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Just read this.
While similar to pretty much everything else he's written, this seemed warmer, somehow, like "Whatever" was compared to "Atomised".
What is a constant, however, is his anti-Islam stance- I know he's prepared to back it up (and has) but it's still a little fucked as a constant theme, y'know?
Having said that,
SPOILAGE IF SPOILAGE BE NEED BE
the "Azraelians" in "Lanzarote" are ace. Okay, blatantly obvious satire (actually, no, not even satire, just blatant piss-takiness), but fun nonetheless. And the denouement is just so right.
I, for one, would like to read short stories (if he writes them). This and "Whatever" (his first and shortest novel) are, as far as I'm concerned, his best. Award-winning though it may have been, "Atomised" seemed stretched out.
In the midst of the typical Houellebecq sex scene, we get the Belgian cop making his excuses... for once, his narrator actually feels for the awkwardness of others, and then gets to laugh at the end. A nasty, cynical laugh, I grant you, but a big full-on belly laugh.
Has anyone else read this (warning- in the UK this is an 80-page book sold in hardback for a tenner. I'm glad I have it, but it may be worth waiting until it's anthologised or something)? |
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