Michel Houellebecq heureux quand ZRAEL massacre femmes enceintes a Gaza

@MaxBlumenthal Michel Houellebecq a écrit q'il a eut 1 frisson d'enthousiasm qan  troups israél tuait femmes enceintes à Gaza http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/books/11ARTS.html

Max Blumenthal ‏@MaxBlumenthal 21 minil y a 21 minutes

Houellebecq wrote that he ("Michel") "felt a shiver of enthusiasm" when Israeli troops shot pregnant women in Gaza http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/books/11ARTS.html

France's Shock Novelist Strikes Again
By ALAN RIDING

Published: September 11, 2001

PARIS, Sept. 10 — Michel Houellebecq readily admits that he enjoys attacking, insulting and provoking, so while it is not his style to look cheerful or sound optimistic, the French writer cannot fail to be chuckling at the reaction to his latest novel, "Plateforme." In the three weeks since it was published, it has won praise and stirred outrage. And with some 240,000 copies sold, it has also completely overshadowed the 574 other new novels of France's fall literary season.

Mr. Houellebecq (pronounced WELL- beck), who is 43, has done this before. His last novel, "The Elementary Particles," published here three years ago and in the United States last fall, was no less a succès de scandale, earning the author both acclaim as France's new literary hope and denunciation as a fascist. In "The Elementary Particles," he took on the generation of 1968, the baby boomers who now rule France. In "Plateforme," his topic is sex tourism in Asia.

In both novels, it should be noted, sex plays a major role, with masturbation, intercourse and group sex all described in minuscule detail. Can this be the novels' appeal to French readers? After all, the book that "Plateforme" has replaced atop the best-seller list is "The Sexual Life of Catherine M," a first-person account by a 53-year-old cultural journalist, Catherine Millet, in which she rather humorlessly describes her lifelong devotion to sexual encounters, often with men she has just met.

With "Plateforme" (Éditions Flammarion), however, although Mr. Houellebecq likes to boast that he writes well about sex, the issue is less the sexual content than the novel's endorsement of sexual tourism. Not Mr. Houellebecq's endorsement, one should add, but that of his first-person storyteller, also called Michel, who concludes that Western men visiting, say, Thailand for sex with young women (not children) represent a perfect exchange between those who have money and no longer find satisfaction with Western women and those without money who can offer pleasure.

Michel makes this discovery when he joins a tour group visiting Thailand and has sexual "massages" with young prostitutes. After returning to Paris, he falls in love with Valérie, who was part of the tour group and works with a hotel chain specializing in tropical resorts. Michel's contribution is to propose vacations built around sex tourism. The chain picks up the idea, with Valérie eager to run the first such "Aphrodite" hotel in Thailand. At the resort's opening, however, it is attacked by Islamic fundamentalists, with Valérie among the 117 people killed.

Part of the appeal of Mr. Houellebecq's writing comes from its irony, sarcasm, morbidity, dark humor and, yes, provocation, all stemming from Michel's grim observations about hypocrisy in the world today and French society in particular. He is vicious, for example, in his mockery of petit bourgeois values, which, naturally, include attitudes toward sex. And early in the book, long before Islamic terrorists kill his beloved Valérie, Michel pointedly dwells on rich Arabs who violate the precepts of Islam by drinking and having sex in Thai brothels.

The first negative reaction to "Plateforme," assuring it was noticed on its day of publication, came from Philippe Gloaguen, the owner of the Guide du Routard, a popular series of travel guides, who objected to Mr. Houellebecq's — or Michel's — ridiculing both his guidebooks and those who buy them. One of Michel's complaints is that the guidebooks warn against sexual tourism. In a statement, Mr. Gloaguen proclaimed, "Mr. Houellebecq, Le Guide du Routard is proud to be against prostitution in Thailand."

Michel's observations about Islam after Valérie's death are even more provocative. As he undergoes psychiatric treatment, he observes grimly: "Islam had shattered my life, and Islam was certainly something I could hate. In the days that followed, I dedicated myself to hating Islam." A few lines later, he adds, "Each time that I hear that a Palestinian terrorist, or a Palestinian child, or a pregnant Palestinian woman has been shot in the Gaza Strip, I shiver with enthusiasm at the thought that there is one less Muslim."

Mr. Houellebecq has pointed out in several interviews that "Plateforme" is a novel; that he is not Michel; that while Michel is unmarried, he is; that while Michel hates animals, he owns a Welsh corgi at his home on Bear Island off the southwest coast of Ireland. The problem is that, all too often, Michel sounds like Mr. Houellebecq. And in an interview with the literary monthly Lire, the author echoed Michel's view of sex tourism, saying that prostitution in Thailand was "an honorable profession."

On Islam, Mr. Houellebecq went still further, deriding his estranged mother for converting to Islam and proclaiming that, while all monotheistic religions were "cretinous," "the most stupid religion is Islam." And he added: "When you read the Koran, you give up. At least the Bible is very beautiful because Jews have an extraordinary literary talent." And later, noting that "Islam is a dangerous religion," he said it was condemned to disappear, not only because God does not exist but also because it was being undermined by capitalism.

en lire plus ici (si vous aimez la diarrhée verbale ?) read more here (if you like verbal diarhee ?) : http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/books/11ARTS.html