It didn’t take hours to read the last Houellebecq. And for good reason, A few months in my life (October 2022-March 2023) (Flammarion, in bookstores May 24) comes down to 103 blackened pages between March 31 and April 16, 2023. 103 pages written in a hurry, therefore, the day after his second defeat before the Amsterdam court about what has been called “the porn of Houellebecq”, and which has, he says, “this time, seriously affected” – even annihilated. So, yes, we read in one go these 103 vibrant and “dramatic” pages, in which the author of Submission and of The Map and the territory quickly returns to his “squabbles” with the rector of the Great Chems-eddine Mosque Mohamed Hafiz following his remarks on Islam in the magazine Popular Front and, at great length, on his disputes with the Dutch director Stefan Ruitenbeek, told here by the menu.
Nonsense, stupidity and bullshit
Before continuing, let us note a few invariants of homo Houellebecq, whether he beats his neck against Muslims, or whether he fights ardently against Ruitenbeek, called throughout the story, “the Cockroach”: a certain casualness , an imposing “author’s vanity”, a penchant for provocativeness, a craving for alcohol (especially mixed with anxiolytics) deadly in that it takes away from him any attention falling under mere judgment or leads him to hold inconsiderate and infamous remarks, an immoderate love of sex and an undeniable attraction for amateur pornography. A dangerous cocktail which, as he lucidly agrees, pushes him to multiply nonsense, stupidity, bullshit…
In Act I of this short story, it is therefore for Michel Houellebecq to evoke his interview with Michel Onfray, the founder of the review Popular Front and some of its passages equating, to be quick, Muslims and delinquents and planning a civil war in the “entire territories under Islamist control”. He reconsiders his first declarations which he himself deemed false, stupid or ambiguous, and at the same time thanks the rector of the Great Mosque for having accepted his corrections. But if Houellebecq does not spare himself, he has kept his fierce pen with regard to his “enemies”, like this “bastard” Edwy Plenel, “false and venomous”, and Michel Onfray, his debater from the Popular Front, described as “tough and fundamentally evil”, and “greedy”, not to mention “the usual pack of media cretins”. Likewise, our columnist Pierre Assouline, editorial director of Read in 2002 (an interview granted to the monthly then led the author of Platform before the courts for “incitement to racial hatred”), which pursues him, according to him, of his “fierce hatred”, he has the right to a few lines.
“A mediocre coitus with an inert sow, filmed by a degenerate cockroach”
Comes Act II, the most bitter in the eyes of Michel Houellebecq certainly. The porn film directed by Le Cafard, which Michel Houellebecq failed to have banned but which he will be allowed to view before its broadcast, as the Dutch justice has just decided on Tuesday, May 16. Houellebecq is furious, upset, betrayed, and we understand why in particular, page 69 (!): “It was excruciating for me to think that the only trace that would remain of my sex life, the most lively part of my either a mediocre coitus with an inert sow, filmed by a degenerate cockroach, the whole thing for sure of total ugliness. I deserved better than that; anyone deserves better than that.” Let things be clear: Houellebecq likes sex, and does not hide it: “There are other pleasures than sex, linked for example to gastronomy, alcohol and other drugs: if I wanted to compare its intensity to that offered by sexual pleasures, I would have to roughly divide by fifty. Houellebecq also enjoys amateur porn and threesomes (which can rise to the “heights of earthly happiness”), for reasons described here that would almost make his friend Bruno Le Maire blush.
Sexual encounters in Paris then in Amsterdam
In October 2022, Houellebecq was contacted by Stefan Ruitenbeek, who wanted to introduce him to “a philosophy student”, a fan of his work, Jini van Rooijen (nicknamed here “the Sow”) coming to indulge in a few gang bangs in the capital. A first sexual encounter takes place in Paris on November 1 between Houellebecq, his wife and “la Sow”. Disappointing meeting in the eyes of this one, so much “the Sow” turns out to be passive and “fellatrice below the mediocre”. The incredible thing is that Houellebecq agrees to do it again on December 21, 2022, this time in Amsterdam, the Cockroach having multiplied the bait (promise of young women diligent in his books wishing to have sex with him).
As the author writes, “it may seem incomprehensible that I accepted”. All is said ! Hotel, bottle of wine, anxiolytics, introduction to a pseudo-actress, called here the “Turkey”, kisses in bed that he doesn’t remember at all (it’s crazy how many scenes are so many white people in the memory of the author), and signing of an insane retroactive contract, removing all right of inspection from Houellebecq over the images shot between November 1, 2022 and December 31, 2023: “An animal would have more rights”, commented his lawyer Dutch company at the sight of the famous contract reproduced in the book… The fact remains that Stefan Ruitenbeek publishes the trailer for a film named Kirac27 and that the Dutch courts will reject Houellebecq’s requests for a ban.
“Something that could be similar to what women victims of rape describe”
At the idea that these images could be broadcast, Houellebecq said he felt “something that could be similar to what women victims of rape describe. First, a painful feeling of dispossession of his own body (…) I I was cowering, pierced with shame.” Not sure that such comments do not trigger the wrath of some women. Houellebecq is very aware of this, who also writes: “The feminists do not like me. I do not like them either, I consider that they have damaged the relations between beings…”
Likewise, does he complete these Qa few months in my life by recalling the great comfort brought by Bernard-Henri Lévy but also by Gérard Depardieu enjoining him to “not let go of anything, including on the legal level”, and to “(fight) to the limit of (his ) strengths”. A reinforcement that feels a little sulfur, the actor currently being the subject of accusations of sexual violence.