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A review by dayface
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq
1.0
In Gardner’s Grendel, the dragon – a manifestation of Sartre’s existentialism – is asked by the wondering Grendel:
“Why shouldn’t one change one’s ways, improve one’s character?” To which the dragon says:
“Fiddlesticks […] You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! [..] You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from – the blunt facts of their morality their abandonment – that’s what you make them recognise, embrace!”
In some respects, I see myself in the protagonist of Houellebecq’s Serotonin. In most ways, I do not. I did not like this book. I appreciate this book. Here is why:
Aspects of this book mirror the Japanese I-novel, or the Dangerous Writing precedent of sharp imagery to convey a declining state. Particularly Notes From Underground, Ningen Shikkaku, and The Bell Jar. But, unfortunately, he’s near-entirely unsympathetic, pushing away the reader at every opportunity like one with an avoidant personality or attachment style. Is this design? Is this the Hedgehog’s Dilemma; come winter, he might want warmth – but is incapable of huddling, for fear of harming another? Does he push us away? Did I want to be? Yes.
This creature is xenophobic, furthering the inborn and excused nature of stereotyping into a realm of wanton solipsistic prejudice. He leaps from activity to activity with little precognition or algorithm; no heuristic. His libido at maximum, he requires a constant rush of stimulation. Excess.
“I mightn’t have done much good in my life, but at least I contributed to the destruction of the planet,” he says, appealing to Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’ through a hedonistic nihilism. He refuses to intellectualise beyond what serves him – a trait more common. He compares himself to Raskolnikov in a fragrant display of misplaced ego, though the inference feels moreso reflective of Houllebecq than the character, rarely balancing the frequent alpha-male vapidity of his rhetoric.
For every point of misinformation, we have a moment of beauty or imagination. For instance, the telemancy – divining one’s future through a random show on a screen. What a wonderful metaphor for commercialism, for anti-intellectual stubbornness. What a fantastic representation of Claude’s locus of control. External, internal?
He’s right though. Porn does push technology forward.
And, my thought: technology pushes the military forward.
Huh.
Claude’s parents’ double suicide mirrors Ningen Shikkaku with a beautiful passage:
“It was easy to tell by their positions on the bed that they had wanted to hold hands until the end, but they had suffered from convulsion in their death throes, and their hands had parted.”
There’s a typo on page 115. It’s embolic of the book.
Go find the typo. It might explain everything.
(Note: could be translation error, instead; will need to investigate.)
Is Houllebecq edgy? Yes.
Is he insightful? Yes.
Is Claude wallowing in pity; engaging in misery masturbation; nihilistic without objective? Is it deep and sexy to be addicted to porn enough to think THAT’S what sex is? Does he care?
He is Grendel, challenging the Conan Doyle sentiment that “each page had to vibrate with the protestations of a sincere and good heart.”
It’s just a shame that plenty got there before him and had something more constructive to say. Epicureanism paired with alternative forms of stoic, solipsistic, and nihilistic philosophy. Claude is a man on fire.
“Why shouldn’t one change one’s ways, improve one’s character?” To which the dragon says:
“Fiddlesticks […] You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! [..] You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from – the blunt facts of their morality their abandonment – that’s what you make them recognise, embrace!”
In some respects, I see myself in the protagonist of Houellebecq’s Serotonin. In most ways, I do not. I did not like this book. I appreciate this book. Here is why:
Aspects of this book mirror the Japanese I-novel, or the Dangerous Writing precedent of sharp imagery to convey a declining state. Particularly Notes From Underground, Ningen Shikkaku, and The Bell Jar. But, unfortunately, he’s near-entirely unsympathetic, pushing away the reader at every opportunity like one with an avoidant personality or attachment style. Is this design? Is this the Hedgehog’s Dilemma; come winter, he might want warmth – but is incapable of huddling, for fear of harming another? Does he push us away? Did I want to be? Yes.
This creature is xenophobic, furthering the inborn and excused nature of stereotyping into a realm of wanton solipsistic prejudice. He leaps from activity to activity with little precognition or algorithm; no heuristic. His libido at maximum, he requires a constant rush of stimulation. Excess.
“I mightn’t have done much good in my life, but at least I contributed to the destruction of the planet,” he says, appealing to Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’ through a hedonistic nihilism. He refuses to intellectualise beyond what serves him – a trait more common. He compares himself to Raskolnikov in a fragrant display of misplaced ego, though the inference feels moreso reflective of Houllebecq than the character, rarely balancing the frequent alpha-male vapidity of his rhetoric.
For every point of misinformation, we have a moment of beauty or imagination. For instance, the telemancy – divining one’s future through a random show on a screen. What a wonderful metaphor for commercialism, for anti-intellectual stubbornness. What a fantastic representation of Claude’s locus of control. External, internal?
He’s right though. Porn does push technology forward.
And, my thought: technology pushes the military forward.
Huh.
Claude’s parents’ double suicide mirrors Ningen Shikkaku with a beautiful passage:
“It was easy to tell by their positions on the bed that they had wanted to hold hands until the end, but they had suffered from convulsion in their death throes, and their hands had parted.”
There’s a typo on page 115. It’s embolic of the book.
Go find the typo. It might explain everything.
(Note: could be translation error, instead; will need to investigate.)
Is Houllebecq edgy? Yes.
Is he insightful? Yes.
Is Claude wallowing in pity; engaging in misery masturbation; nihilistic without objective? Is it deep and sexy to be addicted to porn enough to think THAT’S what sex is? Does he care?
He is Grendel, challenging the Conan Doyle sentiment that “each page had to vibrate with the protestations of a sincere and good heart.”
It’s just a shame that plenty got there before him and had something more constructive to say. Epicureanism paired with alternative forms of stoic, solipsistic, and nihilistic philosophy. Claude is a man on fire.