In 1994, the French novelist Michel Houellebecq published Whatever, a novel about two involuntarily celibate men. It involves a lot of railing about the market conditions that deny these men the sex they deserve, particularly the ugly one, who in a more communitarian age would have just found a similarly ugly woman in his village. In the modern world he’s forced to compete against other men who aren’t ugly, so when he kills a woman (whoops, spoiler!), that is fine, actually.
The book was extremely fashionable: everyone had read it, some people called it Peu Importe to indicate they’d read it in the original French, which was funny, because its French title was actually Extension du Domaine de la Lutte. We gave it the time of day because, who knew, perhaps it wasn’t about sex at all, perhaps it was all just a metaphor for libertarianism, and the slain woman was actually maman.
