Concluding remarks on Extension du domaine de la lutte
Published:
"Whatever" was definitely not a leichte Lektur. It is a strange book, but at the same time it felt not difficult at all to understand. Some parts of it, at least.
I remarked that I felt like I knew the protagonist. I still stand by this opinion, but now I can add a little depth to it.
I "know" the protagonist in a way you may know someone who lives in the same town or neighbourhood. Someone you pass on the street every week, with whom you have exchanged greetings and names, sat down in a pub once or twice and talked over a beer, maybe even agreed on some things, while at the same time politely declining to comment on some of their more thorny stances.
I "know" the protagonist like that. I often see him passing by, we talked a few times, but we have never properly introduced ourselves. Nevertheless, we share a certain kind of, let's say, familiarity and understanding.
Despite this familiarity and understanding, we are not—not yet, at any rate—friends. And to be completely honest, I hope we never become such.
The Independent, in its review of the book, called Houellebecq "the mischief-making enfant terrible of new-wave French fiction". The problem is, I do not think this book is fiction at all. Of course, the exact events in the story have never happened exactly as described, but I am afraid the book is an approximation of the reality of, I would assume, a great number of people disillusioned with life, the universe, and everything.
A surprise
I was surprisingly wrong about one thing. I said that Houellebecq is not a programmer. However! The important detail I missed here is that he used to be. At the time he has been writing the book, he was a professional software engineer.
Turns out he did not have to imagine such a life. He lived it. Simple as that.
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