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black guy, or rather half black". The narrator tries to convince
Tisserand to embark on a career of murder by killing the young woman, but Tisserand replies that he would rather murder the black man. The young woman and the man leave the disco and drive to a secluded beach on the man's motor scooter. The narrator and Tisserand follow the couple in the narrator's car. The couple go to the sand dunes to have sex, and Tisserand follows them, holding the steak knife the narrator has given him. Tisserand soon returns, stating, "I had no wish to kill them; blood changes nothing." That night, Tisserand dies in a car accident while driving back to Paris.
275:. Morrey, however, states that Houellebecq's frequent use of "sudden exclamations, dark ironies, hyperbole and hysterical outbursts" distinguish the tone from Camus'. The novel frequently switches between literary and colloquial registers, which, according to Morrey, gives the novel a "troubling, unstable tone". Morrey states that the narrator's use of "alien, inappropriate remarks that seem to come out of nowhere" makes the reader unsure whether he should be taken seriously.
186:
impoverishment. Economic liberalism and sexual liberalism both represent "extensions of the domain of the struggle". He reflects on his former girlfriend VĂ©ronique, whom he regrets having ever met. He reflects that psychoanalysis turned her into a woman with a complete lack of moral sense and that "he regrets not taking a knife to her ovaries".
193:
Back in Paris, the narrator has a depressive episode and calls a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist treats him for depression and the narrator takes sick leave from work. The narrator admits himself into a rest home where he observes the other patients and concludes that they are not at all deranged but
173:
The narrator travels to Rouen with a male colleague named
Tisserand in order to conduct training for the ministry staff there. The narrator notes that Tisserand is "extremely ugly. So ugly that his appearance repels women and he never gets to sleep with them". Tisserand tries to become friendly with
189:
The narrator buys a steak knife and convinces
Tisserand to go with him to a disco on Christmas Eve. At the disco, Tisserand starts a conversation with an attractive young woman who the narrator thinks looks like VĂ©ronique. The woman, however, breaks off the conversation and starts dancing with "a
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He has dinner with a friend from his student days who is now a priest. His friend tells him that that the media exaggerates the role of sex in society and that this has led to "vital exhaustion". His friend advises him to re-find God or go into psychoanalysis. Later, the narrator muses that human
169:
The narrator learns that his company has sold a software program to the
Ministry of Agriculture and that he will be required to train the client's staff in the software. His primary contact at the ministry is Catherine Lechardoy, a woman of about the narrator's age whom he describes as "not very
185:
to train the ministry staff there. Tisserand tells him that he is 28 years old and still a virgin. Later, the narrator muses that just as economic liberalism produces extremes of wealth and poverty, a society based on sexual liberalism also produces extremes of sexual gratification and sexual
254:
Other themes of the novel include the link between "the 'economisation' of sexuality" and violence, depression, psychiatry and euthanasia. Morrey identifies a theme of "depressive lucidity" in the face of the struggle against the rules of modern society. The narrator does not believe in
161:
is a 30-year-old analyst-programmer working for a Paris-based computer software company. He is lonely, subject to depression and has not had sex since be broke up with his girlfriend two years earlier. He also writes "animal stories", extracts from which are included in the novel.
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attractive". At a social function at the ministry he contemplates making a sexual advance to her. He has no desire for sex with her but "feels up to making the necessary gestures". He decides against it because he doesn't think she would have accepted.
333:
Sweeney, Carole. "'And Yet Some Free Time
Remains. . . .': Post-Fordism and Writing in Michel Houellebecq's Whatever." Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 33, no. 4, 2010, pp. 41–56. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jml.2010.33.4.41.
229:(thesis novel). The French title of the novel alludes to the Marxist theory of class struggle and the narrator's thesis is that the liberalisation of sexuality has led to the extension of struggle to the sexual domain. According to
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on the intimate spaces of human affect" The novel is also a satire on late-twentieth century work culture and consumer society. According to
Sweeney, "For the new middle management information class in
131:. The plot concerns a depressed and isolated computer programmer who tries to convince a colleague to murder a young woman who rejected the colleague's sexual advances. A major theme is that the
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an attractive female student in a train to Rouen, two "cuties" at the ministry, and several women in a restaurant and a café, but with no success. That night, the narrator is struck by acute
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in the sexual market, that the unattractive underclass is exiled while the privileged initiates are drained by corruption, sloth, and excess." Adam Kirsch of
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society is the comfortable frictionless round of eating ready meals, paying bills on time, attending dutiful work farewell parties, buying beds and CDs..."
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relationships have become "increasingly impossible" as information technology has reduced them to an exchange of information.
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198:. He cycles into the Forest of Mazan, where he feels, "with impressive violence, the possibility of joy".
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barely qualifies as a novel at all." The tone of the novel has been described as blank and compared to that of Camus'
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has called the character
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Sweeney states that the novel is "part-essay, part-satire, arguably by most principles of literary convention,
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self-improvement and social progress. According to Morrey, "he too feels sorry for his fellow humans
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to the sexual market, creating an unattractive sexual underclass. It was adapted into the 1999 film
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merely lacking in love. After several months he leaves the clinic and takes a trip to
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Carole
Sweeney states that a major theme is the "disaggregating effects of
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Make Love, Not War: The Sexual
Revolution: An Unfettered History
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407:"A French Novelist Imagined Sexual Dystopia. Now It's Arrived"
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Morrey states that the novel may be considered a type of
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Information and links to critics' views of the film
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323:. London: Serpent's Tail. pp. passim.
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797:The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq
387:"Michel Houellebecq: The sex export"
235:, Houellebecq's thesis is "that the
178:and is hospitalised for two weeks.
293:"Extension du domaine de la lutte"
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431:Morrey (2013). pp. 13, 29, 32, 33
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985:Pornography in the United States
121:Extension du domaine de la lutte
67:Éditions Maurice Nadeau (France)
39:Extension du domaine de la lutte
16:1994 novel by Michel Houellebecq
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703:In the Presence of Schopenhauer
656:Configuration du dernier rivage
404:Kirsch, Adam (July 12, 2018).
257:but there is nothing he can do
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1354:Feminist views of pornography
1047:Masters and Johnson Institute
884:Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf
1478:Novels by Michel Houellebecq
597:The Possibility of an Island
319:Houellebecq, Michel (1998).
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239:of the Sixties created not
145:, directed by and starring
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1020:The personal is political
711:Quelques mois dans ma vie
605:The Map and the Territory
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449:Sweeney (2010). pp. 42-43
196:Saint-Cirgues-en-Montagne
100:Published in English
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458:Morrey (2013). pp. 37-38
361:Morrey, Douglas (2013).
754:To Stay Alive: A Method
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135:of the 1960s extended
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351:Sweeney (2010). p. 49
159:first-person narrator
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476:Morrey (2013). p. 39
467:Morrey (2013). p. 36
440:Morrey (2013). p. 45
342:Morrey (2013). p. 47
1180:Robert Mapplethorpe
648:The Art of Struggle
35:Original title
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1013:Make love, not war
955:Loving v. Virginia
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868:Male contraceptive
690:(1998, 2009, 2020)
537:Michel Houellebecq
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249:The New York Times
129:Michel Houellebecq
30:Michel Houellebecq
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1200:Bettie Page
1150:Hugh Hefner
1110:Larry Flynt
1085:Pat Califia
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961:Miller Test
928:Deep Throat
856:Main topics
301:(in French)
125:debut novel
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914:Blue Movie
894:Milestones
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613:Submission
417:August 19,
305:2014-07-28
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45:Translator
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241:communism
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