Whatever (novel): Difference between revisions

Whatever
Author	Michel Houellebecq
Original title	Extension du domaine de la lutte
Translator	Paul Hammond
Language	French
Publisher	Éditions Maurice Nadeau (France); Serpent's Tail (United Kingdom);
Publication date	1994
Publication place	France
Published in English	1998

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Whatever (French: Extension du domaine de la lutte, literally "extension of the domain of struggle") is the debut novel of French writer Michel Houellebecq. The plot concerns a depressed and isolated computer programmer who tries to convince a colleague to murder a young woman who rejected the colleague's sexual advances. A major theme is that the sexual revolution of the 1960s extended capitalism to the sexual market, creating an unattractive sexual underclass. It was adapted into the 1999 film Whatever, directed by and starring Philippe Harel.^[1]

Plot

The unnamed first-person narrator is a 30-year-old analyst-programmer working for a Paris-based computer software company. He is lonely, subject to depression and has not had sex since he broke up with his girlfriend two years earlier. He also writes "animal stories", extracts from which are included in the novel.

He has dinner with a friend from his student days who is now a priest. His friend tells him that that the media exaggerates the role of sex in society and that this has led to "vital exhaustion". His friend advises him to re-find God or go into psychoanalysis. Later, the narrator muses that human relationships have become "increasingly impossible" as information technology has reduced them to an exchange of information.

The narrator learns that his company has sold a software program to the Ministry of Agriculture and that he will be required to train the client's staff in the software. His primary contact at the ministry is Catherine Lechardoy, a woman of about the narrator's age whom he describes as "not very attractive". At a social function at the ministry he contemplates making a sexual advance to her. He has no desire for sex with her but "feels up to making the necessary gestures". He decides against it because he doesn't think she would have accepted.

The narrator travels to Rouen with a male colleague named Tisserand in order to conduct training for the ministry staff there. The narrator notes that Tisserand is "extremely ugly. So ugly that his appearance repels women and he never gets to sleep with them". Tisserand tries to become friendly with an attractive female student in a train to Rouen, two "cuties" at the ministry, and several women in a restaurant and a café, but with no success. That night, the narrator is struck by acute pericarditis and is hospitalised for two weeks.

After recovering in Paris, the narrator leaves for La Roche-sur-Yon to train the ministry staff there. Tisserand tells him that he is 28 years old and still a virgin. Later, the narrator muses that just as economic liberalism produces extremes of wealth and poverty, a society based on sexual liberalism also produces extremes of sexual gratification and sexual impoverishment. Economic liberalism and sexual liberalism both represent "extensions of the domain of the struggle". He reflects on his former girlfriend Véronique, whom he regrets having ever met. He reflects that psychoanalysis turned her into a woman with a complete lack of moral sense and that "he regrets not taking a knife to her ovaries".

The narrator buys a steak knife and convinces Tisserand to go with him to a disco on Christmas Eve. At the disco, Tisserand starts a conversation with an attractive young woman who the narrator thinks looks like Véronique. The woman, however, breaks off the conversation and starts dancing with "a black guy, or rather half black". The narrator tries to convince Tisserand to embark on a career of murder by killing the young woman, but Tisserand replies that he would rather murder the black man. The young woman and the man leave the disco and drive to a secluded beach on the man's motor scooter. The narrator and Tisserand follow the couple in the narrator's car. The couple go to the sand dunes to have sex, and Tisserand follows them, holding the steak knife the narrator has given him. Tisserand soon returns, stating, "I had no wish to kill them; blood changes nothing." That night, Tisserand dies in a car accident while driving back to Paris.

Back in Paris, the narrator has a depressive episode and calls a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist treats him for depression and the narrator takes sick leave from work. The narrator admits himself into a rest home where he observes the other patients and concludes that they are not at all deranged but merely lacking in love. After several months he leaves the clinic and takes a trip to Saint-Cirgues-en-Montagne. He cycles into the Forest of Mazan, where he feels, "with impressive violence, the possibility of joy".^[2]

Critical analysis

Themes

Carole Sweeney states that a major theme is the "disaggregating effects of post-Fordism on the intimate spaces of human affect"^[3] The novel is also a satire on late-twentieth century work culture and consumer society.^[4] According to Sweeney, "For the new middle management information class in Whatever society is the comfortable frictionless round of eating ready meals, paying bills on time, attending dutiful work farewell parties, buying beds and CDs..."^[5]

Morrey states that the novel may be considered a type of roman à thèse (thesis novel). The French title of the novel alludes to the Marxist theory of class struggle and the narrator's thesis is that the liberalisation of sexuality has led to the extension of struggle to the sexual domain.^[6] According to The Independent, Houellebecq's thesis is "that the sexual revolution of the Sixties created not communism but capitalism in the sexual market, that the unattractive underclass is exiled while the privileged initiates are drained by corruption, sloth, and excess."^[7] Adam Kirsch of The New York Times has called the character Tisserand a "proto-incel" and states that the novel predicted the modern incel movement.^[8]

Other themes of the novel include the link between "the 'economisation' of sexuality" and violence, depression, psychiatry and euthanasia.^[9] Morrey identifies a theme of "depressive lucidity" in the face of the struggle against the rules of modern society. The narrator does not believe in self-improvement and social progress. According to Morrey, "he too feels sorry for his fellow humans but there is nothing he can do...The consequence of Houellebecq’s (narrators’) depressive lucidity, in other words, is a chronic inability to act."^[10]

Style

Sweeney states that the novel is "part-essay, part-satire, arguably by most principles of literary convention, Whatever barely qualifies as a novel at all."^[11] The tone of the novel has been described as blank and compared to that of Camus' The Stranger. Morrey, however, states that Houellebecq's frequent use of "sudden exclamations, dark ironies, hyperbole and hysterical outbursts" distinguish the tone from Camus'.^[12] The novel frequently switches between literary and colloquial registers, which, according to Morrey, gives the novel a "troubling, unstable tone".^[13] Morrey states that the narrator's use of "alien, inappropriate remarks that seem to come out of nowhere" makes the reader unsure whether he should be taken seriously.^[14]

References

^ "Extension du domaine de la lutte". AlloCiné (in French). Retrieved 2014-07-28.
^ Houellebecq, Michel (1998). Whatever, a novel. London: Serpent's Tail. pp. passim.
^ Sweeney, Carole. "'And Yet Some Free Time Remains. . . .': Post-Fordism and Writing in Michel Houellebecq's Whatever." Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 33, no. 4, 2010, pp. 41–56. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jml.2010.33.4.41.
^ Morrey (2013). p. 47
^ Sweeney (2010). p. 49
^ Morrey, Douglas (2013). Michel Houellbecq, humanity and its aftermath. Liverpool University Press. pp. 40, 51, 53. ISBN 978-1-84631-8610.
^ "Michel Houellebecq: The sex export". The Independent. 2005-08-21.
^ Kirsch, Adam (July 12, 2018). "A French Novelist Imagined Sexual Dystopia. Now It's Arrived". The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2020.
^ Morrey (2013). pp. 13, 29, 32, 33
^ Morrey (2013). p. 45
^ Sweeney (2010). pp. 42-43
^ Morrey (2013). pp. 37-38
^ Morrey (2013). p. 36
^ Morrey (2013). p. 39

External links

[1] "Extension du domaine de la lutte". AlloCiné (in French). Retrieved 2014-07-28.

[2] Houellebecq, Michel (1998). Whatever, a novel. London: Serpent's Tail. pp. passim.

[3] Sweeney, Carole. "'And Yet Some Free Time Remains. . . .': Post-Fordism and Writing in Michel Houellebecq's Whatever." Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 33, no. 4, 2010, pp. 41–56. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jml.2010.33.4.41.

[4] Morrey (2013). p. 47

[5] Sweeney (2010). p. 49

[6] Morrey, Douglas (2013). Michel Houellbecq, humanity and its aftermath. Liverpool University Press. pp. 40, 51, 53. ISBN 978-1-84631-8610.

[7] "Michel Houellebecq: The sex export". The Independent. 2005-08-21.

[Kirsch_2018-8] Kirsch, Adam (July 12, 2018). "A French Novelist Imagined Sexual Dystopia. Now It's Arrived". The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2020.

[9] Morrey (2013). pp. 13, 29, 32, 33

[10] Morrey (2013). p. 45

[11] Sweeney (2010). pp. 42-43

[12] Morrey (2013). pp. 37-38

[13] Morrey (2013). p. 36

[14] Morrey (2013). p. 39

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+{{short description|1994 novel by Michel Houellebecq}}
 {{italic title}}
+{{Infobox book
-'''''Whatever''''' ({{lang-fr|Extension du domaine de la lutte}}, literally "extension of the area of struggle") is the [[debut novel]] of [[French people|French]] writer [[Michel Houellebecq]], which was published in 1994 in [[France]] and in 1998 in the UK by [[Serpent's Tail]]. It primarily highlights "... disaggregating effects of post-Fordism on the intimate spaces of human affect."<ref>Sweeney, Carole. “‘And Yet Some Free Time Remains. . . .’: Post-Fordism and Writing in Michel Houellebecq's Whatever.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 33, no. 4, 2010, pp. 41–56. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jml.2010.33.4.41.</ref> through the story of a depressed and isolated man stuck in a tedious but well-paying programming job. It was adapted into the 1999 film ''[[Whatever (film)|Whatever]]'', directed by and starring [[Philippe Harel]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=20496.html|title=Extension du domaine de la lutte|language=French|work=[[AlloCiné]]|accessdate=2014-07-28}}</ref>
+| author            = Michel Houellebecq
+| pub_date          = 1994
+| language          = French
+| country           = France
+| publisher         = {{plainlist|
+* Éditions Maurice Nadeau (France)
+* [[Serpent's Tail]] (United Kingdom)
+}}
+| translator        = Paul Hammond
+| english_pub_date  = 1998
+| title_orig        = Extension du domaine de la lutte
+| italic title      = Whatever
+}}'''''Whatever''''' ({{langx|fr|Extension du domaine de la lutte}}, literally "extension of the domain of struggle") is the [[debut novel]] of French writer [[Michel Houellebecq]]. The plot concerns a depressed and isolated computer programmer who tries to convince a colleague to murder a young woman who rejected the colleague's sexual advances. A major theme is that the [[sexual revolution]] of the 1960s extended [[capitalism]] to the sexual market, creating an unattractive sexual underclass. It was adapted into the 1999 film ''[[Whatever (1999 film)|Whatever]]'', directed by and starring [[Philippe Harel]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=20496.html|title=Extension du domaine de la lutte|language=fr|work=[[AlloCiné]]|access-date=2014-07-28}}</ref>
 ==Plot==
+The unnamed [[First-person narrative|first-person narrator]] is a 30-year-old analyst-programmer working for a Paris-based computer software company. He is lonely, subject to depression and has not had sex since he broke up with his girlfriend two years earlier. He also writes "animal stories", extracts from which are included in the novel.
-The protagonist (Harel), known only as "Our Hero" during the entirety of the story, lives a solitary life, and has not had sex for over two years. Within most of the book and film versions of ''Whatever'', Our Hero draws on recollections of [[Schopenhauer]] and [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] to lambast the commodification of human contact, punctuating his inner monologue with bouts of nausea and [[onanism]]. He is wracked by the implications of decisions that would seem minor to the average person, such as disclosing his lack of a sex life through the purchase of a single bed. He is teamed up with a disturbing, desperate 28-year-old virgin, Raphael Tisserand, to deliver a series of seminars on the use of IT. Raphael looks up to Our Hero for ever having been able to hold down a relationship, and listens to his musings on love with tragic, but ultimately inspirational consequences.
+He has dinner with a friend from his student days who is now a priest. His friend tells him that that the media exaggerates the role of sex in society and that this has led to "vital exhaustion". His friend advises him to re-find God or go into psychoanalysis. Later, the narrator muses that human relationships have become "increasingly impossible" as information technology has reduced them to an exchange of information.
-==Literary significance and criticism==
-Translated into English, ''Extension du domaine de la lutte'' has been called the more succinct ''Whatever''. Although this word does not relate to the original French title, it connects to the protagonist's [[defeatist]] view of life. The struggle of the original title is expressly associated with class struggle in a parody of slogans made popular by the Parisian student movement of 1968, which Our Hero extends to sexual, as well as economic antagonism. "The thesis is that the sexual revolution of the Sixties created not [[communism]] but [[capitalism]] in the sexual market, that the unattractive underclass is exiled while the privileged initiates are drained by corruption, sloth, and excess." <ref>''The Sex export'' The Independent on Sunday 21 August 2001</ref>
+The narrator learns that his company has sold a software program to the Ministry of Agriculture and that he will be required to train the client's staff in the software. His primary contact at the ministry is Catherine Lechardoy, a woman of about the narrator's age whom he describes as "not very attractive". At a social function at the ministry he contemplates making a sexual advance to her. He has no desire for sex with her but "feels up to making the necessary gestures". He decides against it because he doesn't think she would have accepted.
+The narrator travels to Rouen with a male colleague named Tisserand in order to conduct training for the ministry staff there. The narrator notes that Tisserand is "extremely ugly. So ugly that his appearance repels women and he never gets to sleep with them". Tisserand tries to become friendly with an attractive female student in a train to Rouen, two "cuties" at the ministry, and several women in a restaurant and a café, but with no success. That night, the narrator is struck by acute [[pericarditis]] and is hospitalised for two weeks.
+After recovering in Paris, the narrator leaves for [[La Roche-sur-Yon]] to train the ministry staff there. Tisserand tells him that he is 28 years old and still a virgin. Later, the narrator muses that just as economic liberalism produces extremes of wealth and poverty, a society based on sexual liberalism also produces extremes of sexual gratification and sexual impoverishment. Economic liberalism and sexual liberalism both represent "extensions of the domain of the struggle". He reflects on his former girlfriend Véronique, whom he regrets having ever met. He reflects that psychoanalysis turned her into a woman with a complete lack of moral sense and that "he regrets not taking a knife to her ovaries".
+The narrator buys a steak knife and convinces Tisserand to go with him to a disco on Christmas Eve. At the disco, Tisserand starts a conversation with an attractive young woman who the narrator thinks looks like Véronique. The woman, however, breaks off the conversation and starts dancing with "a black guy, or rather half black". The narrator tries to convince Tisserand to embark on a career of murder by killing the young woman, but Tisserand replies that he would rather murder the black man. The young woman and the man leave the disco and drive to a secluded beach on the man's motor scooter. The narrator and Tisserand follow the couple in the narrator's car. The couple go to the sand dunes to have sex, and Tisserand follows them, holding the steak knife the narrator has given him. Tisserand soon returns, stating, "I had no wish to kill them; blood changes nothing." That night, Tisserand dies in a car accident while driving back to Paris.
+Back in Paris, the narrator has a depressive episode and calls a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist treats him for depression and the narrator takes sick leave from work. The narrator admits himself into a rest home where he observes the other patients and concludes that they are not at all deranged but merely lacking in love. After several months he leaves the clinic and takes a trip to [[Saint-Cirgues-en-Montagne]]. He cycles into the Forest of Mazan, where he feels, "with impressive violence, the possibility of joy".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Houellebecq |first=Michel |title=Whatever, a novel |publisher=Serpent's Tail |year=1998 |location=London |pages=passim}}</ref>
+==Critical analysis==
+=== Themes ===
+Carole Sweeney states that a major theme is the "disaggregating effects of [[post-Fordism]] on the intimate spaces of human affect"<ref>Sweeney, Carole. "'And Yet Some Free Time Remains. . . .': Post-Fordism and Writing in Michel Houellebecq's Whatever." Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 33, no. 4, 2010, pp. 41–56. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jml.2010.33.4.41.</ref> The novel is also a satire on late-twentieth century work culture and consumer society.<ref>Morrey (2013). p. 47</ref> According to Sweeney, "For the new middle management information class in ''Whatever'' society is the comfortable frictionless round of eating ready meals, paying bills on time, attending dutiful work farewell parties, buying beds and CDs..."<ref>Sweeney (2010). p. 49</ref>
+Morrey states that the novel may be considered a type of ''[[roman à thèse]]'' (thesis novel). The French title of the novel alludes to the Marxist theory of class struggle and the narrator's thesis is that the liberalisation of sexuality has led to the extension of struggle to the sexual domain.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morrey |first=Douglas |title=Michel Houellbecq, humanity and its aftermath |publisher=Liverpool University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-84631-8610 |pages=40, 51, 53}}</ref> According to ''[[The Independent]]'', Houellebecq's thesis is "that the [[sexual revolution]] of the Sixties created not [[communism]] but [[capitalism]] in the sexual market, that the unattractive underclass is exiled while the privileged initiates are drained by corruption, sloth, and excess."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=2005-08-21 |title=Michel Houellebecq: The sex export |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/michel-houellebecq-the-sex-export-307323.html |journal=The Independent}}</ref> Adam Kirsch of ''The New York Times'' has called the character Tisserand a "proto-incel" and states that the novel predicted the modern incel movement.<ref name="Kirsch 2018">{{cite news |last1=Kirsch |first1=Adam |date=July 12, 2018 |title=A French Novelist Imagined Sexual Dystopia. Now It's Arrived. |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/books/review/michael-houellebecqs-sexual-distopia.html |url-access=limited |access-date=August 19, 2020}}</ref>
+Other themes of the novel include the link between "the 'economisation' of sexuality" and violence, depression, psychiatry and euthanasia.<ref>Morrey (2013). pp. 13, 29, 32, 33</ref> Morrey identifies a theme of "depressive lucidity" in the face of the struggle against the rules of modern society. The narrator does not believe in self-improvement and social progress. According to Morrey, "he too feels sorry for his fellow humans ''but there is nothing he can do''...The consequence of Houellebecq’s (narrators’) depressive lucidity, in other words, is a chronic inability to act."<ref>Morrey (2013). p. 45</ref>
+=== Style ===
+Sweeney states that the novel is "part-essay, part-satire, arguably by most principles of literary convention, ''Whatever'' barely qualifies as a novel at all."<ref>Sweeney (2010). pp. 42-43</ref> The tone of the novel has been described as blank and compared to that of Camus' ''The Stranger''. Morrey, however, states that Houellebecq's frequent use of "sudden exclamations, dark ironies, hyperbole and hysterical outbursts" distinguish the tone from Camus'.<ref>Morrey (2013). pp. 37-38</ref> The novel frequently switches between literary and colloquial registers, which, according to Morrey, gives the novel a "troubling, unstable tone".<ref>Morrey (2013). p. 36</ref> Morrey states that the narrator's use of "alien, inappropriate remarks that seem to come out of nowhere" makes the reader unsure whether he should be taken seriously.<ref>Morrey (2013). p. 39</ref>
 ==References==
@@ Line 14: / Line 48: @@
 {{Wikiquote|fr:Michel Houellebecq#Extension du domaine de la lutte (1994)|Extension du domaine de la lutte}}
 *[http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=20496.html Information and links to critics' views of the film]
-*{{IMDb title|0211359}}
+*{{IMDb title|qid=Q3062524|id=tt0211359}}
-*[http://www.fluctuat.net/livres/paris99/chroniq/Xtension.htm Review of the book] <small>(in French)</small>
 {{Michel Houellebecq}}
+{{Sexual revolution}}
 {{Authority control}}
+[[Category:1994 debut novels]]
 [[Category:1994 French novels]]
-[[Category:French novels adapted into films]]
 [[Category:French-language novels]]
+[[Category:French novels adapted into films]]
+[[Category:Literature related to the sexual revolution]]
 [[Category:Novels by Michel Houellebecq]]
-[[Category:Debut novels]]
+[[Category:Serpent's Tail books]]

v t e Michel Houellebecq
Bibliography
Novels	Whatever (1994) Atomised (1998) Lanzarote (2000) Platform (2001) The Possibility of an Island (2005) The Map and the Territory (2010) Submission (2015) Serotonin (2019) Annihilation (2022)
Poetry	The Art of Struggle (1996) Configuration du dernier rivage (2013)
Essays and monographs	H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (1991) Interventions (1998, 2009, 2020) Public Enemies (2008) In the Presence of Schopenhauer (2017) Quelques mois dans ma vie (2023)
Film adaptations	Whatever (1999) Atomised (2006) La Possibilité d'une île (2008) To Stay Alive: A Method (2016) Unterwerfung (2018) The Elementary Particles (2021)
Miscellaneous	Préliminaires (2009) The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (2014) Thalasso (2019)

v t e Sexual revolution
Main topics	Birth control Male contraceptive Free love Gay liberation Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf
Milestones	Abortion law Boys in the Sand Blue Movie Myra Breckinridge Deep Throat Divorce law by country Freedom of speech Freedom of the press Golden Age of Porn Loving v. Virginia Miller Test Obergefell v. Hodges "Porno chic" Pornography Pornography in the United States Swinging The Pill (1965)
Slogans	"Make love, not war" "The personal is political"
Events	AIDS epidemic Kinsey Reports Masters and Johnson Institute Playboy Protests of 1968 Stonewall riots Summer of Love
People	Pat Califia Marilyn Chambers Aleister Crowley Gerard Damiano Betty Dodson Larry Flynt Sigmund Freud Ralph Ginzburg Al Goldstein Bob Guccione Terri Hall Fred Halsted Nina Hartley Hugh Hefner Magnus Hirschfeld David Hurles Virginia Johnson Alfred Kinsey Linda Lovelace Robert Mapplethorpe William Margold William Masters Radley Metzger Bettie Page Wilhelm Reich Marquis de Sade Margaret Sanger Annie Sprinkle Andy Warhol Ruth Westheimer Oscar Wilde
Places	55th Street Playhouse Caldron (sex club) Catacombs (sex club) Club Baths The Factory Gay bathhouse LGBT culture Dallas-Fort Worth Houston Miami New York City San Francisco Mineshaft (gay club) New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre Plato's Retreat Sandstone retreat South of Market
Related	Counterculture of the 1960s Feminist views of pornography Freudo-Marxism Hippie Inside Deep Throat (2005 film) Kinsey (2004 film) LGBT Lust Lovelace (2013 film) Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History (2001 book) The Notorious Bettie Page (2005 film) Peace movement Slut-shaming Whatever (1994 novel)