Soumission

Dans une France assez proche de la nôtre, un homme s’engage dans la carrière universitaire. Peu motivé par l’enseignement, il s’attend à une vie ennuyeuse mais calme, protégée des grands drames historiques. Cependant les forces en jeu dans le paysMore Dans une France assez proche de la nôtre, un homme s’engage dans la carrière universitaire. Peu motivé par l’enseignement, il s’attend à une vie ennuyeuse mais calme, protégée des grands drames historiques. Cependant les forces en jeu dans le pays ont fissuré le système politique jusqu’à provoquer son effondrement. Cette implosion sans soubresauts, sans vraie révolution, se développe comme un mauvais rêve.

Le talent de l’auteur, sa force visionnaire nous entraînent sur un terrain ambigu et glissant ; son regard sur notre civilisation vieillissante fait coexister dans ce roman les intuitions poétiques, les effets comiques, une mélancolie fataliste.

Ce livre est une saisissante fable politique et morale.

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Manny rated it really liked it

over 1 year ago

This week, on Dystopia! Michel Houellebecq discusses the future with Robert Heinlein

- Good evening, M. Houellebecq.

- Bonsoir. M. Heinlein. Alors. please, tell me your vision of the future.

- Sure. So Western civilization, it's already--

RK-ique rated it it was amazing

over 1 year ago

Wow. Great satire. of French. of European. of Western values. or lack thereof. So well done that the irony often slips by unnoticed. Who the hell are we?

So what do you call a novel about Muslims taking over control of France? A novel of generally cy. Read full review

♥ Ibrahim ♥ rated it it was amazing

As a former Muslim, I see that Houellebecq is right on the money. I escaped Egypt my country in search of a land of freedom, and yet here oppression is chasing after me in the West. We love for Europe to be Europe. After all, that is why we left our mother countries in se. Read full review

Jibran rated it it was ok

It seems as though Houellebecq wrote the novel to stir up not debate but controversy. I'm afraid to say that charging a small segment of French population with so much power and influence is way too out of proportion. French Muslims have no power (as a bloc), have no medi. Read full review

Fionnuala added it

about 1 year ago

Recommended to Fionnuala by: Christmas present

I set out to read this book expecting to be provoked because in my experience Houellebecq is always hell-bent on provoking somebody, and very often that 'somebody' is of the opposite sex. I wasn’t disappointed this time; his narrator managed to provoke me right at the beg. Read full review

Hadrian added it ∙ review of another edition

over 1 year ago

This is a case of a novel of ideas with the best (or worst) possible timing. The very day it was published in French was the day of the Charlie Hebdo shootings; a few short weeks after the English translation came out, Paris was attacked again.

Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it really liked it

over 1 year ago

Sex, Religion and Politics

If you only read one book about sex, religion and politics this year, make sure it's this one!

It packs enormous punch into (far) less than 300 pages, raising the question yet again why novels need to be 562 or 1,376 pages long (and if they do on. Read full review

Yves Gounin rated it really liked it

over 2 years ago

Il est de bon ton de critiquer le dernier Houellebecq.
Les fans des Particules élémentaires y voient une œuvre mineure, annonciatrice de l'inéluctable déclin du grand homme ; les contempteurs du prix Goncourt, un énième ressassement de sa veulerie beauf.

Sidharth Vardhan rated it really liked it

about 2 months ago

The people believing in a religion, any religion, have different degrees of faith. There are for example fundamentalists who not only take their own religion seriously, following their holy books with strict literalism and who often also want to force their beliefs on oth. Read full review

Paul Martin rated it liked it

almost 2 years ago

Would a society based on "Moderate Islam" be such a bad thing?

This seems to be the kind of book that divides critics into the two equally useless camps:

1) This is islamophobic and racist garbage!
2) Bravo! A dark satire!

My view is that it's neither.