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Article: Love in the time of hedonism: Michel Houellebecq's new novel.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Harper's Magazine
- Article date:
- August 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Harper's Magazine Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Discussed in this essay:
Platform, by Michel Houellebecq. Translated by Frank Wynne. Knopf, 2003. 272 pages. $25.
Of the two most inspected monuments in France, one belongs to the city of Paris and the other to Michel Houellebecq. Although appreciably smaller (it stands--when it stands--at approximately five inches), Houellebecq's commands indisputably more attention than the Eiffel Tower these days. This, in any case, is the impression one gleans from the controversy surrounding his books, all of which possess an unabashedly autobiographical bent.
He is an unlikely sex god--this slight, unfashionable, forty-five-year-old Frenchman--and an even ...