Comment débusquer la voix d’un auteur dans sa fiction ? Une étude de quelques provocations de Michel Houellebecq

Baroni, Raphaël

doi:10.7202/1037505ar

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…39 Raphaël Baroni has pointed out that the most provocative novels are also novels that induce readers to reflect on the opinions of the writer. 40 The logic of the media supports this quest for authors' inner motives, serving writers who play public roles around and through their books, as Philippe Lejeune has demonstrated. 41 Following this media logic, the questions of news anchor David Pujadas to Houellebecq on national TV the day before Submission's publication focused on the writer's own views on Islam and contemporary French politics.…”

Section: Houellebecq's Standpointmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Reception of Michel Houellebecq’sSubmission

Ågerup¹

2019

European Review

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In 2015, French writer Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission, which depicts a future France with a Muslim president, was repeatedly cited in political discourse about Islam, French identity, and terrorism. In the year of the novel’s publication, several Islamist terrorist attacks targeted France, and Houellebecq was often named in the debate on multiculturalism, immigration and the French secularist principle of laïcité. The reception of the novel is analysed in this article, focusing on ideological argumentation and political debate. Two opposite camps can be identified in this reception structure. Interestingly, the arguments of these camps are analogous to the arguments of the prosecutor and defence lawyer in the 1857 trial of Gustave Flaubert concerning his novel Madame Bovary. One and a half centuries after that trial, questions about the reader’s moral capacity and the author’s responsibility remain at the heart of the debate. While some liberal critics praise the ambiguities of the novel, trusting the reader’s ethical faculties, other critics condemn the novel and accuse the writer of expressing dubious values. As for the ideological homes of these critics, the liberal group represents left-wing, right-wing, and uncertain ideologies, whereas the gatekeeping group largely consists of left-leaning agents. The division into two reception groups and their respective discursive patterns and practices are analysed using the Bovary trial as a basis for comparison. It is concluded that in the anxious political climate of 2015 when terror, migration, and Islam were attracting considerable attention and when the populist right was on the rise, Houellebecq’s novel functioned as a political vehicle in government-sympathetic opinion making and as a practical tool for critics who positioned themselves as safeguarding generous migration and integration policies.

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Section: Houellebecq's Standpointmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Reception of Michel Houellebecq’sSubmission

Ågerup¹

2019

European Review

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“…Bien que changeant de locuteurs (Christiane, Bruno, Michel, Annabelle, le narrateur impersonnel), le roman accumule des aphorismes qui parlent à l'unisson pour décrire des différences sexuelles jugées naturelles. 14 Violences sexuelles en imaginaire Revue critique de fixxion française contemporaine, 24 | 2022 Il attribue cela à un "antiféminisme" vu comme "un véritable fil d'Ariane tout au long de [la] carrière [de Houellebecq]" 15 . En deçà de cette caractérisation idéologique (sans doute justifiée mais qui dépasse l'objet du présent article), l'essentiel réside dans le caractère monologique des représentations des rapports de séduction comme un marché d'une part et des agissements humains comme des épiphénomènes d'une nature animale hypostasiée d'autre part.…”

Section: Totalitarisme Du "Naturalisme" Houellebecquienunclassified

Violences sexuelles en imaginaire

Guignard¹

2022

fixxion

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Cette analyse propose donc de contribuer à cet effort de réévaluation d'oeuvres, ici du début de siècle, chez trois auteurs masculins compris dans leurs régimes respectifs de représentation des violences sexistes et sexuelles : la naturalisation chez Michel Houellebecq, la sublimation chez Alain Damasio et la traumatisation 4 chez Antoine Volodine. Il s'agira non pas seulement de repérer les effets de cadrage et leur inscription dans la logique du récit mais également de comprendre quel fond idéologique rend ces violences intelligibles, voire légitimes. Le passage par le genre science-fictionnel -auquel on peut rattacher les romans qui seront l'objet de ce présent article -manifeste doublement le point de vue des locuteurs et personnages, de leurs discours, par contraste avec un devenir conjecturé (les sociétés futuristes avec leurs propres codes) explicitant les impensés que reproduirait une littérature réaliste. En suivant la proposition de Donna Haraway de situer épistémologiquement les points de vue subjectifs afin de garantir une représentation efficace des expériences diverses, notamment via la fiction 5 , il sera significatif de constater comment les trois études de Violences sexuelles en imaginaire Revue critique de fixxion française contemporaine, 24 | 2022

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“…Furthermore, in Houellebecq’s works the identification with different ideologies is not absolute between narrator, writer and the fictional character. Baroni (2016) has attempted to situate the authorial voice in his works and revealed the difficulties inherent to such a project. Korthals Altes (2004) has discussed Houellebecq’s works for their contradictory rhetoric and ambiguous ethos.…”

Section: Media Postures: Manipulation Of Authorial Mythologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the return of the (media) author: Michel Houellebecq, écrivain médiatique

Harris

2020

French Cultural Studies

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This article argues that Michel Houellebecq is an écrivain médiatique, and it examines how and why he engages in an authorial strategy that relies on more than the text and presents the author as a visible, multimedia, and culturally relevant figure. From an epistemological need to reassess authorship in the digital age, this article defines media authorship before analysing Houellebecq through a critical framework including Meizoz’s concept of posturing (2007), Saint-Gelais’s transmediality (2011) and Angenot’s social discourse (1989). It addresses how Houellebecq attempts to situate and justify his media-focused and author-centric strategy, showing how this reflects the challenges of the cultural domination of mass media and new technologies of the digital age, and indicates that the autonomy of the literary field is diminishing. This article shows how a superficially transgressive engagement with the media and multimedia in fact reflects consent to the dynamics of the contemporary socio-cultural context.

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Comment débusquer la voix d’un auteur dans sa fiction ? Une étude de quelques provocations de Michel Houellebecq

Cited by 11 publications

References 11 publications

The Political Reception of Michel Houellebecq’sSubmission

The Political Reception of Michel Houellebecq’sSubmission

Violences sexuelles en imaginaire

On the return of the (media) author: Michel Houellebecq, écrivain médiatique

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