A novel by Michel Houellebecq isn’t just a literary event; it’s news. I can’t think of any other French novelist who’s a must-read here; in fact I can’t think of a contemporary novelist anywhere whose work reflects the mood of the times so acutely he seems to anticipate events; or any other writer who is so willing to show us the world as he sees it, not as we’d like it to be. Submission, his fantasy of a France with an Islamist government, came out on the same day as the Charlie Hebdo attacks; Sérotonine anticipated the yellow vests rural riots. And annihilation, when it was published in France in 2022 — there was an odd delay in bringing out the English translation by Shaun Whiteside — was seen as domestic story, a family caring for a father suffering a stroke. But being Houellebecq, that’s not the half of it.
The protagonist is Paul, a high flying civil servant and special adviser to the genius finance minister, Bruno Juge, who’s about to be made a candidate for even higher office. It’s a bid to keep the seat warm for a return to the presidency by Emmanuel Macron, though he’s never named. He’ll have to see off the challenge of an insurgent National Rally, with its young and personable candidate for premier. It is set in 2027 but it pretty well describes the recent French general election. Solene Signal, the campaign director, an Alistair Campbell-cum-Morgan McSweeney figure, is especially good. But the comparisons aren’t exact; Bruno gets to declaim Corneille when he’s working on his vocal delivery, which wouldn’t happen here.
