Excuses, insults, controversies… In his latest book, Michel Houellebecq poses as a victim

“A few months in my life, October 2022-March 2023” appears Wednesday at Flammarion editions. In this autobiographical story, the writer looks back on the affairs that have shaken his life in recent months.

Michel Houellebecq oscillates between depression and contrition in his first autobiographical story, where he poses as the victim of a director of Dutch pornographic films… and of himself. A few months in my life, October 2022-March 2023which appears Wednesday at the editions flammarion, is a text apart in the work of the writer, one of the most famous French-speaking authors in the world. Because, for once, this is not fiction. The author spreads, in nearly 100 pages, six months which he describes as catastrophic for his reputation and his mental health. “I truly entered hell. I am still there today”he wrote.

Apologies

Two cases punctuated these six months. First the Islamophobic remarks in the review Popular Frontthen the unexpected episode of the pornographic film Kirac 27. Michel Houellebecq says he is in both cases a victim of his own stupidity or naivety, but also of the greed of those who exploit his notoriety.

The novelist admits to having damaged his image without earning a single penny. “I had reached, on a personal level, the near-perfection of bullshit”, he notes about his inability to get paid for the very long interview with the philosopher Michel Onfray published in December. As the issue sold well, “according to my agent, my loss of earnings amounted to approximately 225,000 euros”.

But worse, he reproaches himself for not having understood, by re-reading the interview, that he was crossing the yellow line with his imprecations on the Muslims of France and violence. “I apologize to any Muslims this text may have offended – that is, I’m afraid, pretty much all Muslims”, he says in his book. Returned to his most virulent remarks, and eager to have the number of Popular Front in question, he did not succeed.

Insults

Just as he was unable to have the contract signed in December with the filmmaker Stefan Ruitenbeek canceled before the courts. In the translation that Michel Houellebecq unveils to readers, we discover that he has agreed to act… for free. Kirac 27not yet released due to litigation in the courts of the Netherlands, should be made of bits of filming in Paris and Amsterdam, under the eye of a director nicknamed by the author “the cockroach”with actresses he designates as “The sow” And “Turkey”.

On dozens of pages, the author, Goncourt prize in 2010 for The Map and the territory, pours out insults against them. Relatives assured him that the media would move on. “Pretty much everyone was wrong; this porn movie would never be forgotten”laments the novelist.

“At the idea that these images could be broadcast against my will, I felt, for the first time, something that seemed to me to be similar to what women victims of rape describe.

Michel Houellebecq, writer

in “A few months in my life”

This comparison also follows a passage where the writer, regularly accused of misogyny, explains that, if feminists hate him, he “don’t like them either“.


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