What you need to know about the new novel by Michel Houellebecq, "destroy", in bookstores on January 7<

Aniantir, the eighth novel by Michel Houellebecq, is the event of the literary season of January 2022. What does it look like? What is he talking about ? Why did the writer decide not to respond to the press? After devouring its 736 pages, that's what we can say about this highly anticipated new novel by Michel Houellebecq.

"Anéantir" is a novel of very light anticipation

Anéantir begins as a political thriller with very close anticipation (we are in 2027). It tells the story of Paul Raison, an almost fifty-year-old enarque in the service of Bruno Juge, Minister of Economy and Finance (inspired by Bruno Le Maire?) launched in a presidential campaign in support of the majority candidate, a former TV host.

At the same time, Paul is following very closely a case of attacks perpetrated in the four corners of the planet, relayed on social networks, and of which the agents of the DGSI have difficulty deciphering the occult messages... The world that Anéantir describes is ours, and it's not doing very well, to say the least.

The main subject of "Anéantir" is love, but also death

Michel Houellebecq describes a world in decline, hopeless, dark and melancholic, in which moments of grace nevertheless arise , of happiness, appearing here and there, in the trajectories of his characters, most often in the guise of love. In Anéantir, the main character, Paul, is married, childless, and hasn't shared anything for years with his wife, named Prudence, apart from their apartment in the 12th arrondissement, where they each have their own bedroom and department in the fridge. Yet it is in this relationship reduced to nothing, in this land so long remained fallow, that love will germinate again. This reborn love, which is accompanied by the resurrection of a happy sexuality, but also combined with death, is the beating heart of this new novel by Michel Houellebecq.

The writer declines this theme of love in secondary variations through the stories of the other characters in the novel: Paul's father, a widower, a former Secret Service agent, is once again in a relationship with Madeleine, a woman from a more modest background, whose unconditional love accompanies his life as a disabled person since his stroke. Aurélien, Paul's younger brother, discovers love with the nurse of Malian origin in charge of caring for their father, after experiencing marital hell with his wife, a psychopathic journalist. Or Cécile, her older sister, married for many years to Hervé, an unemployed notary close to far-right Catholic circles, and whom she calls "Mamour".

Love is omnipresent, therefore, in this new novel. The writer had already initiated this tendency in Sérotonine, he digs into it, as if, with advancing age, he had begun to believe in love. Another character enters the scene in this novel: death, which seems more natural, advancing age. This subject, which Michel Houellebecq seizes without cynicism, gives this new novel some of its most beautiful and moving pages, from the angle of the end of life.

"Anéantir" also talks about green vegetables, unemployment and many other things still

Michel Houellebecq, if he focuses his pen on love, and on death, doesn't excludes any subject from his literary project, making, as he himself says, of literature a tool for "restitution of the human experience". Greens, politics, through unemployment, Hinduism, politics, God, religion, Satanism, hospital, Islam, suicide, fellatio, new technologies, Conan Doyle, l Europe, migrants, the Black Blocks, the postwar boom, essential oils, peri-urban areas, the family, dental care, numerology, euthanasia, the end of capitalism, nuclear power, the aging of Europe , Pascal…

It's difficult to take stock of them, as the range of subjects covered and motifs drawn is so rich. The novelist thus continues his painting of contemporary society, in the manner of 19th century novelists, linking all the elements that make up our daily lives to the great universal themes of metaphysics, making this new book a humanist novel (with a pessimistic tendency).

Learn how to stain the brick on your #fireplace or #chimney! Take a look: https://t.co/sdUnSd6HNi #ChimneyCleaning

— MyChimney_Pro Thu Sep 15 20:57:25 +0000 2016

To feed his story, Michel Houellebecq researched. He also encourages his colleagues to do the same in the acknowledgments at the end of the book: "Basically, writers should not hesitate to document themselves more; many people love their profession, and are delighted to explain it to profane".

"Anéantir", is an "alternative to the world"

We find the writing of observation, fluid and nonchalant, by Michel Houellebecq. A writing that releases a melancholic music while very often triggering laughter. The construction of the novel, like a slow movement of the camera, makes us circulate from the surface of things, from the sequence of events, to the interiority of the characters, essentially that of Paul.

His dreams punctuate the story. We first try to decipher them, then we end up being lulled by these suspended moments, by these soothing parentheses, which often happen without warning. These moments are as precious as the books, which appear in Anéantir as saviors, essential when it is absolutely necessary to extract oneself from an unbearable reality. "As long as we have a book, it's good, we're saved," says the writer.

Michel Houellebecq has a sense of observation, an eye for detail, and a form of rigor, honesty in writing, without frills, without "show off", which, beyond all that he can tell, touches us, and enlightens us, offering us as he says himself, speaking of the function of books, "an alternative to the world".

"Anéantir" benefited from a cleverly orchestrated release

Published by Flammarion editions, Michel Houellebecq's new book will be released on January 7, 2022, two years after Sérotonine and seven years to the day after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. We don't know if it's a coincidence. Chance in any case does not seem to have presided over the release of this eighth novel by the author of Elementary Particles. An outing prepared with the greatest care, in an atmosphere of mystery, but above all according to a cleverly orchestrated marketing plan. Printed in 300,000 copies, its title, Anéantir, was not revealed until December 17, when the novel was sent to 600 journalists, with instructions not to reveal anything "out of respect for the readers", before the December 30.

"Anéantir" is published in a deluxe, "German" edition, in a format that involves the golden ratio

The publisher Flammarion announced an edition in early November " à l'allemand", bound, a rigid cardboard cover, "with a band and a colored bookmark". On the immaculate white cover, the title, blood red, displays the names of the author and the publisher in black, without capitals, in a lightly satiny debossed impression. Very elegant.

Michel Houellebecq himself was, so to speak, in charge of the artistic direction, the particular care he put into it testifying to his love of the book, "his favorite object" he confided during a conference in the Richelieu amphitheater at the Sorbonne on Thursday December 2, hosted by Agathe Novak-Lechevalier, who edited the Cahier de l'Herne devoted to the writer. "It's a form that suits me", declared Michel Houellebecq speaking of this edition, a form which corresponds to "my tastes as a reader", a book "pleasant to hold in the hands", and whose dimensions, specifies he, are "in a ratio of 1.6, or the golden ratio". Flammarion brought out three novels in this format on November 10: Extension of the domain of struggle, Elementary particles and Platform.

Michel Houellebecq does not do any interviews (or almost) to accompany the release of "Anéantir"

The publishing house has announced that he will not give any interviews to the press. This refusal, explained Michel Houellebecq at the Sorbonne, is partly the consequence of his "staircase spirit", which makes him "think about important and interesting things once the interview is over". "It's a misfortune in life, and I don't think it's curable," he added. Under these conditions, "it is better not to grant an interview", declared the writer in a tone of regret. "The second reason is that journalists often do not have the level", he added, provoking the hilarity of his audience, mainly made up of academics.

But despite announcing that he would not give any interviews, the writer gave an "exclusive" interview in two episodes to Le Monde, in which he declared "that it is with good feelings that we do good literature", adding that "there is no need to celebrate Evil to be a good writer! In my books, as in Andersen's tales, we immediately understand who the bad guys are and who are the good guys. And if there are very few bad guys in Annihilate, I'm very happy about that. The ultimate achievement would be if there were no bad guys at all!", says the letter star French.

“Anéantir” already experienced its little controversy 15 days before its release

Fifteen days before the release, the novel leaked on the internet. Two sites offered a quality copy and a third site made it possible to obtain, still illegally, an Epub version (intended for readers), filled with computer slag, noted AFP. A phenomenon that had already marked the release of Submission in 2015. Contacted by AFP, the publisher Flammarion replied that its legal and IT departments were doing their best to obtain the closure of the internet pages in question.

“Anihilate”, by Michel Houellebecq (Flammarion, 736 pages, €26)

Excerpt:

“They had definitely screwed up, he told himself, they had collectively screwed up somewhere. What was the point of installing 5G if we could no longer accomplish the essential gestures, those which allow the reproduce, those which also sometimes make it possible to be happy. He was once again able to think, his thinking even took an almost philosophical turn, he noted with disgust. Unless all this is a matter of biology, or nothing at all, he was going to go back to bed eventually, it was the only thing to do, his thinking was doomed to spin empty, he felt like a can of beer crushed under the feet of a British hooligan, or like an abandoned steak in the vegetable compartment of a low-end refrigerator, well he didn't feel very well." ("Annihilate", page 367)