when they return to Paris, their relationship quickly turns passionate as they explore sadomasochism and public sex. Michel talks Valerie and her business partner into marketing sex tours to the Third World, selling them on his theory that Westerners have lost touch with their own sexuality. But when they decide to sample one of their own tours, their resort becomes a flashpoint for Islamic hatred. Houellebecq is unrelenting as he meticulously constructs a world that mirrors his own cold vision and that cuts uncomfortably close to the bone. Joanne Wilkinson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review “A terrific writer, funny and prophetic . . . feverishly alive to the world around him.” *– The New York Times Book Review “Calculated to poke, prod, engorge, enrage and amuse. . . . It’s dangerous in the way that literature is meant to be dangerous—that is, it awakens neglected sensibilities.”— The New York Observer* “Houellebecq’s writing has a raw, disquieting brilliance. . . .It’s ‘genius.’”—*The Washington Post “Brilliant, charming, puzzling, annoying and sometimes downright repulsive.” — The Denver Post “Full, acidic, self-flagellating . . . [ Platform has] earned Mr. Houellebecq the status of conversation piece, agent provocateur and savage messiah.” — The New York Times * “Remarkable . . . hilarious. . . . [Houellebecq] writes from the soul of a despairing, acutely lucid bureaucrat on Viagra.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review “Scaldingly honest . . . [ Platform ] takes no prisoners as to prevailing terms of politically correct or any-other-way-correct discourse. . . . It frequently uses jarring juxtaposition to dislocate us from complacencies, received wisdoms or even moderate comfort. . . . The analysis is broad and extremely knowledgeable . . . [with] quirky and sometimes horrific observations on everything from ecology to airport gift shops to incest. . . . Bracing.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch “The most potentially weighty French novelist to emerge since Tournier. . . . The trajectory of Houellebecq’s world view will be worth following.” — The New Yorker “An outstandingly powerful and relevant novel about sex, death, and Islam.” —Hanif Kureishi “Astute, graceful, sexually preoccupied, occasionally alarming. . . . Eviscerat[es] the cultural moment.” — The Baltimore Sun “The characters in Platform are detestable. . . . And the hatred [Michel] expresses . . . is loathsome. . . . But what is wrong with this? Why should literature not be as cruel as life itself? . . . This book offers us an ‘I’ we can relate to–hate, love, fear–without being pointedly obstructed by the author’s tormented cosmology. . . . Moving.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant. . . . Reads like a shot. . . . The excitement of Platform is the force with which Houellebecq says the unsayable, his determination to cut through moral equivocation.” — Salon “[A] dirty novel of ideas. . . . Houellebecq’s sex scenes are hot and bountiful.” — Entertainment Weekly “An extraordinary blend of pornography, satire and diatribe . . . Houellebecq is an undeniably gifted writer–I found myself reading on, even when the impulse to throw the book across the room grew strong.” —Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury News “Odd, subversive entertainment.” — The Boston Globe “What’s at stake is the desacralizing of sex, its final leap into the realm of pure commodity, t