Slaughtered in France
One can begin the day bemoaning the state of the world and giving out about the mendacities that pass for politicians, but too much of that kind of thing makes the marmalade taste even more acidic and ruins the breakfast. Better than the bitter word is the odd bit of praise for those things that make life worth living. Like the art of book reviewing, for example. It prospers, as is proved brilliantly by James Wood, a senior editor at The New Republic. Here, he's in dazzling form discussing The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq:
Ten years ago, few readers had heard of a young French writer named Michel Houellebecq. He was the author of some poems and a pungently callow first novel, Extension du domaine de la lutte (1994), or Extension of the Domain of the Struggle (translated as Whatever). A decade later, Houellebecq is the most significant provocateur in contemporary literature, whose three subsequent novels have established un monde houellebecquien, in which no target is spared (except, perhaps, an idealized form of love), in which sex is written up in the most basely lucid manner, women insulted (though merely more explicitly than men), religion mocked, existence itself powerfully degraded, in which all imaginable sacred cows are quickly slaughtered in the novelistic abattoir — or, rather, awarded the fate that Houellebecq wittily refers to in his new novel: analogizing the pointless savagery of French existence, he reminds us that during the British mad-cow crisis, French beef producers stamped their products "Born and raised in France. Slaughtered in France."
Sublime. Read the entire thing. Especially delicious is the bit about the "pointless savagery of French existence". By the way, the ongoing decline of France was further illuminated earlier this week when it became apparent that Libération, France's only leftwing daily newspaper, is doomed. Although, come to think of it, some Rainy Day readers would argue that the demise of Libération shows that there's a tiny glimmer of hope for France.
