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Phd Thesis Pathos, Poetry and Narrative Perspective in Michel 1 Russell James Williams PhD thesis Pathos, poetry and narrative perspective in Michel Houellebecq’s fiction University of London Institute in Paris 2 I, Russell James Williams, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signed: Russell James Williams Date: 9/01/2015 3 Acknowledgements This thesis was written with the support of the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP). Thanks are due in particular to Professor Andrew Hussey for his supervisory role, Dr Anna-Louise Milne for her support and valuable advice and Dr Jeremy Stubbs for his encouragement in the early stages of the project. Thanks are also due to Dr Carole Sweeney and Dr Andy Martin for their careful reading of my work and their pertinent recommendations. I would equally like to acknowledge the important role played by the ULIP administrative team led by Claire Miller and Erica Burnham, the Institute librarian, in steering this project to completion. I am also grateful to Marie- Françoise Alamichel and the English department at the Université Marne-la-Vallée and my colleagues in the Comparative Literature department at the American University of Paris. Warm thanks are also due to my postgraduate colleagues in Paris for their moral support and good humour: Eugene Brennan, Alastair Hemmens, Estelle Murail and Katie Tidmarsh. This thesis could not have been written without the belief, faith and enthusiasm of my parents, Jacqueline and Peter Williams, and Lindsey Marsh, whom I thank for her patience. 4 Thesis abstract This thesis is written in the context of several trends in the existing critical literature that considers Michel Houellebecq’s novels. Firstly, his work has been examined through the prism of the philosophical and socio-political issues and ideas it interrogates. Secondly, Houellebecq’s texts have been examined intertexually in relation to the work of canonical French and European authors, predominantly from the nineteenth century. Thirdly, critics have focused on the author’s flair for provocation in his writing and media interviews and considered Houellebecq primarily as a polemicist. Finally, and across all of these approaches, critical consideration of his literary style has largely been dismissive and derided his writing as ‘plat’ or foregrounded its ‘essayistic’ or discursive tropes. This thesis argues that a distinct ‘poetics’, creative principles that govern his use of language, can be identified in Houellebecq’s novels. From this starting point, this study proposes that Houellebecq’s work demonstrates a ‘pathétique’ quality of writing with a capacity to create an emotional effect on his readers. It argues that this quality contributes to a distinctly affective tone that characterises Houellebecq’s fiction. To achieve this, the thesis will explore the trajectory of this quality of language through a close critical reading of three little examined areas of Houellebecq’s writing: his earliest published poetry and its relationship to his prose; his distinctive and ubiquitous authorial voice and his exploitation of models from twentieth century literature, particularly genre fiction. In this way, the thesis demonstrates that Houellebecq’s novels display a preoccupation with the reader and his or her experience of reading that has not yet been taken into full consideration by his critics. It suggests that, in a way that challenges descriptions of it as ‘plat’, Houellebecq’s writing asserts a distinctive lyrical style, founded on his poetry, and is notable for the affective engagement it brings about. This thesis thus displays the techniques by which Houellebecq’s work tends towards a complex emotionality that provides a challenge to both the prevailing discourses of contemporary postmodern society and to what remains of the French literary avant- garde. 5 PATHOS, POETRY AND NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE IN MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ’S FICTION .................................................................................................................................................. 7 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 7 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 7 2. CRITICAL RECEPTION ..................................................................................................................................... 16 2a. Houellebecq’s style .................................................................................................................................. 18 2b. Intertextuality ........................................................................................................................................... 22 2c. Houellebecq and the canon ................................................................................................................. 24 2d. Postnaturalism and the contemporary literary sphere ......................................................... 26 2e. Houellebecquian sex ............................................................................................................................... 30 2f. Houellebecq and ideas ............................................................................................................................ 35 3. HOUELLEBECQ ON WRITING: ‘LA PARTICIPATION ÉMOTIVE’ .................................................................. 40 3a. Prose, poetry and the ‘pathétique’ ................................................................................................... 41 3b. Houellebecq on Cohen ........................................................................................................................... 45 3c. Critics on Houellebecq and Cohen .................................................................................................... 48 4. HOUELLEBECQ ON LITERATURE ................................................................................................................... 54 4a. L’Odeur des jacynthes ............................................................................................................................ 55 4b. Contre le monde, contre la vie: Lovecraft’s ‘pathétique’ ........................................................ 57 4c. ‘Rester vivant’ and ‘la partie sombre’ ............................................................................................. 60 5. HOUELLEBECQ’S EMOTIONAL SPECTRUM ................................................................................................... 63 6. THE ‘PATHÉTIQUE’ AND THE ‘CLINIQUE’ .................................................................................................... 69 CHAPTER ONE – HOUELLEBECQ’S ‘MÉTHODE D’ATTAQUE BRUTALE’: FROM POETRY TO PROSE ............................................................................................................................................ 71 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 71 2. WRITING AS ‘MÉTHODE D’ATTAQUE BRUTALE’: FROM LOVECRAFT TO HOUELLEBECQ .................... 72 2a. ‘Le Baudelaire des supermarchés’ ................................................................................................... 77 2b. Houellebecq, Baudelaire and the body .......................................................................................... 79 2c. Self-harm and suicide ............................................................................................................................ 82 3. THE ‘CLINIQUE’ IN HOUELLEBECQ’S POEMS .............................................................................................. 84 4. THE AMBIGUOUS ‘SENTIMENT OCÉANIQUE’ ............................................................................................... 87 5. THEMES, IMAGES AND POETIC TECHNIQUE IN EXTENSION DU DOMAINE DE LA LUTTE ....................... 93 5a. Asyndetic juxtaposition ........................................................................................................................ 98 5. HOUELLEBECQ AND BATHOS ..................................................................................................................... 101 5a. Bathetic criticism ................................................................................................................................. 103 5b. Houellebecq and the semicolon ...................................................................................................... 106 6. EXTENSION DU DOMAINE DE LA LUTTE’S POETIC PROSE ........................................................................ 111 6a. The ambiguous ‘sentiment océanique’ ........................................................................................ 118 7. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................. 120 CHAPTER TWO - THE ‘POÉTIQUE’ AND THE ‘PATHÉTIQUE’ IN HOUELLEBECQ’S NOVELS .............................................................................................................................................. 122 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................
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