Michel Houellebecq: The Possibility of a Portrait

He is the most well-known contemporary French writer, with a reputation of a capricious star who doesn’t talk too much. However, I was determined to sit down and chat with the "bad boy" of French literature. We talked about his image as a provocateur, fear of aging and death, pessimism, love, and much more. In the end, it turned out that... the devil isn't quite as black.

By Mihaela Frank

Published by ELLE Romania in August 2012

"Do you want to know the truth about me?" Michel Houellebecq asks me, looking me straight in the eye. We're sitting in two chairs arranged at right angles to a small table in his hotel room, drinking coffee that he has prepared himself, using a coffee maker he always travels with (along with his metal ashtray - "You don't find ashtrays in hotel rooms anymore, and the coffee is undrinkable," he says in a neutral tone). Let me explain how we got there.

Michel Houellebecq came to Romania for three days with a group of colleagues, for the Bucharest Book Fair, where France was the guest of honor. I met him the night before the interview, at a cocktail party hosted by the French Embassy. For most of the evening, I watched him from a distance, intimidated by his reputation as an uncomfortable, provocative figure who doesn't waste time with pleasantries and compliments and doesn't hesitate to speak his mind (in books, articles, or conversations), even if that means putting his interlocutor in an awkward situation.

Houellebecq has been the "bad boy" of French literature for many years. His vision of the contemporary Western world is dark and anti-utopian - people are spiritually degraded, often to the point of disappearing as a species, sex has become a mere form of entertainment, the idea of couple is increasingly a thing of the past, and economies are collapsing. The public either loves him or hates him (there is no middle ground), and critics are equally divided. Houellebecq has many enemies among French critics, especially (he too is not a prophet in his country), to whom he responds (when he does) promptly and scathingly. In addition, the person I was supposed to interview the next day had a quite unique reputation among journalists too, more like that of a rock star than a writer. He once fell asleep during a televised interview (the question was too long, he later explained). Another time he was so drunk he couldn't string two words together. Rumor has it that he made advances to a journalist. Other times, he simply didn't show up for the interview. So, it was impossible for me to imagine what this meeting would be like.

When, towards the end of the evening, I finally introduced myself to him, I found myself face to face with a man who seemed to care very little about his appearance. Dressed in a slightly worn yellow shirt, tucked into a pair of loose beige cotton pants, tied a little too high at the waist, and his ubiquitous Canadian jacket, Houellebecq looked like he was wondering how he got there. I asked if he agreed to speak in English, so we could have a more fluent conversation. I knew the French hated being spoken to in English, but Houellebecq was by no means a typical Frenchman, I thought. He has been living in an isolated village in Ireland for many years, and for several reasons: because he is a loner, because the Irish tax system is much friendlier than the French one, and even "to learn the beautiful English language" - as he declared in an interview several years ago. In the meantime, the writer had changed his mind. "No," he replied. "I don't want to speak in English anymore. I'm tired of hearing this language, I miss French."

So we continued our first conversation in French, with me stumbling from time to time, and he patient and stubborn. My words sometimes came slowly, after a few seconds of searching in my mental French dictionary, which hadn't been accessed for a long time (but that wasn't a problem for him, he told me he liked people who searched for their words). From his side, the words came sluggishly and with a diction that was agonizing to me. (I was tempted to blame this on the glasses of red wine that Houellebecq had drunk throughout the evening, but the next day I would realize that the man just speaks that way.) He smokes a lot, in a way I've never seen anyone else smoke. Between his fingers - more precisely between his ring finger and his middle finger - the cigarette has a very short and tortured life. He pulls on it with a devouring thirst, the cigarette curls, softens and is consumed as if in a film played at high speed.

The next morning, I went to the Continental Hotel, where the French writers' delegation had their headquarters. In a specially arranged space, several journalists were waiting for their interviewees. Mine was half an hour late because he didn't like the coffee at the hotel and asked someone to buy him a "real coffee" from somewhere. When he was told that he was risking throwing off his schedule, he said it was okay, anyway he had no intention of going to lunch, and he had also refused a tour of Bucharest organized by the embassy. Finally, he appears. He seems barely awake, with tired eyes and his blond-gray hair that had certainly not yet met a comb, but he politely smiles at those around him and is ready to start.

The time allocated for my interview was quite short, so there was not much room for small talk. I ask him directly if he is tired of the ‘controversial writer’ label that has been attached to him since his first book and has remained attached to his name. This time he lights up a cigar, which was to last longer than a humble cigarette. Silence. He takes a drag on the cigar, rolls it between his fingers, and, above all, murmurs (I was to hear this prolonged and repeated "mmmm" many times that day). "I think I am controversial, especially in France," he finally says. "It's normal. Usually, we writers are more controversial in our own country. When you come from somewhere else, these kinds of reactions tend to fade. As if the border works as a protective screen. You are treated with less violence... Being controversial is exhausting..." He speaks slowly and with long pauses, as if stumbling, making me feel the need to fill in the silence or help him. "I think it's also kind of boring in the long run," I complete his sentence. "Yes," he responds. "At some point, I no longer want a reaction of fear when people talk about me."

This reminds me of something I’ve read in Public Enemies, a book of dialogues between Michel Houellebecq and the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, an intellectual as controversial as my interviewee. There, Houellebecq confessed that he was tired of the controversies and hatred that he had fueled for so many years and that for the moment, he wanted to be loved - despite his shocking statements. To be simply loved, by everyone, like a football player or a music star. I ask him where this sudden desire came from. "I don't know. Maybe because I'm getting older, and a dose of aggressive energy is disappearing in me. When I think of how I was at my first book! Extension du Domaine de la Lutte is an incredibly aggressive book. Yes... I think this desire comes from the fact that I'm getting older. I'm trying to give the impression that I'm becoming calmer."

This is, in fact, the impression that his latest book leaves: that the author looks at the world less fiercely, that he is tired of challenges and it’s ready to slow his horses a little. The night before, at the embassy party, when I mentioned his status as a notorious provocateur, he told me he was no longer a provocateur. I asked him what he meant. "I don't think I've ever really been a provocateur. If I really wanted to be a provocateur, I would have been much worse." So where does this general impression come from? "Everything comes from something, it has a basis," admits Houellebecq. "It comes from my books, first and foremost, from their topics. For example, the impression of a toned-down provocation in my latest book comes from a subject less inclined to controversy."

One of the central themes of his latest book, The Map and the Territory, is aging and death. He explains his interest in these subjects through the age he has reached. He is 54, and as he confessed in Public Enemies, ever since he turned 47 (the age at which important writers for him such as Baudelaire, Lovecraft, Musset, Nerval died), he felt that he was beginning the descent that constitutes the second part of life, and which means successive degradation brought about by old age, followed by death. "I am at an age when people in my generation begin to die. When those around me begin to disappear, the film breaks and, here you start to think that you will be next." I ask him if this is his way of fighting aging and death: to write about them, to meticulously examine them. A new, long silence interrupted by that hum to which I was beginning to get used to. "No," he finally replies. "I regret. It's not that simple. We can write about whatever subject we want, but the subject remains. The ideas belong only to the book. Even if I wrote about death, I can't say that I accept it more easily."

Michel Houellebecq was born on Réunion Island in 1958. His parents, according to a now-famous sentence on his official website, "quickly lost interest in his existence," so at the age of five months, he was entrusted to his maternal grandmother in Algeria while his parents went on a tour of Africa. The child stayed there until he was six years old when he was sent to France, to his paternal grandmother. In The Elementary Particles, his mother appears as a character (with her real name) and receives a terrible portrait: a selfish and sexually obsessed hippie mother who abandons her child in an attic in his own excrements, to experience free love in a bizarre sect. Houellebecq has not spoken to his mother for over 20 years and in an older interview, he even stated that she had died. However, the aforementioned mother not only did not die, but she was terribly infuriated. So, she wrote a book (entitled Innocent), in which she offers her own version of her life and granted many interviews that could easily have earned her the title of the most horrible mother of all time - she called her son, among other things, an impostor, a bastard, a parasite, a liar, and a money and fame-obsessed arriviste. She was so vulgar and violent that even Houellebecq's greatest enemies felt sorry for him. With his father, on the other hand, a mountain guide passionate about nature, Houellebecq maintained a civilized connection, without ever touching the natural warmth of a father-son relationship. With such parents and traumas, it's no wonder that the writer went through periods of depression or that the world doesn't seem like the happiest place in the Universe to him.

Despite the image of a provocateur and accusations of misanthropy, racism, cynicism, nihilism, pornography, and misogyny, Michel Houellebecq is a beloved author. I have had the opportunity to see this with my own eyes at the Book Fair, where the public came in great numbers to see him, listen to him, and talk to him, and later, on the street, when people stopped him to tell him they admire him or love his books. I ask him what he thinks is the most attractive thing about his books. "I think there are two reasons: on the one hand, from time to time, my books are emotional, and on the other hand, they are amusing, and strange. It's not something very original. It's a mix that we can also find in other authors. I admit that I like to make people laugh, but also cry." I confess that he succeeds in doing this, especially when he kills his characters. "Did I make you cry?" he asks excitedly. "Well, I certainly felt very sad," I reply. "Whose death?" he insists. "Valérie's death in “The Platform” and the female character in “Atomised” - I can't remember her name..." "Ah, Annabelle," he helps me. "It's a well-done death," he admits with undisguised satisfaction. "And I didn't like at all the way you killed Houellebecq, the character in your latest book, “The Map and the Territory.” Horrible. Why so much cruelty?" "Because I had nightmares about being hacked up, about being cut into pieces. It's an old anxiety that gives me nightmares. Just last night, I had a long dream that, if I had the time and energy and nothing else to do, would take me about 200 pages to write." I ask him what he dreamt, but he tells me it's too long, much too long. "It's a very condensed and complicated story. I would need a novel; I couldn't tell it in two pages." Who knows, maybe we'll find this dream transposed into a future book, because as the writer confesses, for him, dreams are very useful in literature, which is why he uses them quite often.

“The Map and the Territory” is the book that finally brought Houellebecq the Goncourt Prize, the most prestigious literary prize in France. The novel is set in the world of contemporary art (which, by the way, is successfully satirized), its central character being Jed Martin, a visual artist displaying all the typical Houellebecqian hero characteristics: raised without parental affection, Jed becomes a perfect exponent of today's Western world, a conceptual artist, lacking in cultural dimension and emotionally handicapped, unable to deal with intimacy and without any social skills, detached and uninterested in most aspects of the world he lives in. Jed will first encounter success through an exhibition entitled "The Map is More Interesting Than the Territory," which brings together a series of large-scale photographs of Michelin maps representing different regions of France. He later achieves international notoriety through an exhibition of paintings portraying different professions. For the profession of the writer, Jed chooses Michel Houellebecq as his protagonist, whom he asks not only to pose for him but also to write a preface for the catalog that will accompany the exhibition. The two make a deal, and, over time, a strange, distant relationship develops between them, which could have been a friendship, if either of them was capable of it. Well, the portrait that Houellebecq paints of the character Houellebecq is quite interesting and not really flattering: the writer is described as a poorly dressed man, sometimes showing poor hygiene, living isolated in a village in Ireland, in a house almost devoid of furniture but full of unpacked boxes (he had moved there... about three years ago). In addition to the not-so-flattering portrait of the author of "Elementary Particles" (as Houellebecq most often calls his character), he also experiences a grotesque death, being chopped along with his dog and then scattered, piece by piece, in the living room. Grose!

"I liked the title of Jed's first exhibition – “The Map is More Interesting Than the Territory.” Do you mean the representation of the world is more interesting than the world itself?" I ask him. "I think that's quite true. It's true for almost everything. Except, perhaps, for sexual scenes. Sex is better in reality than in books. You may have noticed that there are no sex scenes in “The Map and the Territory.” It's very difficult to write sex scenes and I don't think I've made any progress here. I'll write such scenes again if I feel I can do it better. You might think it's nothing, but it's actually very, very hard." Why do you think that is, I ask? "It's easier to write about danger or death because then you're in a state that sharpens all your senses, and you notice everything. When you make love, it's the opposite: you're in a state where you lose touch with reality and that's why it's hard to describe what you feel."

But what about the character Michel Houellebecq? Is he more interesting than the man Michel Houellebecq? "Mmm... Let's say he's funnier. Sometimes he's even hilarious. In fact, I don't think I'm an exceptionally interesting person. I realize it's a terrible thing to say in an interview, but what's interesting about me doesn't come from what I say, but from what I observe. It's interesting to travel with me. I see many things that people don't notice. Occasionally, I have something to say, but not very often." Is that why he rarely gives interviews? Or does he simply dislike it? Or, as some people claim, he dislikes journalists? "Not necessarily. When I release a new book, I give interviews. But if not, no. I don't like people who express their opinions all the time. When I release a book, I give interviews. I'm not doing anything new, I don't give interviews."

His character Jed doesn't read the news at all. He finds it boring. I ask Houellebecq if he also finds the news boring. "No," he replies. "I think Jed exaggerates. He's younger than me and, indeed, there are people of his generation who don't see themselves reading a newspaper. They simply don't find it useful. They have a TV and don't need to read newspapers. For my generation, writing remains the most important thing. But, between the Internet and television, there are people who have never read a newspaper."

The time allotted for the interview was rapidly approaching its end. I consulted my notebook where I had written down a rather optimistic number of questions and said with sincere regret, "It's a shame we don't have more time. There are many more things I would have liked to talk about." To my surprise, Houellebecq tells me that after the book fair public event, he has two to three free hours, so we could continue then. I thank him and we agree to meet again later at the same hotel.

After a few hours, I'm at the reception of the Continental Hotel, asking the receptionist to let Michel Houellebecq know that I'm waiting for him in the lobby. It was the first sunny day after a week of cold and rain, so I planned to invite him to the garden behind Carturesti bookstore. We ended up having coffee in his room because as soon as he came down from the elevator, he told me he had just made good coffee and invited me to be his guest. I accepted and suggested a walk to the mentioned terrace after the coffee.

The room is small but surprisingly tidy. Houellebecq pours coffee into two cups and lights a cigarette. After telling me "the truth" about himself, he repeats the fact that he is a good observer but also a good listener. "People often confess to me. It happens to me many times (especially when I travel) that people I don't know and who don't know me tell me incredible things. I think this happens because I give the impression that I don't judge anyone." And it's true, I ask, you don't judge anyone? "Not necessarily," he tells me. "Sometimes I am shocked by the confessions that are made to me. I do have moral benchmarks." Then his thoughts seem to wander elsewhere because after a few seconds of silence, he tells me that the world today is too complicated, too difficult to understand. I ask him if he is as pessimistic about the future of humanity as his books. "Yes. I think so. Well, nothing is set in stone, but I think there are reasons to be pessimistic."

On the way to the bookstore, we pass through Revolution Square. I tell him a bit about the revolution of '89, about Ceausescu's escape from the government building roof, about street fights. He shows neither interest nor disinterest in the places we pass by. He stops, however, and takes a panoramic look at Revolution Square. We talk a little bit about what life in a dictatorship means and what it's like to live through a revolution. He tells me that he can't feel empathy or compassion towards group tragedies, towards people. He only feels compassion for individual tragedies. In fact, the mere fact of living, the status of being alive, inevitably exposed to so much suffering, is enough to stir up a sort of intellectual compassion in him.

On the street, we're stopped twice by people who want to shake his hand. He doesn't seem impressed or flattered. Rather, I would say he finds it natural. When, at the terrace, a man approached our table and said, "Mr. Houellebecq, I just want to say I love your books," the writer replied curtly: "Yes. You're right."

Since love is a theme that's always present in his books, I ask him about his interest in this subject. "Love is for my novels what God is for Dostoevsky’s books. It's a very important theme, for which I haven't found an answer yet." And yet, why do all his love stories end badly (sometimes even tragically)? "Because tragedy is always more interesting." He believes that the couple relationship is becoming less viable nowadays, that divorce is a tragedy, and that the couple worked better in the days when extended families lived together. Today's isolation is not beneficial to the couple relationship.

He tells me out of the blue that feminists are right to hate him. I didn't intend to address the topic of his so-called misogyny, simply because I don't believe in it. In my opinion, the women in his books are not treated disrespectfully. They are equal to men in terms of intelligence, professional life, and even sexuality. When I tell him this, he responds, "That's exactly why feminists hate me. Because the women in my books are equal to men. They want women to be superior."

We headed back to the hotel where a car was already waiting to take him to dinner with his Romanian editor. Only now, when we barely had ten minutes to spend together, did I manage to relax and realize that the feared Houellebecq didn't bite and that he can actually be an agreeable conversation partner if you let him be.

I mention his friend Beigbeder, another “enfant terrible” of French literature. I tell him that Beigbeder loves coming to Romania, perhaps because he's treated like a star every time. "What do you mean he's treated like a star?" Houellebecq asks me. "Does he give more interviews?" I laugh and tell him that he gives enough interviews, but that's not what it's about. He's always surrounded by a little "court", and spends the nights in clubs. He just has a great time here. "I don't have any clubs on my schedule!" Houellebecq says. "Of course not!" I laugh. "You were invited here by the French Embassy, a sober institution, not by a young and talented director who staged one of your books!" "That's right," the writer admits. "Plus, you have a reputation... as a serious person, not quite inclined to that kind of fun. Would you really go to a club?" "Hmmm... Mmmm... I don't know... Maybe. I think so..." Pause. "Do you really think I have that kind of reputation?... Maybe you're right. Mmmm... I'll think about it."

We are two steps away from the hotel and Houellebecq tells me that we should part ways here because he's already 15 minutes late and he plans to apologize by saying that he went for a walk and got lost. "I thought you were worried about my reputation," I joke. "Yes, that too," he replies with half a smile as if he would never allow himself to truly smile. We say goodbye, and he tells me with a serious face, "I think I would like to come back to Romania. In Beigbeder's style. I'm probably too serious."