Just when you thought Bernard-Henri Lévy had taken a chin-stroking national stereotype as far as it could possibly go, you open Le Monde‘s business pages and see this.
Bernard Maris, one of France’s most respected financial correspondents, has written a 160-page book entitled Houellebecq Économiste. Maris’s book sets out its stall as an economic reading of the writer’s oeuvre, promising amongst other delights, a Malthusian interpretation of his 2005 novel The Possibility of an Island and an analysis of the division of labour in The Map and the Territory. Imagine Robert Peston writing a Hobbesian study of Irvine Welsh and you’re halfway there.
I like Houellebecq’s novels. He’s either the Start-rite Céline or Rod Liddle gone feral, depending on where you’re coming from, but he’s very readable and never less than entertaining. All the same, you can’t help but feel that Maris’s book jumps the pseudy shark just a little.
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